Lighthouse

Based on what? He is 35 and hasn't been seen in England since Arsenal let him go 2 years ago. He is probably glacially slow and according to Wiki he failed to impress on trial at West Ham.

Agree. For a monday night League 1 game, on Sky, 4 hours drive away (probably more like 5 or 6 with traffic), which they are likely to lose, that's not actually a bad turn out.

Incidentally, what's the lowest anyone has ever been done for speeding on a motorway? My current box on wheels starts to drink fuel if I go much above 70 anyway but I was just wondering. Going by the 10% + 2 rule, I'm guessing 80 or above is the lower end of the limit.

Lee Molyneux was worse than Fox So was Steven O'Halloran and Jelle Van Damme and Lee Todd and Jermaine Wright and Lloyd James and Chris Makin and Tomasz Hajto I don't rate Fox either but this bizarre logic that he is the worst fullback ever to walk onto a football pitch baffles me. Of course Shaw could be (and probably is) worse than Fox, that's why he isn't playing. When we get beat 8-0 at home to Norwich, then we can start talking about things, 'not possibly being any worse.'

Sorry to interrupt the Miltonrodent appreciation thread but I do have some thoughts on the team. Gazza Butters - Seaborne - Jos - Shaw Chaplow - JWP - Guly De Ridder - Yukka - Lee Fitness permitting with some of them obviously.

We aren't far too open, we just make schoolboy errors in large numbers. Spurs hardly overran us today and Boruc was barely troubled other than the goals. It was the same at West Ham. We weren't too open, we kept it tight for long periods then out of the blue we self destruct and they casually wander in and score.

Just to add my thoughts.... First half I thought both teams were pretty bad. Much the same as West Ham, we did absolutely nothing going forward and didn't trouble Freidel until about 50 minutes into the game. They were never all over us as I feared they would be but we handed them the game with 2 of the softest goals you will ever see scored in the Premier League. What Clyne was doing for the first I don't know. Didn't seem to make any effort to get up for that and I'm afraid to say he has been at fault for a LOT of goals this season. More so than the much maligned Fox. The second goal was just a complete calamity. Second half much better and were unlucky not to nick a draw at the end. Mayuka made a big difference when he came on. I think the biggest difference for me was after Huddlestone went off. He ran the midfield in the first half. Sat in front of their defence and always finding space. Good players J rod - worked very hard and got his first Premier League goal. Let's hope more follow. Mayuka - looked sharp and quick when he came on. Changed our team. Yoshi - looks our best centre half, composed and made one fantastic challenged on Defoe to stop a near certain goal. Poor players Puncheon - didn't really do much Davis - didn't get hold of the game in midfield. Boruc I don't think did much particularly wrong, although the second goal was a bit of a mess for all concerned. Didn't see the bottle incident so can't comment yet. The idiots in the Northam (only a small minority, maybe a dozen) can feck off. To try and end on a positive thought, if we play like we did for the last 30 mins we will comfortably stay up. It's a big if though, Spuds were there for the taking second half and we didn't punish them enough

If you think an internet forum is dull you're probably spending too much time reading it. There are only so many things you can say about a football team. This board isn't supposed to be a substitute for a social life. If you can't think of anything interesting to discuss, go and do something else in 'real life'.

Wow, that's quite a large backtrack from

You also said NA had 2 games left just before the Arsenal game. Cortese must have been mighty impressed with our performance against Villa if it made up for our sh*t performances against Arse, Everton, Wham and Fulham. Either that or you are just bullsh*tting.

I think all the people worried by this need to take another look at this bit: Ooh look, Lambert was dropped for Southampton's last game, let's make up a nice easy, predictable rumour... Stoke they like a big lad up front, that should fill a few collum inches.

These drones aren't cheap pap and once their potential is realised they will only get more advanced and therefore expensive. Maybe China do have the cash to build 10,000 drones but then they would also have the cash to build 10,000 manned aircraft or 100,000 tanks or 1,000,000 front line infantry etc. etc. War has been determined by who has the best resources available since the beginning of time, drones are going to change that.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Close air support and the front line soldier serve 2 completely different purposes. SEALS were needed because there isn't a robot out there close to matching a person for articulate movement, coordination and communication. A pilot essentially just sits there pressing buttons, which can often be easily be done in a safe location hundreds of miles away.

If the MK2 can sustain forces of over 20g and has a bullet proof rectum then yes, it's exactly what we need.

