Lighthouse

I think 'Girls don't like boys girls like cars and Mané' was the best one.

So this is 'The News' is it?

If someone paid half his wages for the rest of this season, plus a small loan fee I'd take that. In three years in England he has failed to deliver and seems to have fitness issues, coupled with no particular desire to get back into the team. From last years squad we've got J Rod and Juanmi replacing Elia and Djuricic. Ron didn't see any particular need to keep Gaston then and I doubt he will now.

He's had 3 years, done nothing and doesn't appear to have any particular desire to force his way into Ron's plans. I think D-Day will be much ado about nothing as it usually is. Just another day of Jim and Natalie trying to make stories out of absolutely nothing happening outside Stoke's training ground. I think we'll see VvD in at some point, Gaston and a couple of young players out on loan. That'll be it for Saints.

End of August and Saints are running their first POTM poll. Pelle, Romeu, Fonte and Mané being the nominees. Thoughts on this? Nobody has stood out but today's performance probably just edges it towards Romeu for me, with Pelle a close second.

I am pretty surprised Chambers hasn't been selected as playing absolute dog sh*t doesn't seem to matter these days.

Just 2 goals in 16 games in all comps for Kane now, since scoring on his England debut. In the same period Rooney has only scored against Bruges, Slovenia and that sh*t Villa team we put 6 past. Not exactly Shearer and Linekar is it.

I went to Derby when we came up from the Championship and they'd sold out the ground. 33,000 odd I think, which is a decent effort in the Championship when they weren't playing particularly special football. As much as I like to see minnows like Bournemouth making it to the Premier League, I can't help but feel that clubs like Derby, Forest and Leeds would make a better fist of it long term.

Today's second half team would have been the perfect choice for Thursday, that's what's so frustrating. Any kind of decent service and he could have bagged a couple against that side but we left ALL our creative players out the team. It was baffling.

Still, at least nobody is giving him any. Oh... I liked his trigger happy attitude today. I'd much rather a player was like that and wasted a couple of chances, rather than the whole team being afraid too shoot and passing it to death until we gave away possession. The goals will come, we just need to persevere with him. With him and Pelle leading the line and Mané and Tadic out wide, we've got some decent attacking options.

Swansea for me definitely. Anyone who can play decent football and rock the establishment, fair play to them. If they finished 5/6/7th this year and beat us into Europe I wouldn't begrudge them that.

All depends on who can play that #10 role and whether Clasie is comfortable in a more attacking role. I'd like to Juanmi in there or maybe even J Rod if he can work on his sharpness in the break.

An excellent performance all round, even against 11 men we thoroughly dominated. Norwich looked poor and Jerome cut a very lonely and bored figure up front. Fonte and Yoshi had no trouble keeping him quiet. I'm surprised at the praise for Mané, who didn't have his best game for us, giving away possession needlessly with some fairly straight forward passes going astray. He was always threatening though, always willing to run at their defence. Targett first half didn't really get forward enough to help Tadic but looked a lot better second. Tadic himself was excellent throughout, turning them inside out first half and scoring two decent goals second. Romeu looked excellent, if he can play like that every game we wont miss the M word at all. J Rod... I think every touch was a shot apart from those keepy uppies he did before one effort. You can tell he is desperate to score but is still off the pace. There were a number of decent through balls he didn't quite anticipate quickly enough to get on to. Cedric was very good first half, seemed to tire a bit second. If we can keep him and Mané on the right and Tadic and Bertrand on the left, we've got the makings of a very creative, wide team. I can't imagine how poor Sunderland must have been when they lost at home to Norwich though.

Excellent today. Even before he got Whittaker s/o he caused all sorts of problems. Some of his build up play first half was sublime and he had Whittaker on toast. 2 decent goals and close to a hat trick

Naismith's a dirty bugger too.

Should be off, 2 really bad tackles in this game. Nasty scissor tackle on Cleverly. Lukaku doing a decent Adebayor impression of being largely anonymous but having the game of him life at St Mary's.

1 match. Cleverly has picked up a nasty looking injury against Spurs. Could be out for a while.

Spurs looking decent against Everton but wasting chances.

Did he just say, "we slept about a bit in the first half."?

A few accumulators ruined this afternoon. A Good day for the bookies.

8 minutes for West Ham to hold on at... oh hang on, never mind.

Friend suddenly remembers he is a Liverpool fan. Chelsea

Yep. A bit like the disallowed goal against Bompey he went down under the lightest of challenges, except Liverpool players at Anfield get a bit more sympathy from refs than Saints players at WHL. Coutinho off for an early bath now. Just to rub salt in, Sterling scores for Man City.

I love how he made an absolute hash of trying to run it out for a throw, got away with it when the lino bailed him out, then made another absolute howler.

Getting the Micky taken out of him after West Ham scored. Bompey winning again.