Lighthouse

Same team as West Ham for me, they did nothing wrong and we have been defending well. Better finishing and we could get a result, even at Anfield. Not Ramirez away from home please, not to start with.

By that logic teams like Man Utd, Spurs and Arsenal will play weaker teams against us an be complacent because we couldn't beat them last year. In reality it doesn't work like that. We beat Man Utd at home about 3 years in a row in the late 90s and we've beat Liverpool in 4 of the last 6 meetings. Last year 2 of the relegated teams beat us at St Marys. What if we spank the 3 promoted teams this season? Comparisons with last seasons fixtures mean very little but I don't see a case for thinking we will finish lower than last year. We're already 11th in the table, 5 points better off after the first 4 games and 3 points better than the corresponding fixtures last year. Doesn't mean much but they are all small signs of improvement.

I think we're very close to being a decent top half team, we just need to be patient and a bit less hypocritical. For example a lot of people were predicting a midtable or bottom half finish before the season but are now moaning when we draw against West Ham and Sunderland. It seems some people are expecting to be the better team and win most of our games this season and yet somehow finish 12th. That's a bit odd. We haven't won the last 3 games because we've been struggling to score, however we've been by far the better team in 2 of them and against West Brom. At Norwich we were crap but if Webb had given a penalty for that rugby style charge down we would have won that too. The early goal at Sunderland killed that game off as they could just park the bus and try and hang on for the point. If Webb had given that pen, if we'd defended that corner properly against Sunderland, if Jussi hadn't pulled off just one of his excellent saves, we could have 4 wins and be top of the table. They are all ifs but they aren't big ifs. This isn't like last season where we were outplayed by Wigan in our own back yard, we're a good team who aren't quite there yet.

The biggest improvement is obviously the defence. It is better to be solid at the back and not scoring than being in the boat we were last season and shipping loads of goals. This way, we're always in with a chance of points, which will keep us ticking over mid table until we get our scoring sorted. Last year could score goals but found ourselves in a position whereby we needed 3 to get even a point. We were letting in sloppy goals, like Swansea, Norwich and Fulham at home. Now we aren't. Aside from one corner against Sunderland we've been pretty water tight. We started 02/03 slowly too, remember what happened when Beattie found his shooting boots about 10 games into the season.

They were playing Avicii's 'wake me up when it's all over' before kick off in the concourse. Pretty much summed it up for me. We had 3 or 4 really decent efforts on target and we'd have put a couple of them past a lesser 'keeper. The Hammers came for a point and got it. On the down side, that's 4 games against average Prem teams and we have yet to score from open play. On the plus side we are defending well and controlling large parts of the game. In short, we are very close to being a bloody good side, if we can find that cutting edge up front we will be there. I would urge patience towards Ossie and VW. Both are clearly talented from what I've seen. Asking players to come into the Premier League and we good is one thing but to be consistently good will invariably take time. Players like Bergkamp, Pires and Henry came to England were garbage for a whole season, so we should be patient IMO.

Man U - Palace (1245) 3-1 Villa - Newcastle 2-0 Fulham - WBA 1-0 Hull - Cardiff 1-2 Spurs - Norwich 2-0 Stoke - Man City 0-2 Sunderland - Arsenal 1-3 Everton - Chelsea (1730) 1-2 Burton - South Havant Utd 2-1 (94th min. penalty winner) Bit early to be talking about who we want to win and lose for the table. I've had a wild guess at the results above.

Khacheridi, Ukraine's number 3 last night.

I remember the game, mainly because I was watching on a dodgy stream from a small house in rural Germany. I knew we would be in trouble watching that. From what I remember we were completely toothless up front, White in particular looked a long way out of his depth. It was nice to see Killer back but he was 5 yards off the pace. Gillett gave the ball away a lot and play just seemed to bypass Morgan, who looked completely lost. Perry and Davis were the only 2 positives really, there was very little quality elsewhere. Don't know if White even played for us again, remember he got dragged off at H/T.

David McGoldrick and Jamie White started up front for Saints in a 1-0 home defeat by Blackpool. Tonight Saints strikers are leading the attack for England and Italy. Just one of those pointless, 'look how far we've come' threads.

I would rather have signed him than Osvaldo personally. That isn't a knee jerk reaction based on Ossie's form so far, even if he turns out half decent I'd still rather have someone who can scare defenders like YK.

What I wouldn't give for Saints to have Konoplyanka in the side. I had him in the HCDAJFU thread in summer, he has pace and skill to burn. Made all of our players look like schoolboys on Millbrook rec. tonight. Wouldn't mind Khacheridi or Iarmolenko either. Lambert won absolutely nothing against the former in the air.

I Haiti say it but you missed an open goal there, 'Iran out of names' FFS! Now I'm China think of some more too.

They're usually right at the bottom of the freezer though, you can't see them unless Ukraine your neck.

The Finns have Patrick O'Shaughnessy in their team. I'm not sure to what extent he is actually Finnish.

Yes it is, meant to write 'tomorrow night'. My bad. I know it's tough making comparisons but if Ukraine were in the Premier League I don't think they'd be much more than a decent midtable team. Konoplyanka and Yarmolenko are decent players in midfield but they lack quality in other areas. Shevchenko and Voronin have retired and Tymoschuck is getting on a bit. They lack a decent striker, Devic and Selezniov really aren't anything special.

Might be a bit tougher for SRL tomorrow night, he will have to get past the 6ft 6 brick sh*thouse that is Yevhen Khacheridi. We saw how Rickie struggled against big defenders like Samba last season, I doubt he will get much in the air against this monster. Will be much tougher than Scotland and Moldova.

Massing vs. Caniggia will always stick in my mind. How do you beat the reigning World Champions with Diego Maradonna in the team? Kick 3 shades of sh*te out of them.

Anyone know if Kenny Jackett has a daughter? Would be nice if they hooked up and had an Armani - Jackett wedding.

Maybe it's just me but this doesn't make any sense.

I'd probably go with that team but Lambert in for Gaston, just behind Ossie. COYS!

Gregory Vignal for me. Was perhaps our best player in the second half of 07/08. Shame he spent the first half warming the bench so that Wright and Euell could be shoe-horned into the team at any cost. Will never forget a cup tie at home to Leicester when he put half their team in A&E before scoring a 50 yard free kick.

What evidence have you got for that, other than what complete strangers have posted on the internet? Billy has a choice. Stay here on high wages and not play or take a pay cut to go somewhere else.

'Giving a chance' to players like Hammond, Chaplow and Sharp would probably have seen us end up like Reading. Relegated, despite trying our hardest. Evidence of this is in JRod, who was incuded in the Championship team of the year (and therefore supposedly better than Sharp). He is a better all round player than Sharp and yet struggles for consistent performances in the Prem, only scoring 6 Prem goals last year.

Does anyone actually have a decent source for all the Sharp rumours? All I've seen is fake twitter rumours. I'm not sure there's any particular evidence that we've been treating him badly, I'd say either the offers didn't meet the clubs valuation or Billy wasn't willing to take a pay cut to leave.