Wes Tender

I thought that when teams are on equal points, that the away win takes precedence. So how are Liverpool above us and Fulham. Fulham are even above them alphabetically. Does historical precedence come into play? Or is it just down to the preference of the bloke making the table?

You beauts! Played really well by the sound of it, youngsters looking really assured, defence solid with a great debut for Lovren, who doesn't take any prisoners. Midfield in command first half with a good showing from Wanyama and Schneiderlin underpinning it. Lallana apparently onside for his goal, but Rodrigues presumably interfering with play. Not often that we've come away with all three points on the opening day, so already three poionts ahead of last season. We looked value for the win and kept plugging away right to the end. The levels of fitness in the team must have been quite something. Shaw lasted the match thank goodness, bearing in mind that his injury a week ago looked to be more serious and the penalty was down to him and a great run into the box. Debate whether Mulumbu should have been sent off because of one yellow already.

It just looks very cheap IMO and also pretty expensively priced for a very ordinary plain white T shirt with a single colour advert. So one screen only and a T shirt costing under £2 to buy wholesale and lots of lovely lolly into the pockets of creativemidfielder, with the sales sweetener of the £3 donation to the Saints Foundation and the Saints connection to entice buyers. So it calls into question the motives of the campaign, whether it is to garner support for the return of stripes, or to make money using the campaign as an excuse. I wouldn't expect many to buy it at that price for something that looks so amateurish.

I was more excited this time last season, because of the frisson brought by the incredible success of the two preceding seasons and the journey into the unknown, being back in the Premier Division after a 6 year absence. This is the first time having watched Saints that I am not nervous about relegation.

No. He wouldn't suit their style of hoofball and he certainly wouldn't be able to understand Fat Sam. Also having played alongside Totti, Carroll is going to appear even more the donkey that he is.

Surely Venduto is sold? I'm only half Italian on my mother's side, and without asking her, I'm going on what I had picked up over the years without being fluent, but I would expect that the English translation had some origins from the Latin. Thus Ceduto = ceded, i.e given in to, whereas the venduto is based on vend (sell), therefore the past participle venduto = was sold. Rinunciare no doubt connected with renounce, whereas another verb for to give up is abbandonare, obviously in the sense of abandon. I'm sure that as in English there are subtle nuances following the usage of words in various contexts. Checking on cedere here pretty well supports my intuitive thoughts:- http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-italian/give%20up

Pochettino could assist him in going to the toilet?

No it doesn't. It means ceded/sold Tranferred would be trasferito

It does.

It's the bit under the headline that's important. If I guess at the word obscured following the "s", then say it was probably "sole" Then it would read that Rome has closed the deal for 18 million euros, now it only lacks the yes from the player.

What an incredible debut! Only on for the last 25 minutes, scores within 3 minutes with his first touch and could have had two more. I think he's made a reasonable case for himself to be given another cap at least, even if first choice players become available again, maybe as an impact sub perhaps.

On the contrary, spending £20 million on two players is often better than spending smaller amounts on more players, provided that there was a decent foundation to the bulk of the team to begin with. It suggests that players of a higher calibre are being added to a reasonably solid team, therefore fine-tuning. Add a striker of quality and then total expenditure of £30/£50 million for just three players would be significant, especially when considered together with substantial expenditure last season. If that is not reasonable justification for an improvement on the 14th position we achieved last season, then I don't know what is. Can I see Chelsea and City rolling over at St Mary's as they did last season? Yes, of course I can. Equally I can see us losing to the teams that finish in the relegation zone. The only thing that is certain about football, is that no result is a certain win for any team before the match starts. As you say, other teams around us might improve as a result of signings they have made. But look at all the marquee signings QPR made last season. Where did it get them? There have been management changes at some of the top clubs. What will the result be with that? Second season syndrome? No more something hard and fast than the perceived wisdom that a team that was in our position after such an early dismal points total would inevitably be relegated. There are factors that aid 2nd season syndrome, like those teams losing important players that shone in the first season, or the failure to introduce new players to strengthen the team further, neither of which applies to us. Saying it is laughable that heads will roll if we only manage 14th, seems to be naive when Adkins lost his job having got us just one position lower last season when we were newly promoted. I feel pretty confident that Pochettino is in no doubt as to the security of his tenure if he fails to improve on that position by at least a few places.

A good article by the Guardian, but provided that we get in a striker of the calibre of those we seem to be after, I reckon that 8th - 10th is where I would hope us to be. If we only manage 13th/14th after all the investment made, then Pochettino will be gone. Last season we had one of the worst starting fixture lists ever in Premiership history and did well to pull it back in the middle of the season and onwards. We have a much easier start this season and if we get off to a decent start, the momentum we get from an early confidence boost could carry us forward well. I'm not that bothered about the comments about Wanyama when he was playing against the poor Scottish teams. He didn't seem to fare too badly against Champions League teams in pre-season and I believe that having better players around him will improve him into one of the stand-out midfielders this season. The stiffening of the defence, a settled, experienced goalkeeper, the additional experience that players have of the top flight and the addition of a top striker, all should mean that we really ought to be a good position to press on upwards.

Quote Originally Posted by frattonmush's blog: Would these yolks around their neck be the result of all the egg on their face?

It's a shame that a thread on one of our players is derailed because of the posts of this one individual just because of the origin of the newspaper article that sparked the OP. It was generous of you to suggest that Dorkish was just being sarcastic, although with sarcasm being the lowest form of wit, that would explain why he excuses himself by saying that his remarks were not meant to be hilarious. His contribution was trolling, pure and simple. Several posts taking the OP way off topic and not one single opinion given regarding the OP, although even if there were one, it probably wouldn't be clear if it was serious or not.

