Wes Tender

The Beeb stoked up a feeding frenzy over Huhne today, revealing some pretty nasty text messages sent to him by his son, who loathes him for cheating on his mother. Then some Lib Dem decided to bring up Aitken and Archer and said that Huhne wouldn't want to remembered in the same way as them, conveniently overlooking Thorpe, Oaten and Paddy Pantsdown. They're all as bad as each other.

Because not every voter who voted for the Lib Dems in the last election was a Lib Dem. You have heard of floating voters, haven't you? Eastleigh had been Conservative since the seat had been formed until Milligan's fiasco. There will be a backlash because Huhne is a liar and not just about the speeding, but also claiming to be a family man.

Maria Hutchings is a very good candidate for the Conservatives and as it was the by-election caused by the death of Stephen Milligan that handed the seat to the Lib-Dems, it will be justice if she wins the seat back, considering the circumstances of this by-election, which should rightly affect the Lib-Dem vote.

Are we to have one of these Pochettino tactical genius threads after every match? He's only been here three games and we've had two already. I'll concede that he seems to be capable of good tactical changes halfway through a match, but incapable of the tactical plan to start the match and go into half-time with a lead. Yesterday Martinez got one over him for the first 45 minutes and but for a superb save from Boruc, we would have been two down. But Adkins often had a record of the team being able to dominate one half too. So I reserve judgement on whether Pochettino is an improvement in that department, as our record of 2 points out of 9 is not brilliant. And as already observed by others, some players are not playing as well as they did, whilst others have improved. Do the tactics suit some players better than others? If so, then time to change the selection to reflect that.

Another match where one has to question whether Adkins wouldn't have achieved as much. Another match where we were only good in one half. For all that Pochettino's tactical ability is lauded so early in his tenure, Martinez was the one whose team asked the questions in the first half with his use of three CBs and the wing backs. We found it difficult to get behind them because of the width they had and then there were five defenders back for them preventing us getting in behind them. OK, tactical changes by Pochettino produced two goals in the second half, but having pulled ahead with just a few minutes left on the clock, our poor defending of set pieces cost us two points and both goals against. And what was that all about, bringing off Clyne for Lallana and putting Cork right back? Why not bring off Puncheon at that stage and keep our shape? Puncheon didn't seem to have been his usual self during the past two matches and maybe the threat of Clyne and Puncheon up the right wing was negated by Wigan's width. It looks a bit worrying that we have just taken 1 point against Wigan's four and that Reading seem to be on a roll and now only just behind us. Judging by our defending, the introduction of Forren can't come too soon and the thinking that we had a strong enough team to enable our survival begins to look questionable if we picked up one or two more key injuries.

No, it is you who looks like a spanner for saying that West Ham were as likely to go down as Manchester United. Many on here have had a good laugh at your expense for this opinion of yours, especially as Man Utd were safe from relegation when you said it and West Ham weren't/aren't currently

The forum's towering intellect has expounded his opinion that all debate is futile against those deemed by him to be clueless. He whose definitive position on West Ham's survival prospects was that they were "currently as likely as to go down as Manchester United are".

Football WAS a working class game originally, but it is changing exactly for the reason you stated, that many working class fans can't afford to go. Also the insinuation that the vast majority of fans attending the home matches are blue collar workers who come from within the City is also laughable. A significant proportion of them now drive in from the leafy suburbs and from high property value areas like Bassett, Chandlers Ford, Winchester, Romsey, etc. I suspect that only about half come from within the city boundaries and that the middle classes now constitute a very significant proportion of attendees. Call me a newspaper snob by all means, even though I have stopped reading newspapers because there are more readily available and more reliable alternative sources of news now, but it is very telling that you call your readership the "great unwashed".

I'm of the same opinion. It cost him nothing to compliment us, in fact it made them look better for coming away with the points despite our better match stats, apart that is from the one that really counts, the score. So we get praise from him and the TV pundits and then they reiterate that it is the mark of a great team that they fashioned a win even when they don't play as well as they are capable of. My main concern though, is that for all that we were devastating in the second half, (apart from punishing them with goals), we were nothing special in the first half. And that has been typical of us in many games this season, that we have only shone in one half of matches.

How can the Sun be considered an influential newspaper if people on their office staff can't even spell it? It might have influence purely on the basis that a significant percentage of readers have a vote that can be influenced, but most of the ABC1 demographic movers and shakers in the Country look on it as a comic. I doubt that an intelligent bloke like Cortese reads it, other than for pieces about the Club.

This post strikes a chord with me. A high line is effective against the glory teams, where you are in their face and don't allow them to settle and pick out the killer passes to their strikers, who will punish you if you don't close them down. How will we fare if a team plays that way against us, or hits us on the break, or with the long ball over the top? Maybe Martinez has the advantage of his extra experience over Pochettino in this division.

If you can't see that we hold different positions, then I'm not going to bother trying to spell it out to you in the same way that I would if I were a Primary school teacher, so that you will understand. There is my definition of a selling club. We are not any longer a selling club. As for the other thing, you never did give me an answer to my question. I'll ask it again. If we were to finish a season soon in second position in the Premiership, would that be considered a success? And if so, why did finishing second previously in the top division somehow not constitute a success in your mind?

No, it's not a gamble I agree with. My position has always been that when we got to the January window, Adkins would have had the opportunity to have brought in players to strenghten the team to consolidate our position in the divsion and virtually guarantee that we would not be relegated. Firstly I had not contemplated that Adkins would not be here to bring about those changes and secondly I had not anticipated that it would be deemed to be unecessary that beyond an extra signing at CB, nothing further was needed to either improve the squad, or bring in extra cover. For me the jury is still out on Pocchettino and the last couple of results are not beyond what I would have expected Adkins to be capable of. I have always said since Adkins sacking that to my mind, finishing no better than 15th would mean that there was no point in getting shot of Adkins, as that is where he had us.

