Lighthouse

He has never come on as a sub and made a positive impact. As in, he has literally not ever come on and set up or scored a goal for Saints.

Surely there's got to be more to it than that. We play teams as good as Utd, City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. 10+ times a season, it's not like we're some none league club having a day out at OT in a cup tie. Stephens is our 4th best centre half. Boufal just hasn't done anything of note since he joined. Seems fair enough to me.

Are you sure? When we signed Long, I distinctly remember Les saying his tomato space would be a huge bonus to the team.

There would still be stoppages, every time the ball goes out of play. The overall length of the game wouldn't be that much different, it would however stop things like fake injuries to waste time and players wasting an entire minute taking a throw in. You'd still be walking out of St Mary's between 4.45 and 5pm, it would just cut down on a lot of the gamesmanship in the game.

Would be a pretty daft place to put a bomb, chances are there wont be a car within 100 yards of it when it goes off. In such a wide open space, with a device not buried in the ground, it'd probably have to be right next to a car to kill someone.

I did mean every time the ball goes out of play, which would stop keepers taking half an hour to take a goal kick, etc. Maybe not 40 minutes, perhaps 30 or 35. I've never actually timed the in play time of a match but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to work out a rough average and go from there.

The obvious solution to all of this is to change the rules to a certain amount of 'in play' time, perhaps 40 minutes, like in rugby. If the clocked stopped every time we had an injury or substitution, there wouldn't be this pointless contention at the end of the game.

Failure, no but there was a marked drop in points, goals and the overall standard of football. It was just awful, negative, playing possession football in 2nd gear stuff. Playing for a 0-0 at home to Be'er Sheva, playing for absolutely nothing in Prague. The complete lack of any kind of tempo in almost all of our home games. We only scored more than 1 goal at home in 3 games and they were against really poor opposition.

No, the main criticism is that he has never looked anything other than an average midfielder at this level and offers very little to our attacking play. He rarely tries to take a man on, take a shot or choose the right ball for an overlapping fullback. He didn't really stand out in a Norwich team which got relegated and last year was part of the worst attack outside the bottom 5. I couldn't give a sh*t what Bournemouth paid for Ibe, Redmond is not a top half player.

Agree. For the sake of balance, we had similar post about Romain Gasmi when we signed him. They were, of course, correct.

But having dugouts isn't one of them.

Correct. Our points tally last year would have put us 12-13th normally and our goals for column (Redmond's job) would have pretty much got us relegated. A few goals either way on the last day and we could have finished about 16th last year.

He wont become a top player for us, he just isn't that good. He has never looked anything special, either here or at Norwich. A decent squad player to have but we aren't going to be pushing for a top 8 finish with players like Redmond starting every game.

I'd say it was a strong back 4, midfield 2 and striker (Gabbi). This gives us 7/11 of a very good team. Unfortunately: a) The other 4, no matter who we chose, are always likely to be suspect. b) 7 and 11 are both prime numbers and I am unable to simplify this fraction, or express it as an integer as a percentage.

Palace will probably nick a 1-0 win knowing the Premier League. A nice 2-0 defeat for Everton tomorrow could see them finish the weekend in the drop zone.

Hardly a classic but I'll take it. Lemon and Hoot the two main positives for me. Redmond was generally poor and slowed us down. Tadic better, Long was a 'nuisance' but never really looked like getting us a goal. Davis scuffed that shot, I don't care what anyone says. Had we beaten Watford we'd be top right now, for the first time since I don't know when.

Nah, Sunderland spent years playing this badly until November and still staying up.

That ball from Redmond back to Romeu is everything I don't like about him. He's right down by the by-line and instead of trying to beat his man and getting a possible cross or corner, he passes it back deep and central to a position we're never going to score from.

FFS Redmond, get your arse in gear.

Reminded me a bit of the first goal we conceded against Wolves.

Oh yes! Tadic, that is what you need to do every game!

5 games in 1 goal which wasn't a penalty. Failed to score in 4/5, all against mediocre to poor opposition. Conceded twice at home in 3/4 games. 13th after the easiest start we could possibly have hoped for. I dread to think where we'll end up when we've played some good teams.

Has Boufal ever actually created a goal for anyone? I vaguely remember him having a touch in one of J Rod's goals at Bournemouth but that's about it. How does giving away offsides and goal kicks equate to tempo?

Long instead of Gabbi.... Glad to see Yoshi back in for JS.

I guess I walked into that, although the goal was all about Ibe really.