Wes Tender

Chorus Don't lie to us Pochettino The truth is you never loved us All through your time here, your loyal insistence you broke your promise now keep your distance Seeking fortune with another club, then Spurs invited you in Though it seemed at the time they were all you desired, you were deluded They're not the glory team that they promised to be The answer was Saints all the time We love Koeman and don't miss you at all Chorus

That was one of my recommendations. You'll love it. Sorrento is a very pretty little town with lots to see there. Visit the Foreigners Club https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+foreigners+club,+sorrento&biw=1675&bih=826&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=9PLXVNHaKsLy7AbqooG4Cw&ved=0CDYQsAQ. Nice for a cool beer or coffee during the day, or there is dancing under the night sky in the evening, with a fantastic view over the bay of Naples. Go to Capri on the hydrofoil and take the chairlift to the top. Definitely go to Positano, Amalfi and Ravello for this sort of scenery:- https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ravello&biw=1675&bih=826&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=lfTXVOv9JaPn7ga79YDgAw&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQsAQ#tbm=isch&q=amalfi+drive+italy From Sorrento it is cheap and easy to catch the local train to Pompeii and Herculaneum, the latter being the much smaller but infinitely better preserved. Most of the artefacts excavated at both are in the National Museum in Naples. Naples is not everybody's cup of tea. But even in the poorer quarters it is vibrant and fascinating and as the saying goes, all human life is there, but watch your valuables. Together with Vesuvious, that is quite an itinerary.

They'll be fine in the games that Kane and Eriksen play. But if either of them get a serious injury, Spurs' form will take a nosedive.

I don't see much distortion in the article apart from the degree of emphasis, nor do I see anybody being particularly upset by it. After all, everybody can see this is an article from the BBC, which is famously impartial and always totally accurate in their reporting.

Shylock, did I ask you about the specifics of the case? I inquired about whether you had experience in formulating policy, or overseeing or reviewing it. So what precisely did you do in that regard? It could be anything between Civil Service Mandarin and junior clerk. My experience encompasses actually working in the Benefits Office of what was then the Department of Employment, but that was so long ago that anybody who was refused their Employment Benefit would merely go down to the Social Security and fill in a B1, so there was little chance that they would be without money to live on. Since then, my knowledge of how Government policy is formulated and implemented has been based on watching copious repeats of Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister. Mind you, I understand that amongst the satire, it was pretty accurate at the time, but likewise that was a different era, although I doubt somehow that the Civil Service itself has changed that much.

Well, perhaps you would kindly explain it to us and also tell us what qualifies you as an expert. Do you have any part of formulating policy yourself, do you oversee it or have a capacity of reviewing it?

Why aren't these sorts of decisions being challenged by the the Independent Benefits Appeals procedure? Surely if they were, this sort of case would be thrown out. It seems rather strange that despite all these examples of how the benefits system is seemingly being abused by those administering it, that nobody has mentioned that these decisions can be appealed.

Didn't Osvaldo join us under Pochettino? Is this now being airbrushed from history by Poch, in much the same way that we were not relegated under Redcrapp?

Has the FA found a way to stop us getting one of the CL places at the expense of one of their darling teams?

I think that this is probably the right background to this. He might believe that there is little chance of his remarks being given air-time in England, so he is bigging himself up as a candidate for a future job with Barca. Otherwise, if he thought that his remarks would be widely reported here, then he would have to be bloody naive to believe that he could away with spouting such crap.

Well done Matt for putting the egotistical lying pratt in his place. Seldom have I heard such rubbish from an ex-manager re-writing history about his stay here in a vane attempt to excuse the fact that we are above his team on merit. I don't know who he is trying to impress with this garbage, but it certainly doesn't wash with anybody who knows their stuff as far as we're concerned. The truth is that Koeman took over a team that had been decimated by 5 top players leaving, he replaced them and got them playing well immediately and took us up a level in the process. Pochettino with Spurs inherited a team already comprising several top players brought in with the proceeds of the mega-bucks sale of Bale and he cannot get them firing properly. Luckily for him, he inherited a decent young player in Kane who has hit devastating form, and another player in Eriksen who also is bang on form. Without the two of them, Spurs would be struggling to be in the top 10. The reality is that anybody in English football could have told him before he left us that Spurs is the poison chalice, in that their fans have expectations of at least a top four position. The fact that we occupy that position since he left instead of his team rankles with him so much, that he has to try and justify our success as being largely down to him, whilst simultaneously telling everybody how much difficulty he has faced at Spurs. You're just making yourself look a pratt, Poch.

