Lighthouse

It's magic you knooooooow Mane and Graziano!

2 in 3 games from Pelle... I think I need a lie down.

You give out a 'see me' for getting a B-? You're a pretty hardcore teacher, unless you have an ulterior motive for wanting to see him after school.

I'd rate Toby as a better CB but his injuries sort of rule him out IMO. Almost a dead heat for me between Bertrand and Fonte. Jose probably edges it for his leadership.

I think we decided there was no point in turning up to the Everton home game because we'd lost 5 in a row and Morgan and VW were out.

12 as I guessed all of them except for Hurlock/Kenna. Guess I must be a bit younger than most on here, I spent the 90s eating crayons.

Charlie confessed to being half the posters on the main board. Most of which were paid up full members and generally seemed to be arguing with each other. All rather odd.

I'm probably a bit of a sado-masochist for digging this thread up again today but 24/04/05 was probably the worst day to be a Saints fan in living memory.

After that tap in? I doubt it. I'm still not convinced personally. He got 4 league goals in his last United campaign and tonight was only his 6th for Real.

I never said 15 but edging around double figures would be nice. It would be nice to see something more than just 'putting a decent shift in' from our forward players. It's not like Long is going to pick open a defence with a killer pass, or beat 2 men with his amazing close control.

I saw some earlier this morning as I was walking out my front door, which has an enormous pair of knockers.

If we're going to sell anyone this summer for me it should be Long. Why? Because I know Pelle and Mane can be good and at times brilliant. I know both have been inconsistent but if we can find a way to get the best out of them, the goals are there. Long on the other hand has never been anything other than a 5-8 goal a season man. A hard worker but lacking in ability at this level and better suited to teams like Hull or West Brom.

You don't get loaned out FROM Sutton Utd because you are unlucky. He looked like a star in the making for the youth team but is a classic example of throwing someone who isn't ready in at the deep end. Even our brightest young talents like Lallana and Morgan struggled in the 'Totaal Voetbal' season under portaloo. I trust Ron, Erwin and our academy coaches far more than Delldays when it comes to judging if a youth player is ready yet. Hesketh's nightmare debut at Burnley should be proof enough of that.

I remember 7 years ago people were talking about replacing 'useless' players like Saganowski, BWP and Rasiak with our youth team players. Afterall players like Jamie White and DMG were young and exciting and couldn't be any worse...

But you've only been to watch a them play in youth games this season (You've obviously been to a lot of youth games to form such a strong opinion). You haven't seen our youth team play against Premier League opposition, so how can you make that judgement?

Because we don't have a continuous stream of teenagers better than the Dutch national side? You do drive a hard bargain.

I'd pretty much agree with that, except for Targett, Long, Pelle and Mane. Targett I'd say par, he looked decent when he played but hasn't really moved any mountains. Mane has loooked threatening in patches but has also had some poor games, likewise Pelle. I would say par for both. Long, however you try and dress it up, has scored 3 goals against relegation fodder. It's a miss for me.

What would you expect from our resident Adkins fan-boy.

I seem to remember a few years ago Fulham were top of the fair play league and must have decided they didn't want to play in Europe as they kicked the sh*t out of the other team on the last day of the season.

Because we aren't chucking 5 new kids into the first team every season? You can only play the youth players when they're good enough. Targett (Taggert?) and Reed have shown glimpses of potential but at the moment the likes of Bertrand, Wanyama and Alderweireld are far superior players. The youth player who were good enough for regular football, were so good that they were bought for massive transfer fees. The next batch of youth players will get their chance, don't overreact just because they're not first team regulars by the time they are 19.

Please can we just not lose to them for once.

Reed is more of a defensive player, so saying Tadic and Davis were poor isn't particularly relevant. The choice was more likely between Reed and Yoshida. For a tough away game like this I'm pretty happy with the decision to go with the experience and reliability of Yoshi and pushing Toby into midfield. I think it was a good call personally. Overall we looked solid at the back and ran the midfield I though, it was just sloppy individual errors which cost us the game. Poor finishing, mistakes by Fonte, Kelvin and some poor officiating. Tactically, I though we were decent enough.

Don't engage him, he is just getting an early start on next season's hilarious '40 point mark' comedy routine.