Wes Tender

It certainly would have been shown on MOTD had it been a United/Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool player who had put the ball in the net, only to have it waved offside. We were a match well down the pecking order, despite the number of chances we created in probably the most one-sided game of the day, so the pundits were hardly likely to want to spend time on debating it.

I agree. If Davis was an attacking midfielder who scored several goals a season and provided several assists regularly too, then he would already be playing for a top 4 glory club. There aren't more than a handful of players in the PL who have all the attributes and the spirit and energy levels too. Davis epitomises the "road sweeper" type of player that Lawrie Mac stated that every team needed to go with the "violinists."

Is that you, Harry?

He never scores in the matches that Verlaine watches and he only rarely provides assists too.

Here is where you damn yourself with such ridiculous hyperbole. Nine times out of ten? Koeman must really be an idiot to select him, when he only contributes something decisive in attack for 10% of the matches, eh? I presume that you do not consider his tackling, closing down players, or box to box energy as characteristics of his game that define decisive attacking contributions in any way. More fool you. I don't recall anybody claiming that Davis was the creative fulcrum of the side. That was the epithet that was applied to the likes of Schneiderlin, Tadic or what Clasie or Ward-Prowse are hoped to become. I reiterate; players like Romeu and Clasie might not look as effective without somebody like Davis battling alongside them. There have been occasions this season where he has been substituted and we have lost our edge in midfield as a result.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but you seem to be a bit of a minority regarding Davis' contribution. Even the Mirror Sports reporter summed him up under the heading "Davis makes Saints tick" and said this about him:- You obviously saw a different match to others on here. Perhaps Davis' contribution should be assessed from the perspective of whether both Romeu and Clasie would have been as effective without him beside them. Of the three of them, he was the one who scored the goal, although the incompetent lino ruled if offside.

Just a glance at the poll for MOTM speaks volumes about the performance put in by virtually the whole team. Long deserves the MOTM for his goal and the assist for Tadic's, as well as his usual total commitment throughout the match, leaving him knackered towards the final whistle. But that commitment was shadowed by other players like the ever reliable Davis, alongside great contributions from Clasie and Romeu, all three dominating the midfield, protecting the defence and setting up wave after wave of attacks. Long and Mane possess such pace so that when they played a high line, they forced Watford onto the back foot. There were several occasions when there were superb long passes up to them and but for better finishing from Mane and poor offside decisions from the Kingsland lino, the score could have been anything up to 8 goals. Targett had a great game with Bertrand behind him and got forward well up the left wing, and with Cedric also marauding up the right flank, we created the width that allowed us the space to play a fast passing game, which we did well considering the poor weather conditions. Altogether it was a superb performance from the entire team, with many of the characteristics of how we outplayed Arsenal. Some say that Watford were very poor, and that Arsenal had a bad day at the office. But how much allowance must be made towards that excuse and how much should be given as credit towards us playing our socks off and employing the tactics that don't allow other teams to play the game to the strengths of their players? Sometimes it seems that when you have the efforts that the hard-working players like Davis, Clasie, Long, Romeu, Bertrand bring to the team, we would give any team in the Country a run for their money.

I don't think that we have to take Verbal's opinions on Corbyn too seriously. After all, he did state categorically that there was no way that Corbyn would be elected leader of the Labour Party.

They're a pretty sorry bunch nowadays, professional football players. It seems that most of them are incapable of playing different formation systems, so it is a waste of time buying any players who are not capable of playing in a 4-3-3 formation. It used to be that you could buy players to suit a particular role within a team and those comprised central defenders, full backs, midfielders and strikers. Those could be further sub-divided by their attributes and skills, such as pace, good tackling ability, vision, passing ability and leadership qualities. Chez is right, you can't stick to a rigid formation and nor does Koeman do that. Formations change depending on player availability and tactically to exploit weaknesses and counter the strengths of the opposition. Any professional footballers bought in as defenders, midfielders or strikers ought to be able to adapt to fit into any of the modern day formations, or they aren't worth wasting our money on them.

This would be the entirely defensive team that had two strikers up front, would it? Or are Mane and Long defensive players? Which additional striker would you have put up front with them, bearing in mind that Pelle and Rodriguez are injured?