I'm with the OP that Lorries overtaking one another at 1mph faster is my main gripe. But it isn't such a problem on the motorway, as there is still a spare lane. But you're tootling along a dual carriageway like the A34 and then the very instant that he has indicated, the lorry driver pulls out in front of you, causing you to jam on your brakes and for the next five miles the road is blocked and you are doing 50 miles an hour until he eventually pulls in front of the other lorry. I always then honk my horn at him when I pass, just to let him know what a cretin I consider him to be. The other main pain is the driver who hogs the middle lane of three, even though there is nothing ahead of them. There is some excuse for staying in a lane if one is moving faster than the traffic in the inside lane, but otherwise once one has completed the overtaking, then move in a lane. If the road is otherwise empty apart from me and them, I make a point of flashing them when I am closer behind them and if they don't move over, then they are a pratt. Often one can glance into the rear view mirror and see them still in the middle lane one mile back, still with no other car around. I'm afraid to say that women drivers are the more prevalent offenders.

Sienna has a charm all of its own. Not as commercialised as Florence, but a very good base for exploring Tuscany. I've stayed on a Black Cockerel Chianti wine estate in apartments in a medieval building, 8 kms away from Sienna. From there with a car you can do Montepulciano, Florence, Montelcino, San Gimignano, Arrezzo, Cortone, even the coast near Grosseto, Lake Trasimeno and even Perugia into Umbria. The food in Tuscany is fantastic, lots of game, cooked in rustic style.

I honeymooned in Sorrento. There is more to see in that area than almost anywhere else. The Amalfi drive is spectacular, Amalfi, Positano, Ravello. Sorrento is great as a base to explore Capri, Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Vesuvius, etc. And I disagree with Sebastian Firefly on Naples. It is a fascinating place, full of character. Sicily is great, but far too large to cram into a long weekend. I've been three times and just about got a flavour of it. If you had to stay in one place there, it would be Taormina for me.

Piedmonte. Lots of wonderful places to see in that region. Turin is lovely, as are Asti, Alba and numerous medieval hilltop villages. Wine growing country, not too crowded, but the mountains one way and the coast the other. Where we stayed, Turin was 20 kms and Genoa 30 kms. Visited the lakes on the way down and also places like Portofino are within reach. Otherwise, Liguria, the Italian Riviera of flowers. Stay near San Remo close to the French border and you can nip across into Monaco/Monte Carlo, Menton, Nice, Cannes quite easily. The best of both worlds.

Maybe not in the football world, but somebody in the Psychiatric field might iron him out.

I think that Harry's decision to leave was a bit hasty. Almost a knee-jerk reaction.

The difference between the Puncheon situation and the Osvaldo one, is that as far as I was aware, Puncheon appeared to be quite popular with his team mates. Puncheon's problem seemed to be all about immature petulance, whereas Osvaldo seems just to be a bit mental with a short fuse. It is telling that his dispute was with Fonte, who appears to be the main man when it comes to making players feel at home here and he has been an excellent choice as captain because he has the respect of the players for that. Even though Fonte would probably forgive a contrite Osvaldo, he is just an accident waiting to happen again when he loses his temper and lashes out. Why would we risk disprupting the team spirit, which has been superb these past few months since he departed?

And does Hypo still think he's a rubbish signing?

A great bit of business. As others say, we probably have the best left back/right back pairing in the division. If we sign Alderweireld, combined with Fonte it could be argued that overall we have the best defence, although Forster would then be the weakest link for me.