The author lives in the New Forest, is Italian and a fan of Saints and Napoli. I wonder whether he posts on here?

I thought that it was an interesting read too.

I wasn't that impressed with him today, to be honest. He showed some nice touches, but also lost the ball with misplaced passes several times. There certainly should be a place in the team for a player of his undoubted talent, but there are now other options amongst the team that seem to suit Pochettino's style of play. Lallana when on form like today for instance. Or Davis is effective playing just behind a striker high up as a ball winner. Puncheon showed more flair than Ramirez today and was prepared to take on defenders in the box. Or even Schneiderlin playing high up the field is also very effective in that role.

Just back from the match. Overall, I'd say that we were good value for the win, which considering the quality of the opposition is most encouraging. We played better in the first half and I believe that most of that line-up will be the preferred starters next week. Clyne will hopefully come back soon, but Chambers didn't do too badly in his place. Lovren and Wanyama also looked to be slotting in quite nicely too. Wanyama is a very big commanding player and held the ball up well and generally delivered it well to his team mates, doing the simple stuff well. Over the course of the match my impressions were that Rodrigues was very sharp and caused them a lot of problems. Ricky was OK, but there was a bit of a ruck involving him and a defender where Ricky pushed him with both hands in the chest a couple of times. The referee consulted the linesman and eventually he gave them each a card, but what was Ricky thinking? Schneiderlin also had an excellent game with 3 or 4 superb long cross pitch passes to set up attacks and also his usual array of tackles, blocks and interceptions. Rodrigues and Ward-Prowse both had decent long range shots on target, the one by Rodrigues particularly audacious and had the goallie back-peddling. With all of the second half substitutions, the game had lost impetus by half way through the second half and just as I was thinking that we lacked pace out wide, on come Puncheon, Isgrove and Mayuka! Puncheon in particular was the player to really make a difference as he is prepared to run at players with the ball at his feet, attack the box and cause defenders problems. There was a superb save by Boruc early on which should have been a goal for Real, but equally there was one of our shots cleared off the line and a couple of increbible last ditch tackles, one from Lovren and another from one of their defenders where if either had not been timed to perfection, either a goal or a penalty would have ensued. A bad defensive mistake from the usually reliable Cork should have handed them a goal on a plate, but the missed shot was comic. So the match might even have produced another two or three goals. Shaw going off injured again is a bit of a worry, but Fox didn't do too badly in his place, although RS's style of play included several early balls hit long to their pacey forwards and as a tactic, I thought that Fox would have been done for pace, but thankfully that never happened. Overall, very encouraging that during pre-season we have played some Champions League teams and given a good account of ourselves. Friendly matches don't mean that much, but equally the teams we beat would have been playing to win themselves.

Not that I'm arguing in support of MLG, but a fanbase isn't just those who attend matches, is it?

I went to the Los Angeles Olympics and had tickets to watch the match between USA and I think it was Italy if I remember correctly. Well, needless to say, the stadium was packed with Yanks who hadn't ever been to see a "Soccer" match before and barely 15 minutes had passed before the guy beside me decided to ask the Limey who would know about these things, "when are they going to call a time out?" He was incredulous that the match would consist of two halves of 45 minutes each with no other breaks. He also thought that there might be a specialist kicker who could be brought on just to take free kicks.

No point in getting all precious about it if you're not even going to understand the main thrust of the argument. I don't see many believing that we have a better midfield overall than United. The comparison of the OP was between the three central midfielders and from what I can see, it has already been admitted by those who consider that our midfiled trio are better than United's, that when the wide midfield players are included, they have the better midfield. If you bothered to look at the comments supporting our three against theirs more closely, there is even then qualification from most that Wanyama is an unknown quantity. My own position is that it isn't a comparison between individuals, as the more salient point is whether they play well together and my opinion is that at least Cork and Schneiderlin are a better pairing from that perspective than Carrick and Cleverley. So if there were to be a poll, it shouldn't ask whether our midfield was better than ours, but I suspect that if those three players alone were polled against their three, I reckon more than 30% would vote that ours were better. And if they did, it isn't helpful to call them clueless or mental just because they don't share your opinion.

Yes, and I mentioned some of them. Was I trying to prove a point any more than you were? But I'm quite happy for the debate to return to the OP's contention about whether our central midfield is as good as theirs, as there is little scope in us debating where else we might stand comparison against them.

Where did I disagree with you? I merely put forward the position that as well as having the quality of player that ensures that they finish near the top of the league every year, a lot of the media attention they get is because they are a glory club with the attendant demand from those plastic fans to see them play on the box and read about them in the Sun. As I said, it is self-perpetuating. You speak of the success they have had since the inception of the Premier League, but I regret that I am old enough to remember the considerable boost they gained with the death of the Busby Babes in the Munich air disaster and more recently the setback when they were relegated to the second division alongside us under Docherty as two events that helped shape their support in both directions.

There are a number of reasons for their large following, but because of their success historically, their support tends to be self-perpetuating to an extent based on factors like parental influence on their children for example. Equally their media exposure helps in that direction too. It's a chicken and egg situation that will only be diminished by a serious decline in their fortunes and the rise of other clubs to usurp their position over a number of years. I suspect that Liverpool are suffering a diminishing level of support from the plastics as a result of their recent failure to get back into the top 2 or three and Man United would have to suffer a similar decline over a number of years for the situation to alter drastically.