Lighthouse

If they were the only options I'd agree with you but I'm inclined to believe this team is capable of more than 7th. 4th maybe be ambitious but with Man Utd so badly out of sorts this season it could well be our best ever chance. Thinking of the future, players don't join a team because they've won the cup. They join teams who look likely to be nearer the top of the league in the future. If we do pull off an unlikely cup win and finish 15th, we aren't going to be attracting the same names as we would if we were 6th and 5 points off a Champions League spot. We are also more likely to hold on to the likes of Lallana, Shaw and JWP if they see genuine progress up the league. Winning a cup takes more than a small slice of luck. I don't understand people saying we should 'aim for' a cup final or 'at least the QF' when progress depends so largely on the draw. In 2010 we got knocked out by Man Utd in the 3rd round, in 2008 we got knocked out in the 5th by Bristol Rovers. Would you judge the latter as the greater success? If we played our first team against Burnley, won, then got a trip to the Etihad in the 4th round it would seem a pretty pointless exercise. Especially if say, Lovren got crocked for 6 weeks.

Lowe had the idea half right but to him the academy was a way of producing cheap players and selling them for profit. His lack of ambition regarding signings and his appointment of the wrong managers meant that no decent players wanted to come here or stay. Lowe made a habit of signing lots of cheap players, the likes of Nilsson and Yahia. The kind of crap which we have avoided signing in order to make space for younger players on the bench and eventually in the first team squad. Lowe would probably have spent the money we did in summer on 6 Jelle Van Dammes and Neil McCanns.

We haven't mentioned NASCAR's finest Respect.

Trippier being their RB

"It's faaaackin' summers mush!" roughly translates as, "I say, it's one of those chaps from Southampton." I'm not sure on the rest though, try Google translate.

Hopefully most people have realised that there are 63 teams in the draw and only about 5 of them aren't 'boring'. In the last 5 years we've had Man Utd twice and Chelsea in the 3rd round so we can't really moan about boring ties.

I would be surprised if Burnley put out a full strength team for this, promotion is worth so much more to them than a small cup run (realistically, they aren't going to win it). I would also put out a reserve team as the fixtures always pile up around this time of year. Maybe give Banega his debut too. Kelvin Chambers - Yoshi - Tuesday night Jos - Fox Cork - Reed Davis - Gaston - Isgrove Lambert That would pretty much have been our first 11 at the start of last season and it should have enough quality to do the business against Burnley reserves.

Weren't Beatts and Matt Taylor pretty good mates when they were down here? Just a shame Bradley didn't ask for an autograph, the Skates would have blown a fuse.

The table is starting to take shape and we are getting a rough idea of the teams around us. I think most agree that the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City have too much quality and will be out if reach come the end of the season. Below that though the rest is still up for grabs. Liverpool - if they hang on to Suarez in January I can't see us catching them. If he leaves or gets injured we might have an outside chance. Everton - Martinez has them playing brilliantly and Lukaku is probably better than any of our strikers. I think they will beat us too. Spurs - I think they will finish ahead of us but not by much. AVB is a good manager and when he gets his signings firing on all cylinders they will be a tough side to beat. Newcastle - probably the form team at the moment but whether they have the depth to keep it up for the rest of the year I don't know. Next weekend might give us a clue but I can't call this one. Man Utd - I remember the start of the season and the 'we're above Man U lolz' posts. Now it's December and we're still there. They've lost their last 2 games, both at Old Trafford and don't look like turning it around any time soon. I genuinely think we can beat them this year.

I wonder how well we might have got on Yesterday if Shaw and Lallana were injured too. Saying we might as well have played the first team at Sunderland is naive as you're assuming these injuries are the worst case scenario. It isn't. Half the reason we got relegated last time (I'm not suggesting it would have happened again) was that huge injury circus we had at a similar time of year. Back then we were forced to play Best and Blackstock up front for a few games and had an emergency keeper on loan from Spurs. We coped well again City with the kids on the pitch but let's not push our luck. The trip to SJP next week will be a much tougher test of their nerve.

No, Britain acted too late as the League of Nations was pretty much useless. They should have acted as soon as Germany marched into the Rheinland.

