Wes Tender

*yawn* read back to where this was all done to death earlier in the thread and stop boring everybody to death raking over old coals. It doesn't do you any favours.

More the even bigger fool you, then. Just go and mix together words from three sentences and make a fourth sentence which you call paraphrasing. It contains all the right words, but not necessarily in the right order, to paraphrase Eric Morecombe.

More fool you then

Continuing with that falsehood makes you look a bit of a fool if I may say so. You can Google what he actually said, or you can pay more attention to what was written about it on this very thread when some idiot last attempted to lie about it. If your chosen route is to Google it, ignore the distorted interpretation from the remoaner propaganda rags, the Guardian and the Independent Russian News in particular, which were presumably your source of misunderstanding in the first place.

https://brexitcentral.com/deal-no-deal-heres-brexit-cannot-stopped/ If he is proved right, reasons to be cheerful.

A superb performance from Saints, considering the lack of striker options up front. A great pity that we couldn't keep the point, but United know that they have been in a tight match. Ultimately the difference between us and them, is that they had World class players who will finish eventually given enough misses when they are having an off day, whereas we were the team showing the greater spirit and determination. Although being at Old Trafford and having a homie referee favoured them, it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that we could have kept the point at 2-2, or even sneaked all three against the rub of the green. I'm proud of the team today. There were some really good performances from most of them. Shout outs for Ward-Prowse again, also Valerie, Bertrand and Redmond, but I don't believe that any of the team had a poor game. Bring on Spurs and a similar fighting performance against them with home advantage and a referee who is neutral at worst.

We've ridden our luck, but if United's finishing has been poor, then that's the way it is. We could ourselves have been two up if it hadn't been that Stuart Atwell hadn't been United's 12th man. A reasonable penalty shout and several clear cut fouls not given to us, as well as an obvious goal kick given to them as a corner. And where did three minutes of extra time come from? With a bit of luck the fourth official will have a word in his shell-like and tell him that he has been a biased tw*t and he will make some attempt to be a bit more professional in the second half. We've played well and disrupted them with our pressing and movement. Valery has been exceptional in mugging Pogba a couple of times and his goal was sublime.

Good shout - Soi 5

I would say that Redmond is faster than most PL defenders. My saying that his pace being scary for any defence is predicated on him being on the halfway line at set pieces against us well into our half. As I say, he adds little for us defensively, but it would require a couple of defenders to stick close to him in the event of a quick ball clearance towards him. But I take it that you accept that Fulham's defence for a start wouldn't have felt secure with that strategy?

So which of the Fulham defenders would have beaten him for pace, for example?

Did I say that he did? I said that I thought that he was selected as an option to counter Mitrovic's strength and bulk. I was offering an opinion on team selection, not commenting on the performance of the defence during the match. It isn't like you to get the wrong end of the stick through misapprehension, Shurlock. But do you really believe that everybody who watched the match will have the same opinion on the performances of individual players anyway? Or is only your opinion valid? I didn't comment much on the defence, but it was mostly solid throughout. Yoshida with his experience much better than Stephens would have been, Vestergaard becoming better every match and Bednarek effective and reliable, as I say, the bedrock of the defence.