Drones are the future, like it or not. There is just no sense in sending a bloke in a plane over hostile territory so he can get his arse blow off, need rescuing, getting captured, interogated, demands for ransom etc. Not if you've got the technology to do it all from the safety of a Royal Navy destroyer 400 miles away. Plus aircraft technology has come on massively in the last 100 years. The most obsolete piece of kit in them now (by a long way) is the human being Mk.1. They need air supplies, ejector seats, survival gear, a big glass canopy and a shed load of heavy and expensive instrument displays. All of which can break and need regular maintenance. The latest RAF Typhoon is capable of mavoeurves far beyond the g-force limits a human being can endure.

Yes. Adkins is more than aware of our problems in defence, he isn't Burley. He knows our problems and the options open to us, if he (and the coaches) have decided that Shaw isn't ready yet then he probably isn't and may well prove more of a liability than Fox or Yoshi.

It's not really that similar to Poortvliet's team. At the moment we have a lot of decent attacking players but our defending is dreadful, whereas back then we were just generally a poor team. Don't forget we had Euell, DMG and BWP up front all of whom were terrible. Our football under JP was never the fluid, exciting 'total football' Lowe would have had us believe. Occasionally we showed some glimpses of decent passing and neat build up play through Lallana and Morgan but we put in a lot of rotten and inept performances too. P.S. Kelvin'srightglove, seriously don't bother arguing with alpine, it will only end in 5 pages of pointless repetitive drivel.

This fixture has ended up in a 1-0 Saints win the last 3 times. Spuds have lost every trip they've made to St Mary's. Having said that, we will get battered. I'm not a gambler but this does look a bit like easy money.

For the second goal Guly really sold him short, that wasn't totally his fault. The 4th was as much Fonte's fault as anything. He didn't put a tackle in or show Miaga down the wing and let him cut inside and shoot. I didn't think he was the worst problem yesterday but it's a bit early to say whether I'd prefer him or Fox.

I think we tried to chance too much this year and it's part of the problem. Getting promoted and bringing in new players is enough to cope with without experimenting with different formations at the same time. By all means we should evolve once we have a foundation in the Premier League but too many players look like they don't know what to do. JRod looks lost sometimes playing in a variety of unusual possitions. Morgan and Davis sometimes look good and other times play just goes straight through them and we get exposed. I vote for giving 4-4-2 a go for a while. Gazza Clyne - Fonte - Jos - Yoshi Puncheon - Morgan - Davis - Lallana Lambert - Rod Until Ramirez and Cork are fit at least. If nothing else it's difficult to break down which we are anything but at the moment.

I don't think it's the players which are the real problem (aside from Fox). Today's goals were mainly down to bad organisation and communication. There was nothing today they couldn't have dealt with if only they were properly organised. This isn't like 05 when we had a squad full of dross like Davenport and Nilsson, we've got people who can play. We should stick with Gazza unless he develops some serious faults and give the rest of them some serious coaching.

I voted Gazza because I can't see that he did much wrong to get dropped in the first place. I didn't really see a problem with Boruc for any of those goals. First goal - The free kick just floated over everyone and nobody got a touch on it. Boruc went to his left expecting matey to get a touch and he didn't, it just went straight in. Poor defending, there should be a good strong head on that long before it got to the 'keeper. Second goal - Looked like Guly played Yoshi an absolute hospital pass and their man at the far post was badly marked. Can't remember it too well but looked like Fonte should have done better. Penalty - Fonte's fault, but the free kick leading up to it looked dubious to me. Fourth goal - Defence just kept backing of and Fonte let him turn inside and shoot instead of seeing him down the wing. Great finish, nothing Boruc could really have done.

I think he said, "you talk about the racism, what about everything else?" I think he was trying to make the point that racism isn't the only problem with the game. He is right to be fair, why should there be outrage at racism in the media, whilst chants about Jones' child abuse case is apparently ignored.

I'm not sure about 'better in all other areas' but Beatts was a hell of a player in his prime. His problem was consistency but he had a couple of seasons when he was really good. Rickie has yet to prove himself in the Premier League.

I know Tolix. He's a nice bloke, very open minded and has an interest bordering on obsession with other countries and cultures. He certainly isn't a racist, that was just a very badly judged attempt at a joke. He knows better than most of us the problems with fans in Eastern Europe.