Lighthouse

This isn't playschool where everyone gets a gold sticker for taking part. Players have to seize their opportunities as they come. McQueen, Stephens and Sims did it last year, waited for their chances and grabbed them with both hands. Boufal and Hoj haven't done that. When they have been given starts, or even sub appearances, they've been largely anonymous. That said, I would start both tomorrow.

Olomola banging them in for Yeovil.

Wasn't that the game he failed to give us about 4 others? I remember at least 2 stone wallers for fouls on Lambert and a couple of other debatable ones.

I just hope everything goes peacefully and Catalonia doesn't end up like The Donbass.

If it wasn't on the coast, nobody would say it was a derby. They are no closer to us that Chelsea, Swindon, Bristol or Reading. To get there you have to drive past P**pey, Havant, Chichester, Fareham, Bognor and Worthing. It's not a derby. It is no more a derby than Watford vs. Leicester or Bristol vs. Reading.

I remember getting on a train in to SMS when we played them in the Championship. Turned out I was the only Saints fan in a carriage full of Brighton fans, who promptly started singing that stupid, "Championés!" song. Wish I had the balls to sing back with WASWTOTL but I felt a bit self conscious on my own.

It's 70 miles away and takes the best part of 2 hours to get there, with traffic. It's not a derby.

Morgan had a very good season under Koeman, Fonte had two. Both of them improved under Poch but they didn't falter when he left, it wasn't until THEY left the club that they began to struggle. I've no doubt Poch got the best out of that squad but I wouldn't say that the peaked because of his management. Shaw just hasn't worked out at Man Utd, he's had his own problems with fitness and his relationship with Mourinho. Lovren is in a Liverpool team which just can't get it right defensively. They've gone from deluding themselves into thinking Gerrard can be Makelele, simply because he was getting old and slow, to Can and Henderson, who are just plain average.

Lambert peaked under Adkins, he was getting on a bit under Poch. Morgan and Fonte were equally as good under Koeman. Shaw and Lovren only played for Poch here, so there is no reference point for them. Jay's injury has more to do with his form that Poch. If he could be that good again for £15m, Spurs would have snapped him up.

Or stick him in charge of Everton and see how he too will struggle without a reliable goal scorer in the squad.

We had Austin, J Rod, Long, Redmond, Boufal and Tadic all competing for 3 spots. With young players like Sims and Hesketh also hoping to play, that's enough bodies. The fact that they didn't perform isn't Reed's fault. There should have been enough goals from those players. PR is PR. Every player signed by anyone gets 'bigged' up. They can hardly sign Redmond and say, "he's a bit crap, he got relegated and TBH he was just cheap." As a replacement for Juanmi, he's been pretty decent. The whole Fonte thing in January I agree was daft. He dropped a clanger there, selling our captain without a replacement.

Fair point, although I can't see who would be particularly embarrassed. It's not as if we undermined him or didn't support him in the transfer market. Boufal, Hojbjerg and Redmond all looked like decent enough signings when we made them, then when we were struggling for goals we splashed out quite a lot on Gabbi in January. I don't think Les or anyone else has reason to be embarrassed, it just wasn't working so we acted accordingly. Sensible business IMO.

Not really, nothing he achieves at Leicester will change what he did at Southampton. If he does go there and play exciting, attacking football it will just leave many of us wondering why he was the complete opposite at Saints. It's the same as people saying MP under-performing means it was wrong to sack Puel. It wasn't, it just means we may have appointed the wrong successor.

I wasn't including him. His particular brand of tripe is usually just made up for the sake of an argument, he'll say anything for attention.

I think this is a bit of a strawman argument actually, I haven't met anyone who actually wanted Puel out because of his interviews. Sure they were dull but nobody really cares about them anyway. Poch conducted all of his in Spanish, I don't remember the clamour for him to be sacked when we were playing 'muy bien'. Post match interviews are pretty much a checklist of the same dosen, standard clichés anyway. I'm surprised anyone bothers listening to them.

I never said that but we've had some very easy fixtures and are still only 10th in the League. We will need to improve just to stay where we are. We've only played 3 teams in the top half so far, they were all at home and we managed to get 1 point from 9 available.

Watford and Newcastle look better than us so far and I can't see Everton, West Ham, Stoke and Leicester staying this bad all season. Burnley, Brighton and Huddersfield look well drilled too, there's no guarantee we will be above them either.

Oh Lovren What a weekend

Both Everton goals were gifts too.

Gueye off... just gets better and better for Koeman.

Those mythical 'must play if fit' clauses which no club would obviously ever agree to. Boruc left because Forster was obviously brought in as a long term #1 and he wanted first team football.

His frustration is understandable but I agree with you. Especially when he's just scored his first goal in almost a year. Still, if he scores a few more like that, he can drop his shorts and wave his todger in MP's face for all I care.

How's this for a line up? - - - - - Forster Cedric - Yoshi - Virgil - Bertrand - - - - - - - Romeu - - - Lemina - - - - Boufal - Davis - - - - - - - - - Tadic - - - - - - - Gabbi Boufal seem's to enjoy running at people, so why not have him and Lemina pushing up from central midfield.

I think we will be bottom half but as usual there is some tripe in the league who will probably bail us out.