Lighthouse

Do you believe: a) We have good depth in our squad and injuries to first team players wont affect the team's performance. b) The majority of our strongest 11 are fit enough to start 45 games a season c) We should rest our best players for half a dozen League games and the points lost in doing so aren't important.

Just over a week until the January sales open. I think recent results have shown up a few holes in our squad. Hopefully the powers that be have some ideas lined up already. I think we need to look at 'keeper - Boruc is the only one I regard as being Prem quality. I'd get someone else in and loan Gazza out. LB - Not just cover, someone good. We can't expect a teenager to play 38 games a season. AM - Our bench is lacking someone to come on and change the game. Having said that we should be looking at players better than we have. The CB situation I think can wait till summer. Personally I still think Yoshi is a decent player, just lacking match practice. Begin suggesting random Slovenian teenagers who are good on FM13.

If Hooiveld isn't Prem quality, Martin certainly isn't. The latter was a bit part player in our promotion who made the occasional appearance due to injuries, whilst the former was arguably our player of the season.

Correct.

Creative, but at no point did I say every League game. Even 5 games with the reserves is too many with such a tight and competitive League.

So which League games do we play a weakened side in? The game before? After? Both? Or do we just play our strongest 11 in every game and replace them as they get injured.

I'm guessing you're including the win over Spurs on New Years Day, before the FA Cup started. After the 3rd round game, when the fixtures started to pile up we managed 17 points from 16 games. Less than 41 points extrapolated over 38 games. West Ham were relegated with 42 points. Just to clear this up: My argument - We can't play the same team in every league and cup match. Playing a weakened side in the League could get us relegated. The Turkish/Fry Strawman - Everyone who wins a cup gets relegated. Wigan FFS! FFS! Wigan Wigan FFS! FFS! FFS! etc.

Ah, the Lord of the Strawmen has returned! Between the 3rd round win over Spurs and the end of the season, we managed relegation form in the League in 2003. It was our form between October and December which kept us up (we may have finished 8th but we were closer to 18th than 5th).

Exactly, so why not try and win a cup that does not require the depth of squad that a challenge for the top 6 does? Because playing our reserves in the League will probably get us relegated and we will need a decent League finish to attract better players. I doubt Wanyama, Lovren and Osvaldo were our first choice transfer targets in summer. I suspect there were others who weren't interested in a team 14th in the League.

That would involve resting key players in the League so they are fit for cup games. Not a strategy I think Cortese would approve of. The League has to be a priority and at the moment we don't have the depth to even maintain a challenge in that.

I think he's bought Martin O'Neil's old place. Carsten Janker has been renting it the last couple of years. I've always rated Begovic but I can't see Stoke selling him either cheap or in January. I don't see why he would want to move either unless we offered him top dollar and we aren't really in the habit of doing that.

So we were without 5 of our first choice back 6 (if you're including Wanyama). We've now got 4 games in 10 days with these players. Sorry to drag this up again but does show, we really don't have anywhere near the depth to play our first team in the cups. Imagine yesterday's team with Lovren and Lallana injured, away at Everton...

Everton and Chelsea after this so a win would be quite handy. I'm not optimistic as we just don't look like we've got a clean sheet in us at the moment. We've gone back to the start of last season where we could score 3 goals and we'd still lose. I'm thinking maybe a score draw, 2-2. If Fonte is still not fit, I would play Yoshida not Jos.

Don't see the problem with Yoshida, I thought he was our best defender last season. Given a run of games in our first choice defence, I think he would do as well as Fonte. Having said that, Poch doesn't appear to rate him so I would hope for a replacement in January.

Happy Birthday Jose! Any excuse to post this again. Incidentally it's also Agustin Delgado's birthday on Monday and he got quite upset when we didn't remember it before.

Don't I just know it. I was a student earning minimum wage in a Little Chef at the time. Was one of about 4 games I could afford to go to each season and I spent £40 on a return train ticket to Southampton, only for it to get called off.

James Beattie's Accrington score twice in injury time to win 3-2 away at Mansfield. Moves them from 2nd bottom to above Pompey

Full time in League 2. Pompey 2 points above the drop zone with a poor GD.

True but I think the current bottom 3 are worse and things have the potential to go pear shaped at Palace and West Brom. To think West Ham and WBA finished above us last year, it's amazing how much can change over a summer break.

With Newcastle and Utd winning we could do with a win tomorrow to stay in touch with the top 7. A defeat would leave us 6 points of 7th place and possible European football, with the small matter of Man Utd above us in 8th.

It depends on what their board want. If they aren't too bothered about attractive football or getting into Europe then they might as well keep him. I think he has enough experience to keep them in the Premier League but last season's 10th really is about as far as he can take them. He will keep them up without spending large amounts of money, maybe the Wham board are happy with that.

Those points against Newcastle and Man City are looking pretty good in the grand scheme of things. Pompey losing too.

Liverpool vs. Cardiff (1245) Palace vs. Newcastle Fulham vs. Man City Man Utd vs. West Ham Stoke vs. Aston Villa Sunderland vs. Norwich West Brom vs. Hull A couple of clubs in there can do us a favour. Palace definitely if they can take some points off Newcastle. West Ham if they can pull off another upset at Old Trafford will be helpful. Just watching SS at the moment, the trouble at Cardiff should play in to our hands for the Boxing Day fixture. I think they'll get smashed today.

The Champions League would ruin a lot of domestic leagues if we had it that way. For example let's say Levadia Tallinn won the Estonian League and were automatically in the CL group stages, they would just spend all the extra money they earned buying out all the best players from the rest of the league as nobody else would come close to their budget. As a result they would pretty much dominate the league indefinitely. As it is all the champions get a chance at the CL, it's just that most of them get knocked out in the qualifying rounds. Some of the teams you would rather see instead of Dortmund and Arsenal aren't there because they got beaten 11-0 on agg. by Celtic in the qualifying round. Watching those teams play Barcelona and Bayern would make for pretty sh*t viewing.