Lighthouse

We did, he's on the bench.

I’d have Yoshi and Gabbi for Stephens and Austin but otherwise not a bad team IMO. Certainly feel better bout it than the last one, where it was just a bunch of defensive players behind Redmond and a statue.

You’d have thought we’d be happy to subsidise wages to get some of these players off our books, like we have with Carrillo and Boufal. Better to sell Forster, Long and Davis and pay half the wages of the reminder of their contracts, than have them sitting here doing sod all.

Needs an admin to do it, I've sent Baj a text.

Shame, we need more refs of his pedigree.

That's a specific opinion held only by a very small minority of football fans worldwide. UEFA aren't going to be making any decisions based on what Saints fans would like. The winners aren't kept out, they just get knocked out in the qualifiers every year. If they never beat Dinamo Zagreb or Grasshopper Zurich in a qualifying match, what's the point of having them in the group stage. It would be completely pointless watching any games up until the QF and half of them would be one-sided affairs like Man City vs Shakhtar Donetsk. As for the wealth, I've still yet to see any answer to my point about it destroying pretty much every league in Europe. All the smaller leagues would turn into the SPL, an absolute farce of a foregone conclusion where the winner is engraved on the trophy before the season starts because they have so much more resource than anyone else. They wont, they just wont. Teams like Barca and Real win comfortably against some of the teams which DO qualify for the CL. You will just end up with ridiculous games like Everton's 22-0 win in pre-season. Scoring records will just go out the window. Players like Di Stefano and Shevchenko will end up behind Rashford and Sterling in the record books, scoring 13 goals over 2 legs against Total Network Solutions.

Still not that keen on falling off it TBH. I was surprised to see a number of injuries reported. I'd have thought doing a 300ft base jump with 1,000 tonnes of concrete instead of a parachute would be game over for all involved.

How is that different? Europa is just ‘Champions League Tier 2’ with a different name. Also you’re saying you would rather see matches between Vojvodina and Flora Tallinn than last years finalists, because they happened to win their domestic leagues?

The problem is that you then get a load of crap qualifying, like the Champions from Slovenia, Malta and Montenegro. The group stages would end up just being a pointless walkover with 2 big teams and 2 minnows. It would also encourage reckless spending in a lot of the smaller leagues. You would get some Slovenian village teams throwing ridiculous, unsustainable wages at players because the money for being in the group stage would render all domestic finances completely meaningless. One team would succeed, the rest would go bankrupt over the summer. It would be a disaster.

Poll added (I went with McC)

Wages have never ever ever been about who works the hardest doing a ‘worthwhile’ job.

And there was me thinking the bloke is an absolute helmet.

That's nasty. I don't like tall buildings and bridges at the best of times. Imagine driving over the Itchen, minding your own business, then that happens.

I’m not sure about that big circle and one up front formation, either.

It can work with a striker who isn’t as immobile as Austin. That was the problem first half, Redmond and Armstrong had pretty much nothing to work with.

Looked like a mix up between Hoedt and Vest to me, if it's the one I'm thinking of where they both went for it and Lennon nipped in.

I know it’s Liverpool but West Ham don’t half look crap on MOTD. That defending for the second goal.

Not necessarily. Someone with good feet and movement can hold the ball up as well as any big lump; City have just won at the Emirates with 4 attacking players no higher than 5'10. We didn't struggle to keep it in Burnley's half when Ings and Gabbi were on.

I didn’t think Hoedt did much wrong today, personally. Considering the mess of a formation we started with and the number of balls the defence had to deal with.

Everton away is a different prospect to a tired Burnley at home. We can always start with the more conservative option and bring on an extra striker if looks like it will improve our fortunes.

Certainly looked decent but the question marks have always been over his long term fitness, rather than his talent.

Nice to get our annual ‘not winning at Goodison’ out of the way nice and early. I’d go with the same team which finished today’s game, depending on Armstrong’s injury. Another idea would be a 4-2-3-1 with Elyo - Armstrong - Redmond behind Gabbi, with Ings off the bench.

Dreadful for an hour, considering we had 3 CBs they had so much space in the box and had the chances to put the game beyond us. Nobody really looked like they knew what they were doing. If we start with the 11 that finished, in the same formation, we will do alright this season but that starting 11 was garbage. McC - 8 some very smart saves kept us in it. A couple of dodgy balls out Cedric - 5 don’t think he touched the ball for the first 30 mins. Stephens - 6 Shaky at CB, looked better at RB Vestegaard - 7 strong and dominant, looked much better after the subs Hoedt- 6 Again, looked better after the subs Bertrand - 7 Seemed to work well with Elyo second half Romeu - 5 Never imposed himself on the game Lemina - 7 industrious, one of his better games. Redmond - 6 on 33 minutes he ran at the defence and scared the crap out of them. Why he doesn’t do it more I have no idea. Armstrong - 6 looked decent until his injury Austin - 4 I know he’s a good finisher but his all round game is just poor IMO. Ings - 7 looked bright and lively Gabbi - 6 didn’t have a lot of time but looked okay. Should have started Elyo - 6 Looked a threat at times. Would like to see him start on the left.

It was deadline day, if they'd had better offers before he'd have gone already. It's not an unreasonable request, given his injury record and if they had said no I'd have walked away. Sadly this is the board that gave Forster an extended contract, sold Fonte and Van Dijk mid-season without replacements and signed Carrillo to keep a manager happy who should have been sacked months ago. As such this deal doesn't surprise me, especially given that they caved in and paid the full £20m asking price that nobody else was interested in, for a player who didn't even make the squad for their last game.

That's definitely a red for Jagileka IMO; lunged in with his whole weight, studs up into the standing leg. Lucky not to break it.