True but City's away form has been patchy at best. I won't lie, I was expecting a spanking today but City's flat performance won't come as a huge shock to most pundits. If Clyne is fit I still wouldn't drop Chambers after today. They will have to fight for that RB slot. Having said that, Clyne coming on after 70 minutes and running at tired defences is a good option to have.

If there's a form team you don't want to be playing at the moment Newcastle are pretty high on the list. They are fresh off an excellent win at old Trafford, much to the amusement of the City fans in the Northam concourse just before kick off. I don't see any reason to change the team. Let's give Ossie a chance to build on 2 goals in a week. Want and and Boruc will still be out. Any news on Morgan and Clyne? The only other worry might be Lovren who tweeted a picture of a nasty looking gash on his leg. Hopefully just a scratch for 'Animal' though. Who's going up for the game? I wanted to go but can't really justify the cost of such a far away trip just before Christmas.

I think animal is a great nickname for Dejan. Loved the skill when he put in a monster tackle to win the ball by the touch line, then waltzed his bay past 2 defenders and put in a terrific cross to win a corner. Also got a great reception when he came back on after picking up a painful looking injury. Needs a decent song too, rather than just a rehash of the JRod song.

Today 5 academy Saints were better than 1 billion Arabian Dirhams of talent. We outplayed them the whole game, I can't even remember a 10 minute spell of consistent City pressure. What a goal from Ossie too. Tikkabooson!!

*Alpine mode activate* We're going to get spanked *alpine mode deactivate*

I can't believe some of the ignorant sh*te being posted about Mandela. I bet half of you haven't even heard his 'I have a dream' speech.

Although he did try to sign him at West Ham but the board wouldn't sanction the transfer fee.

I think it's about time we acknowledged these most majestic of all God's creatures. I know Spudders is a particular fan and I hereby nominate him as president for life of our new found society. Altogether now... Kumbaya mallard Kumbaya

95 all out. Discus

Okay, how about a build up thread which isn't orchestrated by a tedious troll? I would personally put Fonte back into the centre of defence. Im not entirely sure why he was dropped, unless there was some injury I missed. I'm not sure what other changes need to be made. Cork needs time and patience. I don't think we will win and we shouldn't be too disheartened if we do lose. Villa was a shock result but everyone gets those. Arsenal lost at home to Villa too, Man Utd lost at home to West Brom and Liverpool lost at home to us.

So you think we should compromise our team in winnable games against Villa and Newcastle so that we have him available for a game we are unlikely to win against one of the best teams in the league? If Vic gets suspended tonight then so be it, suspensions happen. I don't see the need to put 6 much more realistic points at risk though.

I think yesterday was only the second result we've had which was worse than last season (losing at Norwich being the other). That's 2 points dropped but they are cancelled out by the draws we picked up OT and Sunderland at home. However we've won many fixtures we didn't last season. West Brom, Liverpool, Palace (instead of QPR) , Swansea, Fulham. That's an extra 13 points in 13 games. Based on the final league standings last season, an extra point per game would have given us 79 points and finishing 2nd in the league. I don't think we will finish 2nd or even top 4 but it does highlight just how much we have improved. Arsenal got outplayed by Man Utd and Villa in much easier fixtures than our last 2. Doesn't mean they aren't a seriously good team.

No it isn't. What actually happened was that the large majority of fans were excited because we had signed a current Italian international striker and the third top scorer in Serie A. Now I, like many on here, had seen little if any of his play, however given those credentials, we could all have been forgiven for thinking he could play a bit. Afterall, the club had clearly done extensive research and decided he was worth a club record fee. What is happening now is not people writing him off after 10 games because he "wasn't brilliant from day 1". That's the Turkish version events. Make something stupid up, claim that people supported this argument and then ridicule them for it with an aura of superior intellect. In actual fact this thread is people expressing doubts over his performances so far because he has displayed little if anything to suggest he is a €15m player. Hope this clears things up.

It reminded me of a goal he conceded at Goodison last season. I think it was against Jelavic but in any case he should have got down much sooner for it. Without wanting to be too harsh on Gazza, who was certainly thrown in at the deep end, I'm fairly confident Boruc would have got something on that.