Your usual idiotic position, probably just as a wind-up to try and justify your rocketing number of daily posts ever since you arrived on here relatively recently. A bit like your contention that Saints had never been successful. A selling club is one that has to sell their assets periodically in order to keep their heads above water financially. From that perspective, we don't have a need to sell our best players. If we are offered stupid sums of money for a player, then we would be silly not to take it, but again, we don't have too if we don't want to.

The trouble is that if we were only 90% as good as we would otherwise have been with a full strength team, then that might be the difference between survival and relegation. And you have factored in injuries, but not suspensions. You say that we have good cover in virtually every position with the possible exception of Lambert, but he is probably the key player that we need good cover for. Would we continue to get the required number of goals without him for several weeks? In the previous seasons, we were scoring goals from all over the pitch, but this season, with the higher standards in the division, not too many goals have come from the midfield or the defence as previously. It might be that Pocchettino's tactics of playing a high line might produce more goals from other players, we'll have to wait and see. We are doing OK so far without Fonte with Hooiveld covering and Guly is not a miss with Lallana returning. But one more injury out wide or to the defence and we begin to look a bit short, especially to the fullbacks. And every first choice player replaced by his understudy weakens us. Getting back to the subject of the thread, I was led to believe by the rumours of whom we were associated with that Pochettino's contacts would get us some good prospects from Spain or Argentina that Adkins might not have been able to get us. As that has not happened, then the OP seems to be correct at this stage, but maybe his contacts will come fully into effect in the Summer - if we're still in the Premier division.

I agree. The decision does seem to be short-sighted.

I think that if he goes to Forest, our decision to sack Adkims could backfire and come back to bite us on the bum. Forest are a much bigger club than us, having been League Champions, European Champions and League Cup winners. Despite the proximity of Derby, they have a much larger catchment area than us, what with the Peak District being right on their doorstep. They are one of those sleeping giants and nobody currently has a better record of getting clubs promoted from the lower divisions than Adkits. I think that he could end up having the last laugh over Cortese.

Play like we did in the first half against United on the other hand....

K Davis, J Hooiveld, D Fox, J Fonte, N Clyne, S Davis (J Ward-Prowse, 75), A Lallana, M Schneiderlin, R Lambert, G Do Prado, J Rodriguez (B Sharp, 76) That was the team we played early in the season when they beat us 2-0 at St Mary's. Several things have changed since then. Although Fonte had improved since then, he's out. But Yoshida is a more than capable deputy. The biggest improvement though, is the arrival back from injury of Cork. Neither Puncheon nor Ramirez played. Boruc appears to be an improvement now on Davis. Shaw is infinitely better than Fox. Clyne is much improved too. Taken together with the improvement brought about with the replacement to Adkins for somebody possessing tactical genius and endorsed by the likes of Mourinho and Guardiola, there is no way that we should accept anything less than a resounding win.

He was fit, but it was a mis-translation. He had meant to say that Shaw wasn't fit to play ahead of Fox, but the interpreter translated it as Shaw wasn't fully fit, so Fox would play instead. But MP changed his mind having seen Fox's poor positional play. He now realises that a 90% fit Shaw is better than a 100% fit Fox.

A great new signing just before the transfer window closes. Which club did we get him from?

Did we play 4-4-2 then? Or was Rodrigues playing left wing, which was described as a dismal failure by many on here when Adkins tried it before. Whether Adkins would have started with the same selection or made the same substitutions is impossible to know, but for anybody claiming that MP is the better tactician, it must be admitted that the first half wasn't great tactically, but we improved massively in the second half. But Adkins' teams were also capable of having a poor half and then come out the second half playing much better football too, so what's the difference? It is arguable that a briliant tactician would have instilled his game plan into the players' minds so that they implemented it right from the first whistle. The MOTD pundits, (well, Shearer, actually) claimed that we pressed United right from the start and used the early goal to illustrate it. But then for the rest of the half we didn't particularly press them back until the beginning of the second half, when they had already scored the two goals that gave them the three points. And it could have been more than two goals too. Perhaps a half-time rollicking and the two substitutions removed the players that MP blamed for not pressing high enough, but it was certainly strange that Ramirez and Puncheon hadn't offered that, as they usually have marauded upfield in most matches they've played for us. So what will be the lesson learned by Pochettino from this? That we cannot reasonably play Ramirez and Lallana together? That Davies offers more to the pressing high up the pitch game plan than Puncheon?

Well, it didn't take long, did it, for the knives to come out and the hatchet job on Adkins' reputation as a decent guy to begin? All rumour, hearsay, innuendo from somebody hiding anonymously behind a computer screen. Even if there isn't a shred of evidence to support it, some mud will inevitably stick.

Yes, Rodrigues gave away the free kick, being a typical striker, clumsy in the tackle. Fox should have been there. What has it being United's right back who was fouled got to do with anything? Doesn't our right back Clyne get forward sometimes? Difference is, he's quick enough and bright enough to get back and do his job. Fox isn't.

I wouldn't be unhappy never to see Fox play LB again. United scored from a free kick awarded against Rodrigues, who was doing Fox's job for him. We need better cover than Fox for when Shaw is injured, if we're to advance up the table. If we don't bring anybody in today, then maybe Forren or one of the other CBs can cover for him.