A combination of poor finishing and a couple of defensive lapses did for us. Other teams we have played recently capitalise on those defensive errors and punish us, but we lack the attacking players to capitalise on the opportunities that present themselves to us. They scored from our goalkeeper's save when the ball came out to their player, but our strikers did not have the awareness or the quickness of thought to position themselves for the chance that we could have scored from when Hennessey spilled the ball. Despite criticism of our starting formation, it was brought about by Bertrand's illness and unavailability and it was very effective until a defensive lapse was pounced upon. But what chance do we have as a team when we are without the likes of Bertrand, Pelle and Wanyama? Bertrand was one player absence too much, and although Targett acquitted himself well enough, he does not carry the speed and crossing ability of Bertrand. Personally though, I wouldn't be too upset if I don't ever see Yoshida in a Saints shirt again. What also annoys the hell out of me is that when we are chasing the game, we faff about passing the ball around the back instead of launching it up-field with some sense of urgency. By the time we have passed it ponderously towards the last third, if we have not lost possession on the way there, the entire rival defence is organised and poised to frustrate our attempts to pass the ball into the net. Tadic's introduction was very effective at getting the ball behind their defence, but boy, is he annoying when it comes to what to do with it when he is there. The number of miss-hit shots, miss-placed passes and poor decision-making generally was both exasperating and frustrating. What is Juanmi for? What has he ever done to change a game like this in our favour? We had forged enough chances to have won the game by scoring 2 or 3 more goals had we possessed players capable of capitalising on those chances we created. Apart from the notable player absences, we could have done with a GK of Hennessey's capabilities instead of Stekelenberg and a half-decent referee would have helped too. As soon as I saw that it was Lee Mason, I knew that we would be treated to his usual p*ss-poor incompetence and he didn't disappoint. Him, Friend and Moss have to be the absolute worst referees in the past decade. If we can't turn things around when Forster, Pelle, Bertrand and Wanyame are all on the pitch, then are deep in the sh*t. I'm not holding out much hope at all that we will see Rodriguez again this season, or that even if we do, he will be anywhere near the player he used to be.

I also watched the match on that stream and it was generally a very good stream, easy to log onto, no adverts or problems with the streaming for most of the match and even decent content at half-time. I'll also watch it for any other away match.

Now that I've calmed down a bit, I must admit that there is much in what you say that I agree with. We were the better team until they scored and were particularly effective on the left with Bertrand and Tadic causing them problems. I also concur that Martina acquitted himself well. Once Wanyama had been booked, it seemed almost inevitable that a red card would follow and Koeman ought to brought him off for Reed then. Long might have been more affective playing alongside Mane, but as others have said, it seemed churlish of Koeman to have left him out until the match had slipped away from us, when other sanctions were available as punishment without weakening an already weakened team short of striking options.

Time to let Wanyama go. He has become a liability and lost us the game, or at least the chance of a point. We now have to play the next match with a weakened midfield, although it might present Reed with an opportunity to put himself in the frame. Also Mane did us no favours either with his poor discipline meaning that Koeman did not put him on until the 80th minute. With Pelle and Rodriguez injured, we had few enough attacking options as it was, without Mane pratting about. Typically of the last few games, we dominate and have enough chances to win the game, but suffer from really poor finishing. Long ought to have scored a brace with the chances he had. Both Fonte and Van Dijk made bad errors that would have been punished by better strikers. We really do need to strengthen urgently in this transfer window, or we will be fighting to survive the drop if we carry on like this.

Now I realise that you have it in for Davis, but it seems to have escaped your notice that he isn't a striker.

