max_saints

defense playing like they did against arsenal away, incredible how one jos hooiveld can change the dynamics of our defense so much. Ramirez and lambert on for Davis and jrod, need to convert our possession into chances. nth we can do about the defense except hope that forren guy signs soon

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1301378/pep-guardiola-to-take-over-at-bayern-munich?cc=4716&updated looks like we have missed out on guardiola. NC OUT

undeserved win but will take anything in our push for survival. boruc had a few massive games that kept us in the lead, clyne looked nervous at the start probably due to being out for quite a whole hopefully he gets back to the form he was in before the injury. shaw was immense as usual and when he ran into the box and almost scored, really reminded me of a certain Gareth bale, can see he's gained tons of confidence unfortunately he has to get that injury and I hope it's nothing too serious as I can only handle fox standing in for one, two games at most. lambert looked outstanding in his captains role and he played in so many wonderful passes especially one for Steven Davis which I still have no idea how he did not put away especially as hes supposed to be a specialized attacking midfielder. central defense looks shaky without fonte, even yoshi did not look his usual self without fonte beside him. puncheon frustrates me so much, when he's good he's genius but when he's off form he dwells so much on the ball!! regardless, not one of our best performances but three points and we move on. hopefully with a few new recruits in the next few weeks

like some have said, these kind of things even themselves put over the season, we're going to get decisions like that go against us. until a system is in place to address dives like these, it's going to be part and parcel of the modern game. okay jrod did dive but he did not vehemently shout for a penalty, tbf he looked sheepish about it being given and even look guilty at the end of the game but what can he do, the referee gave the penalty. we're in a relegation fight, we'll just have to take everything we get, can't expect to win beautifully every game

is anyone watching the game? so how did that go, did they continue clapping awkwardly why bradford celebrated their goal? lol

all these talk and we still aren't confirmed to be signing neither astori nor coutinho yet. imagine if we ended up with titus bramble and el hadji diouf. cheap and premier league experience innit?

is this a wind up?

I know we already have a back up RB in the form of Richardson but NA does not seem to rate him and in the cases when clyne was out, he would rather play maya or cork out of position than to play our other specialist righ back. the problem this causes is that we miss them playing in their natural position and they are at best only competent filling in at RB. I know clyne is coming back from injury soon but I would hate for him to get injured again in the latter stages of the season and we had to play players out of position in a relegation scrap. however, having said all that, I think it will be tough finding a good RB who would be content at sitting on the bench and being back up... perhaps someone on loan till the end of the season?

this could be 6. should have just sent the team that played leeds. only bothered about fonte now

OMG anyone watching the stream where they hired two random Chelsea fans to commentate on the game?

deja vu? or do Italian journalists simply follow a standard format when it comes to reporting transfers?? this sounds exactly like the Ramirez deal

the Pompey way

i think the past two games has shown that, like the team, even NA is steadily improving up to premier league quality. his tactics have been masterfully spot on both games, far cry from earlier on in the season when he just seemed to not know what his best team was. credit also has to be given to the team for sticking to the plan. a decent analysis of our tactics against arsenal: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/tacticsandanalysis/id/632?cc=4716

how much did guly and shaw cost us? how much did sagna and ox cost arsenal? the battle on that side of the pitch was well and truly won with shaw putting in a performance that belied his age (unfortunate that one of his best performance had to be against wengers team who would now surely be stepping up their pursuit?) and guly working ever so hard to track back and help shaw. hardworking team performance where no one could been faulted really. thought ramirez showed excellent control and finishing in the disallowed goal but unfortunate to have it disallowed for a touch on the defender, otherwise that could have been the goal to signal his arrival to the premier league. cork did a more than capable job filling in at RB, similarly Davis in cork's position. i think in the event of clyne being out i would much rather this than yoshida at rb/ hooiveld at cb. jury is still out on boruc who had little to do against arsenal (surprisingly and perhaps luckily) did have a very shaky start spilling simple catches in the early stages though, still feel all three keepers are pretty much at the same level overall, yet again another game in which we could have and maybe should have won like the stoke one but lets just savor a point against one of the biggest teams in the league! bring on chelsea

evidently from our previous encounter we cannot play them at their passing game, what we should do IMO is to adopt a more direct approach like we did in the first half against stoke. be aggressive and get in their faces and not allow them time on the ball and not just watch as they dance the ball around us. won't be pretty but what the heck we need all the points we can get at this stage. defense sorts itself out whoever's fit, punch on the right guly on the left with Ramirez behind lambert. think NA also needs to make a tough choice on who will be the keeper as KD still does not look very assured and I think there the previous game would be on the back of Davis' mind. may be time to bring boruc back from exile and give him a top game to prove what he's got. after all that's said, I still think arsenal has too much for us and will still win this albeit a smaller score line, hopefully we at least give them a tougher time unlike the last time out.

this felt more like a loss, you just can't give away the lead with a one man advantage in a league as competitive as this. we were exceptional in the first half while stoke were very poor especially in defense but that totally reversed in the second half and I just felt players like guly faded out in the second half and should have been subbed out for ramirez who would surely have finished the massive chance that guly got to go 4-1 up. unfortunately, I still feel Davis is the weakest of the three keepers and if we're not playing gazza then at least play boruc! how many times did Davis come out for the ball from their long throw and flapped! felt that he should have saved stoke's second goal but instead let it squirm under him... and Richardson on for puncheon???? if the starting line up that NA sent out was a tactical master stroke, his substitutions undid everything. would have taken a point before the game but with how things went, one point just really isn't enough..

are you sure nzonzi went off? does not look like we have a one man advantage at all... ****ing hell

http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2012/12/28/3633782/heitinga-is-certainly-not-happy-everton-defenders-agent-hints-at-?source=breakingnews possible choice for our January CB target

good point away from home. S Davis was very poor today, anyone else felt that guly would have done a better job? also while Ramirez has his flashes of brilliance, he keeps giving the ball away which often led to dangerous fulham counters! finally lallana's injury has exposed our lack of cover in the wide positions and I would like to see an above average winger come in jan

congrats to his family! CHDAJFU?

who would we rather go for, phillips or ince? I get the feeling that ince will become a better player, anyone who has watched a bit of the both of them care to comment?

lescott is out of favor with Mancini, maybe moneybags city will loan him to us while covering 50% of his wages? my Christmas wish...

twice the player fox is defensively, agree with a previous poster that crosses from the left have been reduced ever since he has come into the side and that has led to our improvement at the back. however, I would still like to see some decent back up coming in as let's not forget the kids only 17 and if we play him week in week out in his first full season with the first team we would more than likely see a burn out towards the end of the season and if we're unlucky this usually ends up with a long term injury. still, a very bright prospect and hopefully he will stay with us a couple more season to continue his development before he starts harboring ambitions of european football with the bigger teams. of course the ideal situation would be we find ourselves playing in Europe in the next couple of seasons and don't lose him (:

such a vital win today that propels us all the way up to 15th, punch took his goal well. abit disappointing to see jrod not making the most of a rare first team start, with hindsight i think i would much rather prefer michu at 2mil. but of course we don't know how much jrod will develop in the future if he ever does. a game we should keep an eye on during our two week break would be the re-arranged game between sunderland and reading, anything other than a sunderland win would be perfect for us

shaw is really struggling on the left against johnson, might be a step too far for him atm. this game makes for painful watching, you just got a feeling its when rather if liverpool will score. coys!! a draw would be a very very good result seeing how the game has gone