Wes Tender

Having had a response from Give it to Ron, it appears that it is in fact you who has confused the context and misinterpreted it. I reiterate, what he said does not constitute an opinion that he thought that the defence was good. I accept though that regardless of the defensive players that Hughes will have available to him, you believe that based on his previous management record, he will turn even good defenders into poor ones, or fail to improve those that we already have. Citing the goals conceded at the end of last season has absolutely nothing at all to do with him inheriting a squad of demoralised players from Pellegrino, does it? It couldn't be that the steady improvement towards the end of that season where our defence conceded very little, even against the Champions had nothing at all to do with him, could it? I wasn't a fan of Hughes' signing, but I'm open minded enough to give him a chance before making my mind up before the new season has even started.

I think that you should try some objectivity. Firstly I understand that you weren't even at the match, so in part your opinion was coloured by the match stream and comments on here. Secondly, it was just a friendly and half of the usual defence was not even playing and also contained a new player who hasn't had much opportunity to forge an understanding with the other defenders. Thirdly, responding to an opinion that the defence wasn't poor, just two were, doesn't equate to it meaning that the poster said that the defence was good. On the basis of what you have posted so far, I can understand why you would try to shut down the conversation, as it is ridiculous to project forward how the defence will turn out into the new season based on a pre-season friendly like this.

But maybe not if we had played a full strength side throughout the match. The whole point of pre-season friendlies is for both managers to be able to assess new players and fringe players

A comical whinge on here for the first half, when we weren't playing too badly. Effectively we had a reasonable share of the possession, generally passed the ball around well and had good movement. Celta had two chances and tucked both away. Their first was a classy finish, but Sisto should have been closed down. Their second was a gift wrapped chance offered to them on a plate by a stupid defensive error from Long. Armstrong put in a man of the match performance and his energy and commitment was that of Davis in his pomp when he first arrived at the club. I think that he will turn out to be real find for us. Davis though OK, was a shadow of his former presence and Romeu was clumsy, off the pace, gave the ball away too easily and could have picked up a yellow or even two in a proper league match. The defence wasn't dire, I thought that Vestegaard looks a prospect giving height and muscle and keen to get forward out of defence on occasion with the ball at his feet. Early days to assess the defence without Yoshida and Cedric, although in the second half a great performance from Targett was definitely a big plus as back-up or first choice to both Cedric and Bertrand, or indeed to play ahead of them out wide. He has obviously benefited from he match time at Fulham, and has to be retained by Hughes. He provided assists for two of our goals as well, so we would be mad to sell him now. Up front, Gabbiadini looked sharp and inventive, but needs players around him to be on the same wavelength to his movement and touches. Armstrong looked as he could reach an understanding with him, but Long didn't. Long's first touch tonight was poor, although he did hit the post. With several changes to the team in the second half, Austin did what he does best and scored from a header and he and Gabbiadini looked like a real threat together. That he scored was not that unusual, but the big bonus was the other two goals scored by the new boys, Armstrong and Elyounoussi. Another plus was having three goals scored. Overall, it seemed that even in a friendly, the pace and closing down that we had gave us an edge over a team not used to it in the Spanish league. The match should have given Hughes some pointers as to which players would be first choice, although he still needs to assess those who were absent. Although the stadium was sparsely attended, it was a very enjoyable match on the whole. Two things were too loud though; the stadium speaker system played the awful music at level 11, and the bright red pitch surround was also far too loud and garish. I couldn't work out whether that was artificial grass sprayed red, or Wilton Carpet. Oh, and the lights under the stand were a distraction too, although the new ones on the roof edge looked OK. Before the lights were properly at their peak, there was a nice atmosphere when mobile phone torches lit up around the ground, quite reminiscent of the Wembley final last year.

So you don't think that he will be nicer than V V-D?

Speaks good English, talks intelligently, has pretensions to be a leader, but humble enough to recognise that he needs to earn the respect of his team mates before being worthy of consideration. He seems a likeable guy with an easy manner about him, so should get on well with the other players, having a head start with his compatriot Hojbjerg. I have a feeling that he might well be as good as V V-D, but nicer with it.

Moaning about our players going down in the box? Or wrestled to the ground? If their players weren't so thick, they would have noticed from past matches that referees would not tolerate that sort of behaviour and that if they wished to give away penalties, that was one way to go about it. I wonder how many signatures an English petition would attract if it suggested that the Colombian team should have been forced to take their penalties in the shoot-out from the spot that their player had badly scuffed up?

Full marks, Mark, for novelty value.

We were attempting to have the smallest midfield in top league football in the second half, with Reed, J-WP, Sims and Clasie making Japan's World Cup players look like giants. I only caught the last half an hour of a truly awful feed that seemed to feature a team of ghosts morphing around the screen. However, it was good to see something of our third goal, but bad to witness the Totem Pole that is Frazer Forster rooted to the spot, flapping his arms at a shot from well outside the box, but well inside the span of his arms. I'm sure that would have been bread and butter for McCarthy, or indeed any other half decent PL goalkeeper. Although there is not too much riding on pre-season matches, there is some satisfaction from drawing 3-3 against Germany's second top team last season, despite the aforementioned midget midfield and static goalkeeper playing for half of the match.

