Lighthouse

Canning Town?! Should have at least gone to Covent Garden, then they'd just have had vegan iced lattes thrown at them.

You assume wrongly. Without going too much off topic, there are multiple flights daily to Moscow, Dubai or Istanbul, which are all well connected to Heathrow. There's no reason he couldn't have planned his journey to arrive back today, have tomorrow of, train Friday and play Saturday. How many times have Saints received an arse kicking from some team who's just played an away game at Qarabag, Spartak Moscow or Beitar Jerusalem and WE looked like the tired ones? Put it this way, I'd rather have a half asleep Yoshida than an 'awake' Vestergaard.

I don't see why would need to fly all the way to Japan, just to then say cheerio in arrivals and hop on another flight back the same direction. I just don't buy it as an excuse. A 4 hour flight to Dubai/Istanbul and then back to the UK is neither arduous, nor difficult to plan. I'd give him a day off and expect him to spend it asleep until midday but that's it. F1 drivers fly to Japan/Singapore/China on a Tuesday and they're driving around in 30 degree heat by Friday morning. It affects your sleep patterns, that's it. I think it will all come back to your (largely correct) first sentence. Ralph doesn't fancy him.

I didn't but it wouldn't change my mind if I did. We need an actual game plan based on the attributes our players have and we need to stick to it until it starts to work. If we start dropping players because of one bad game for another team, it really points to us not having a clue and just picking reactive teams based on short term hunches.

I am well aware of the effects of air travel and Dushanbe is hardly Melbourne when it comes to jet lag. He'll have a couple of sleepy mornings but if he genuinely wants to play Saturday, he will be fit to.

Agree, I don't even like it but I'm really struggling for better ideas myself. Playing with an extra CB doesn't seem to help our defence at all. It's just more players stood gawping at each other, with their arms aloft, after we've conceded. Armstrong for JWP maybe but I don't rate either of them. Boufal instead of Adams... if you want. Really? Is three days not enough to recover from a few hours in business class, watching movies on demand with a glass of gin? These guys should try being long-haul cabin crew.

The problem is that's easier said than done. One or two idiots and I'd agree, you'd have to have thick enough skin to ignore them and report it to the Police afterwards. This level of widespread racial abuse and hatred though, you can't simply ignore. If half our team was BAME and they are under-performing because of this, it puts our team at an advantage.

Gunn Cedric - Yoshida - Danso - Bertrand JWP - Romeu - Hoj Adams - Ings - Redmond Tempted to go with Jenny if he's fit, instead of Adams but I think the latter will come good eventually. He just needs that first goal. I'd stick with that back four, even if we lose 4-0. We need a plan and we need to find some consistency from somewhere. Pick'n'mix back five or six every week is never going to solve anything.

That's the clear difference for me and why they deserve punishment and we don't. It's considered acceptable there and their FA is complicit by way of their inactivity. This kind of thing is neither new nor difficult to deal with. In Britain we've managed to identify most of the trouble makers and they've been given bans. The odd nutter still slips through but when you've got hoards of facists, faces covered, throwing Nazi salutes as they wander into the stadium, it all points to a complete unwillingness by the authorities to try and stop them. Russia managed it, when they actually wanted to. Putin didn't want the humiliation of being internationally disgraced at his own World Cup and surprise surprise, suddenly all their trouble makers were nowhere to be seen for a month.

Don't be silly. They're far too busy handing out punishments to players who compare their mate to a cartoon character. We could try enlarging those 'no to racism' badges on the sleeves from 6cm to 7cm, although that would be an extreme measure.

Does he deserve to die? Possibly. Is it right that vigilante 'justice' has been handed out, in a moral and lawful society, to a man already serving a punishment for his crimes? No. Was the person who did it a kind-hearted champion of the people, who was only thinking of the people? Also no, he was likely an incredibly violent individual himself who just fancied the idea of killing a nonce.

First half against Spurs they were having all kinds of joy down our right and finding plenty of space. That's not the problem, the main issues are: 1. The defence changes every game, sometimes every half an hour and occasionally 20 minutes before kick off. Nobody looks like they know what's happening, be it in a four or a five. 2. Our defenders aren't actually that good.

I'd stick with Gunn and get a settled team in front of him. Valery, Yoshida, Danso, Bertrand. Stick with that for five games, no matter what, and see if there's any sign of improvement. Gunn isn't a bad 'keeper but he is young, will make mistakes and the current shower in defence is doing him no favours at all.

Can't be arsed talking about any of that sh*te. I think what sums up the Premier League for me is watching the Man U - Newcastle game after and all the ads on the electronic boards were in Chinese. They're not even trying to pretend it's for the average British fan any more.

I still don’t think we’ll go down. 8 games and we’ve played 4 of the supposed top 6, plus Burnley away and a pretty decent Bournemouth team. The other two games we’ve won. I’ll wait until we’ve played the likes of Newcastle, Norwich, Sheff Utd, Brighton, Villa and Watford at home before I get too panicky.

Keep Ralph, he’s the best we’re going to get. This squad is absolute gash, aside from Yoshi there’s not one of them I’d give the tiniest sh*t about if they left tomorrow.

I struggle to care at all to be honest. All the Chelsea fans singing about how sh*t our support is might change their mind if they had to sit through what we have for the last 3.5 years. I’ve not been to a game all season, just watching on Sky/Bt. Anyone who pays to watch that sh*te deserves a medal. No, I’m not bothered if we go down.

Absolutely useless in defence. Where were Valery and Romeu?!

Long - WTF were you thinking there?!

That was guaranteed to happen. Sh*t from Gunn and Bednarek.

Here please. Close from Redmond already.

All good except Long. He’s the player you pick when you’re out of ideas and just want the team to sort of look like they’re giving it a go. Would have preferred Adams, he will get a break eventually he just needs that first goal.

Permanently off side horse? Can't be any worse than Austin.

Swimming in an outdoor pool, at night, in the p*ssing rain. Bloody magic.

So if we had just taken 3 points from 6 games or 2 points from 4 games, you’d feel much more confident?