Interesting to contrast the way that Cardiff played against us and the way that Fulham did. Two relegation zones teams playing a third, they both have very experienced managers, but the way Ranieri set out Fulham tactically played into our hands. Cardiff parked the bus and attempted to hit us on the break or from set pieces, but I couldn't believe the amount of space that Fulham allowed us. Many might have raised eyebrows at us playing three CBs for a home match, but arguably Vestergaard was needed as muscle and height against Mitrovic, Yoshida provides pace and an aerial threat at set pieces and Bednarek is increasingly the defensive bedrock. But it allowed us five across the midfield, which meant that we were able to deploy Bertrand and Valery out wide, stretching Fulham out to create the space for Romeu, Hojbjerg and Ward-Prowse to flourish and provide the service for Redmond and Austin up top. Some have been critical about Valery's contribution, suggesting that he had not offered much going forward, but at most times during the match, he was in the same acres of space out wide that Bertrand was and either Bertrand offered the more experienced outlet with Redmond ahead of him, or right footed players on the ball favoured passing to the left. Valery acquitted himself well enough, but the Bertrand/Redmond axis was back to old times in effectiveness. For much of the match, the midfield played with good intensity, pressing the ball well and with the width available, the crossed balls from the left particularly meant that we were able to get behind the Fulham defence often. Redmond was closed down effectively, but Austin put himself about well with good movement and positioning and caused problems with a few shots blocked and even a goal which was disallowed. With injuries to Ings and Obefemi, Austin has the chance to step up and he is beginning to look leaner and fitter than of late under the Hassenhuttl regime. If he puts in the same amount of effort as he did last night, he tires towards the end, and the option of fresh legs from Long was a good one for his pace and nuisance value, if not for his scoring prowess. Because of our shortage of striking options because we sold Gabbiadini and then suffered the inevitable injuries to Ings and Obafemi, we are down to Redmond, Austin, Long and Gallagher/Sims, the latter two seemingly not adjudged to be realistic options. It is therefore just as well that we possess a goal threat from our midfield and potentially our defence. Ward-Prowse in particular is slotting them away, and Hojbjerg, Armstrong and Romeu have all shown the ability to shoot from outside the box, with Yoshida good in the air at set pieces. Just a thought that occurred to me during the match. Because Redmond was generally well marshalled by Fulham's defence, I wondered whether it would have been a really effective tactic to have him on the halfway line when we are defending corners. He adds little to us defensively, but would be a scary prospect for any defence with his pace if he received the ball early out of defence. Surely the three CBs offer us that choice? We have some difficult fixtures coming up, but a competent performance last night, even against poor opposition, will have given us a confidence boost. It is a shame that we aren't playing Mourinho's Manchester United, but the team selected last night with maybe Armstrong playing, (instead of which player?) and the general tactics employed will be the most effective against the top teams if we play as we did against Arsenal and Everton, pressing high and closing down their flair players.

There were times during the half that we put some real pressure on Arsenal's defence and then typically one of their players went down injured and the momentum went and we didn't get it back. No reason why we shouldn't get it back if we start the second half on the front foot and don't allow Arsenal to settle. The main problem though, is that we lack the bite up top. Get a goal back early in the half and get in Arsenal's faces and it might be a different story. Take off Stephens and go 4-4-2 perhaps, with a striker up top? What have we got to lose when two down?

I wonder whether Plymouth might want Stephens back again. Please give Yoshida a chance

Bloody Stephens again. Can we please drop him for a year or two?

No. We didn't vote for ever closer union in 1975. We voted to stay in the Common Market. The change to ever closer union began with Maastricht, and they sure as hell didn't want us to be allowed to vote on that.

The solution has been mentioned more than once on this thread. It should have been obvious from analysis of Cardiff's recent tactics that they would park the bus. Therefore we did not have to play with three centre backs. We could have added an extra midfielder to tighten up control there and would have been able to hit them higher up the field.

Following the knee-jerk reactions yesterday evening, the cold light of day the morning after has some more level-headed opinions surfacing. I believe that the loss against Cardiff was mainly due to them setting themselves well tactically to park the bus and stop us playing to our strengths on the one hand, and us being short of the players with the ability to break down their defensive wall. We on the other hand, didn't set ourselves up to maximise our potential to hit them more quickly and harder, so from that perspective we played into their hands. But there aren't many teams who will set themselves up so negatively, and we will have better creative chances from more open play in matches against those other teams, even the handful of top clubs. We have a couple of weeks break for Hasenhuttl to mull over his plans for getting us away from the relegation zone. Hopefully several things will have become clear from the last few matches where we should have been picking up 3 points from clubs around us in the table, but failed to do so. Firstly, the past couple of matches (and Derby in the Cup) demonstrate that we need to learn how to see out a match in which we have an advantage. We need to keep possession, cut out the silly mistakes and remain calm and focussed under pressure. Secondly, we should not be too timid defensively at home when playing against all but the top half dozen teams. Thirdly, it should be evident that certain players just aren't good enough and shouldn't be picked to start or come on as substitutes unless there is no other choice. Long and Elyounoussi primarily in that category. Two weeks will hopefully allow Bertrand to be coached into Hasenhuttl's game plan, also Yoshida to provide an alternative to the error prone Stephens, valuable time towards the recovery of Ings, Lemina, Obafemi, Armstrong? and an opportunity to have a closer look at some of the youngsters and fringe players.

Really? Worse than Lowe? Never.

Look on the bright side; without him, we probably wouldn't have the pre-match pyrotechnics, clappers and the red carpet around the pitch.