It was a poor and boring game we played, with not much in the way of goal threat and too much of the Puel/Pellegrino p*ssing about at the back. Thankfully when we play teams like Colombia, Tunisia, Panama, their defences gift us chances to score from the penalty spot, which has lifted Kane's chances of the Golden Boot no end. We should be thankful that James Rodriguez wasn't fit to play. Maybe the Colombians' cheating was increased accordingly because of his absence, but it certainly was very bad, and I'm surprised that they ended the match with still 11 players. Apart from the usual play-acting and niggly fouls of the Latin teams, there was the incident of one of their players scuffing the penalty spot. As the offence was viewed by us on the box, then presumably it was also observed by VAR. Why wasn't this brought to the attention of the referee and the player sent off? That would stop this dead in its tracks. It was great that we won and buried the curse of the penalty shoot-out in the process, but I don't personally think that Southgate's team choice was great, nor the tactics, or the substitution timing or choices. And I also think that Japan would have beaten us on that performance. We will have to have much more of a cutting edge to beat the Swedes and they won't be gifting us penalties to get us over the line. Sorry to put a damper on the euphoria, but we are more limping along rather than flying. That isn't to say that the forthcoming matches can't be won, but we need to buck up our ideas if we want to go all the way.

Yoshida did us proud and received many mentions in the commentary for his excellent defensive work. To my mind, Japan played some of the best football of the tournament. Their control of the ball was outstanding, their passing and movement very intelligent. Ultimately they were undone by Belgium's brute thugs like Fellaini, rather than the skillful players like Hazard and De Bruyne, who they had in their pocket for most of the match, closing them down and often dispossessing them of the ball.

Bought my son the full kit and he can't get the socks on. He has a shoe size of 6 and the socks in men's size are the medium which covers shoe size 3 to 7.5. This is a ludicrous range of sizes. I'll have to change them for the next size up, the large, which covers sizes 8.5 to 11.5.

His name fits the "We're the Northam" chant So, El you noo see, El you noo see, Are you pining for the Fjords?

The lad comes across well in his first Saints interview. He seems like a likeable sort of bloke, easy to get on with I would think.

Agree completely. It would also have the positive side-effect of cutting out unnecessary time-wasting too. Nothing annoys me more than a substitution when a player leaves the pitch at a pace that would make your average tortoise look pacy. Stop the clock and stop the reason for running it down.

delete

The Cedric handball decision was farcical. If the judgement of the referee is that it was handball, then he deserves to be demoted to pub match level, where he belongs. Cedric had a good game in my opinion. VAR in the World Cup has been very variable. Quite why it wasn't used to award two penalties for Kane against Tunisia, but gave us two penalties against Panama under similar circumstances is a mystery. Some consistency would be nice.

What was the urgency to have the money leave your account and go into the club's coffers so soon? There wasn't any early payment discount and you weren't in any danger of losing your seat.

Renewed our two a couple of days ago. Trusting that the football and lack of entertainment couldn't possibly be worse than last season.

If the standard of refereeing was better, then we wouldn't need VAR, but in recent years the standard of referee has fallen badly. And the counter argument is that for the non-glory teams, the whole experience is often ruined by your team being robbed by wrong decisions that often favour those glory clubs. We found ourselves almost relegated for the sake of several points dropped by dodgy refereeing decisions this season. The usual response is that the wrong decisions cancel themselves out over the course of a season, but I am very hard pressed to recall us getting away with much in terms of wrong decisions that favoured us. Now that VAR is finally going to be widespread to make the game fairer, let's follow Rugby and stop the clock when the ball is out of play, to stop the incessant time-wasting too.

Sterling, Alli and Young. Have we ever had a team with so many diving cheats in it before?

What I picked up on was the fans' forum not only at the start of the season, but also in the middle. Now, surely Les Reed would need to be on that forum for it to have any validity. It will be interesting to see whether he will be in attendance, as he will certainly be getting a lot of flack and deservedly. And then imagine what a mid season forum would have been like this season, when it had become obvious that the clown was totally out of his depth and that he would take us down if he stayed. Might that have got shot of him earlier?

They really shouldn't bother having a competition about the greatest goal of the season when it comprises teams outside of the top six. It is just a complete waste of time. Just have the goals scored by players of the top six glory clubs and have done with it. Maybe have a competition for the best goal scored by any of the other clubs as a separate entity.

Of course the Boufal goal was the best of the bunch that MOTD chose, but it stood no chance when Joe Public was allowed to select the final three as we don't have a glory club following. Boufal's chances of winning were on a par with the UK's in the Eurovision Song Contest

It was a lap of dishonour