Lighthouse

McC Cedric - SVENSSON - Yoshida - Bertrand Lemina - Hojbjerg JWP - LE TISS - PAHARS BEATTIE A no nonsense CB, 2 creative/scoring AM and an aerial threat/finisher.

Literally nobody has said that.

Wigan were a team high on confidence, playing at home against 10 men. 3 key elements in their favour we wouldn't have had at the Etihad. Not saying we couldn't beat City in the quarters but I think it would have been less likely personally.

Part of me thinks 'would Kane score with the service from our sh*t midfield?' Part of me thinks 'is there any point in Hazard or De Bruyne scything defences in half with a millimeter perfect pass, only for an offside Shane Long to hammer it into the car park?' Tricky one, I'd probably go with Salah because he can pretty much do it on his own anyway.

Winner should get the 4th Champs League spot IMO. The only way to get people to take it seriously.

Wow! We're definitely going to lose now.

You missed the part about 'when it mattered'. HBS had the game bought and paid for, the fact that they fell asleep when 1-0 up in injury time and only needing a draw is no great reflection on our performance. The fact is we were playing for a 0-0 and showed little sign of anything for 90 minutes. Austin and Boufal may be poor replacements for Pelle and Mané but they, Tadic, Redmond, Sims, Long, Jay Rod and JWP are capable of more than 5 blanks in 6 games, given better tactics and leadership.

Fact is we failed to score in all three away games and, when it mattered at least, Be'er Sheva at home. After the first game against Sparta, Virgil was the only player who scored for us in the other 5 games. That's pretty poor, however many ifs and buts you dress it up with.

Apparently we didn’t need a replacement for Virgil.

Scores a decent goal, then gives the ball away stupidly for them to score. What a finish though.

Great composure there.

He’s not great but capital punishment seems a bit harsh.

H00T!!! That marking though.

Republicans - People who stop caring about children being murdered once they've been born.

I'd have Gabbi in for Redmond but otherwise that looks a decent team.

Actually, love, I answered the hypothetical question ages ago. There are three key differences between MoPe now and Puel in summer. 1) It was summer, we had 3 months to find a replacement and allow him to coach his squad before actually playing football. 2) Having already sacked one manager 6 months ago, the board don't want to look incompetent and trigger happy by sacking another. 3) There may not be any preferred targets available at the moment. It's all well and good the fans talking about Koeman and Silva, if the board don't want them there's no point sacking MoPe. Anyway, not for the first time you seem far more interested in being obtuse and patronising, so I'll leave it here. Have a nice weekend love.

Fact is that they did sack him, based on an entire season's performance. His job SHOULDN'T hinge on a badly marked Zlatan header or a wrongly given offside. If we'd kept him it would be because the board were too embarrassed to sack a manager who had won a cup and not because they thought he was the right man for this season.

Mourinho was sacked in December, 4 months into the season. Ranieri was sacked 6 months into the season after arguably the greatest upset in the history of English football. Puel was sacked 4 months after the Cup final. The point is fairly obvious; if results start to dip significantly, even after winning a trophy, Premier League chairmen are not adverse to sacking the manager. Being in Europe probably wouldn't change anything either, not after the tame and cowardly attempt we made at it last time.

Days? The cup final was in February, Puel was sacked in June. I guess 120-something days still counts as days. Like I said, it would depend on how we played after the final. If he had carried on playing for 0-0s at home to crap teams, would he still have been the best man for the job?

Depends, had we carried on playing as we did after losing the cup final he might well have been sacked. People were on about Conte being sacked after the Watford game, which would have made him the third consecutive manager to lose his job after winning the league. If they were making the decision based on what was best for the club then probably, as we were on a downward trajectory under Puel. If the club wanted to save face by not sacking a cup winning manager, they might have kept him.

Agree but I'd prefer that settled back five included Yoshida instead of Stephens.

Finally, a chance to get the petting zoo going. Seriously though, if anyone does end up going to one of these things, that sodding green bridge!

So he's going to go to one of those European giants, who's success depends on players who can do a few fancy tricks, give the ball away and not score?

Or we could stay up, get a new manager and win the cup next season. Pick any scenario you like, I'm simply giving my opinion on the straight forward choice posed in the original question. Winning a cup would be lovely but would only really put us on par with Wigan, Brum, Pompey, Swansea and Boro. Telling other fans about how great we are because we won the cup 2, 5 or 10 years ago holds little appeal to me personally. I (used to) go to games because I enjoyed watching Saints play football. I haven't enjoyed this season at all TBH, the West Ham game aside. Given that the teams relegated last season are currently 9th, 21st and 23rd, there's a fair chance I won't enjoy next season, if we go down.

I don't get how 'manning up' comes into this, when all you're actually saying is 'agree with my opinion'. Then start going on about how we could be relegated and don't win a cup, well that wasn't the question. You'd take relegation if offered it in exchange for a cup win, I wouldn't. That's all.