A goal and an assist from our ex-player. Bloody typical! We should have been out of sight at half time

I read that the Arse fans are starting a petition on Change.com demanding that Moss be disallowed to referee their matches after his performance last night. I think that we should start one too asking him to be banned from officiating our matches. Him and Friend both, the two most incompetent referees when it comes to officiating at St Mary's. But it really is rich that Arsene and the Arse fans blame the referee for their players not being up for it against us. I realise that it is hard to accept that whereas they are normally the better team, last night the better team was us. They need to accept that when in the last four matches they have played us home and way we have emerged victorious in three of them, that is indicative that instead of Arsenal having a bad day in the office, it might just be that Koeman gets our tactics right and our players lift themselves into wanting the win more. Arsenal are a great passing team who play good entertaining football, as do we. But observing the precedent of lesser teams beating them shows that if their opponents close them down quickly and deny them the space and time to play their way, if their players are tackled hard and knocked out of their stride, they have no response. The football we played last night was not so pretty, but boy, was it effective. All very well for Wenger to moan about the goals that he felt should have been disallowed, whilst ignoring the couple that might have been awarded to us by another referee. He should be grateful that under different circumstances and better finishing that the score was not 7 or 8 nil.

There is an effective riposte to these Eastern European leaders who will not allow us to impose a four year ban on benefit claims for their countries' nationals. Offer them the alternative; that we will pay the benefits for their unemployed nationals, but bill them so that we are reimbursed.

The perfect solution. The killer should be told that will be the outcome and asked whether he wishes to continue with his claim.

Typically when our prospects for improvement in this division are debated, the usual guff is trotted out that we cannot hope to break into the top four, because that is the exclusive preserve of four or five glory clubs, whose Worldwide reputation attracts massive fan support and sponsorship, the wealthiest owners and some of the best players in the World. How can we possibly compete against those advantages? Well, how can Leicester manage to be the top club in the league at the moment, whilst simultaneously the former Champions with the supposed best manager, languish in the bottom half of the table? Now it might be that Chelsea have a storming second half of the season and haul themselves up into the top 5 and that Leicester suffer the fate of many other medium sized clubs who fade away into mid-table obscurity. But if Leicester finish in the top four, that will mean that it is possible to do so with players who cost no more than the ones we have bought, but also that a manager like Ranieri can make a substantial difference to a club's chances.

Had the referee awarded at least one of the two penalties we should have been awarded, then the score would have been one each. Who knows how we or they would have reacted to the scores being levelled. Stoke might have outplayed us for much of the match and created more chances, but with such wayward and wasteful finishing they did not deserve the win. Had they had decisions go against them from their pet ref, or produced shots which brought world-class saves from Stekenlenburg, I might agree.

As soon as I knew Mason was refereeing, I knew that we would get nothing from him at all. The bloke is an absolute disgrace and must have something against us to ignore two penalties and to give us two bookings whilst one of the most thuggish teams in the division escape without a single card. To an extent, it's a shame that we as a club don't have players who would surround such an incompetent ars*hole as him, a manager too polite to just come out and say that he thought that when Mason referees our matches it is like playing against 12, or fans who aren't a bit more vocal in their derision of him. Ok, we were awful, but who can say what the response would have been from the lift that a scored penalty would have given us, or the improvement in our chances had Stoke had to come at us instead of sitting back and defending their lead? Apart from a 15 minute period shortly after the break when we kept returning the ball into their box incessantly, their full backs pressed up well and our two were exploited as weak links. Both Cedric and particularly Bertrand had really dire games. If Mane wasn't fully up to 90 minutes, I would rather have seen him for the first 45 and Long on for the last 20 when Stoke defenders were tiring. Clasie was decent, but remove him and Davis from the midfield and you have no bite in midfield, especially not from the boy Ward-Prowse. The changes Koeman made smacked of the desperation of the last throw of the dice in the vain hope that the new formation was so bizarre that Stoke would not be able to comprehend how to counter it and we might fluke an equaliser as a result. But harsh reality was that we could have played until midnight and not scored. Why do we have these crappy performances after an International break?

And it's a pity that we never got the better Le Tissier brother to play for us too.

That's probably because neither could understand what the other was saying.

Yes, better that you stop digging an even deeper hole for yourself, Shylock. Cortese was a Champagne Charlie with somebody else's money. A perfectly reasonable opinion and most would have understood the meaning of the expression, but that didn't warrant you jumping down his throat in your usual superior way, calling it illiterate or melodramatic. Others have made similar accusations before, and indeed as has been pointed out even in this evening's posts subsequent to yours, Cortese's spending of the Liebherr funds was something that Katharina would not permit to continue without restraint and accountability to her, because I presume that she was afraid that it was getting out of control.