Simply rubbish. The EU referendum has produced some very strange bedfellows on both sides, who would have hardly any other policies in common, as they are diametrically opposed politically.

Burnley v Brighton was the parallel universe match to ours. A really blatant handball penalty shout for Brighton, not given. Then Barnes gets taken down by the Brighton keeper, penalty given.

I thought that the essence of the style of play that Hasenhuttl promised to bring, would be the high pressing game, players hunting in packs to dispossess the opposition high up the park, pressurising their defence into mistakes which we could punish. In short, the style of play that Pochettino brought us, which was fairly new to the PL at the time and taught to him as a disciple of Bielsa, who is currently revitalising Leeds. But even under Pochettino in his pomp here, there were teams who stifled his game plan by parking the bus throughout the match and then hoped to hit us with a sucker punch against the run of play from a set piece or the ball over the top. Neil Warnock is another wily old bird like Dyche last week, capable of a strategy to frustrate creative passing teams by allowing them to keep possession until they get to the last third of the pitch, and then closing the space down. The only realistic way to score against a defence like that is from set pieces, incisive defence splitting through balls, or shots from distance. Without Ings, or the likes of players like Tadic or Gabbiandini, we lacked the guile to create the defence splitting passes, or the players capable of anticipating when they might be created. On more than one occasion, the ball was slipped through and nobody was there, and it went out of play to groans of dismay from the stands. Tippy tappy dribbling in the box by Redmond or J W-P was ineffective, as they didn't have the space. Too often we were afraid to shoot from the edge of the box, and set piece balls into the box were ably defended. As it should have been clear to Hasenhuttl that Cardiff would sit back and invite us to break them down, did we need the three central defenders? The extra player either in the midfield or up top would have given us more chance of winning the balls in the midfield and then breaking more quickly into their box. As it was, by the time we broke forward, their defence was packed. I'm afraid to say that this was like watching any typical game against the likes of West Brom or Stoke under Puel, the Clown or Hughes. After a bright start, as the match progressed, the sideways and backwards passes and throw ins became more and more frequent. By half time, it looked already like a bore draw, neither side looking capable of scoring. But having scored first, Cardiff were even more likely to close up shop, waste time and frustrate us. Thankfully we equalised through Stephens and with enough time to go for it and maybe even gain all three points, except there are few teams out there at the moment less capable of defending at the end of a match. Stephens giveth and Stephens taketh away once more, giving them possession sloppily from which they went forward to score the winner. Their chances of breaching our defence had been increased by Hasenhuttl taking of Vestergaard and the excellent Valery (although he might have been carrying a knock). Once again, we conceded right at the death late in injury time, and the fans streamed towards the exit before the final whistle, deflated and dejected by a sub-standard performance against a really poor Cardiff, who had done the double over us. There was some reason for optimism before the match when it was clear that we had Bertrand back, also Yoshida and Hojbjerg, but Armstrong was a big miss, as was Ings, so we lacked firepower up top. Long has if anything become a worse player recently. If he is incapable of scoring goals, at least he used to offer an outlet for the ball over the top, or 100% nuisance effort. Recently he has offered very little of either. As for Elyounoussi, what exactly does he bring to the team at all? Tadic would have brought something really positive and inventive and we miss him badly. I wouldn't be bothered if Elyounoussi never played another minute for us. Valery was good today, as was Bertrand and Redmond. The defence was generally OK, but the balance of the team was wrong, too many at the back, not enough in midfield or up top. Having decided that we could ship out Gabbiadini and Cedric in the January transfer window and not replace them at all, we now look desperately short up top with Ings out, and potentially weak if we have injuries to Valery/Bertrand/Targett. We will at least have Yoshida, Armstrong and Lemina to add to the choices. I still think that we have enough to keep us up, but it is typical of us to not capitalise against the teams around us and then to perform against the better teams. It is disappointing that Hasenhuttl got it wrong today, but I believe he will have learned from it and will make the adjustments so that we don't make the same mistakes again so easily. So they're off to a sunshine break at Tenerife. If it was me, I would have told them that the break there was a reward for if they played well, giving 100%, and that sorry lads, you didn't, so you're not going.

Because you can lump everybody together that voted to leave the sclerotic, failing EU and naturally assume that they all believe in all the same things eh?

JHB nails the Tusk, Verhofstadt and Juncker childishness.