Decisions, decisions. Should they follow Crystal Palace's gameplan,which we struggled with, or should they follow Swansea's gameplan which we struggled with? And right there are two diametrically opposite strategies. But the argument assumes that we will be fielding the same team that we did against Palace and that QPR will be comparable man for man to Palace. It also assumes that Koeman will have learnt nothing from the Palace match. And as you say, it depends who returns for us, as had we had the likes of Toby, Wanyama and Schneiderlin available, I couldn't see us losing either the Palace or the Swansea games, and I would be confident of beating QPR no matter what Redcrapp's strategy was.

We've got more injuries than any other team? Who would have thought it? The pundits hardly ever mention it, even though they are right on the ball in detailing the injuries that any other team has that is facing us. So when we have a reverse which could be excused because of those injuries in key positions, it is simply a case that the bubble has burst, Southampton are being found out, normal service in the hierarchy is being restored. But when Toby, Wanyama, Schneiderlin return and we start firing on all cylinders once more, then they will be scratching their heads wondering what brought about the change.

I thought the Northam were generally quite vociferous today, but then again, I sit in the Chapel/Kingsland corner, so maybe there is a better perspective from there. As for the assertion that the crowd got on the team's back the last 20 minutes, again I didn't notice that at all. I thought that there was good encouragement during that period. But then again, I must have been sitting in the wrong place to have heard it. Either that, or you were.

It looked like a yellow to me. Koeman thought so too, I didn't know that Monk agreed. Seeing the replay, it looks a bit clumsy that Bertrand's leg went over the ball, but he did make contact with the ball first and it wasn't malicious. It didn't surprise me one little bit that the ref red-carded it, as a series of poor decisions favouring Swansea all afternoon indicated that would be the case. In particular, he awarded a series of free-kicks to that fat Frog lump Gomis for minimal contact. but typically Pelle was taking the usual abuse from defenders leaning on him, kicking the sh*t out of him and getting nothing.

Having had as much possession in another team's half as I can remember in a long time, we had played some very entertaining football but lacked the initiative to turn it into an advantage by scoring. We started the second half as we left off, but for me the game-changer was Koeman's decision to take off Reed for Mane. Yes, he was going for the 3 points by increasing our attacking options. but Tadic or J-WP were the players who should have been taken off, as Reed had been very solid up until then. Missing Toby in defence and Wanyama and Schneiderlin in midfield had been exposed by Crystal Palace, but had not looked so much a problem in the league because Reed had been excellent alongside Davis. Shelvey had already had one snapshot and hit the post after the defence backed off and backed off him again. Quite what they were thinking allowing a player so much space to get a shot off, I don't know. And having done it once, did they learn from it? Not on your nelly. Mind you, I go the impression that Forster should have saved that comfortably. What we need to learn to do, is to move the ball faster forwards instead of poncing about moving it sideways and backwards, allowing Swansea to get every player behind the ball. Nevertheless, we still managed to get behind their defence several times, but tried to walk the ball into the net instead of shooting on sight. Clyne had his poorset game for us that I can remember. Typical of that was the time he skinned their left back and pressed towards the byeline but put it out with too heavy a touch. Several other times his wayward passing lost us possession. Tadic was OK for me the first half, but went backwards in the second half, so he deserved to be taken off. I can't be too critical of the other players, as overall that level of dominance cannot be achieved without good performances from most of the players. Talk of us having spoilt our chances of a CL league place on the back of this result are plainly nonsense. Apart from us being likely to have Toby, Schneiderlin and Wanyama to return very soon, there is the possibility to add a player or two tomorrow. Although there are many expressing the opinion that we need a striker to partner/relieve Pelle, Mane and Elia are additions too recent to make a judgement on as to whether they can do that job, although losing Long suggests that we are probably one short up top. What could be an exciting prospect is Elia and Mane each side of Pelle, something that has not been tried properly yet. Its a real pity that we couldn't get at least the draw that would have retained third above United, but we need to capitalise on 3 points against QPR to regain momentum and recognise that the top four or five teams all have matches against each other. We have Liverpool, City and Spurs to come so it is in our own hands to take points from them too.