DuncanRG

If you want to be that emotional about it, sure. Like I say, demanding that unconditional commitment from every player good enough to move up is demanding that they sacrifice their career for the club. It would be lovely for us fans, but it's unrealistic and unfair on people who want to test themselves. In some ways I prefer the truth, that players can love or hold warmth for the club and play somewhere else, than the other approach, which is that they're all horrible nasty fakes except Matt Le Tissier. Where's the love in that? If you treat the club the exact way you treat your wife, I should probably call the cleaners.

If you want! Not how I'd approach a marriage, given it's different to a career.

Well, how likely is he to get a game in the league? Not very, so if he's cuptied he's unlikely to play at all.

Keep a clean sheet and anything's possible. A lot will depend on the team Klopp fields, but I can't imagine him going too easy on this. The star attackers will at least be on the bench in case things aren't going their way, so we've got to keep our tempo up and not let them seize the initiative (if they ever lost it in the first place!)

The point was that Spurs today are a product of two and a bit years with Pochettino, whereas we're at the beginning with Puel. Not sure how far that comparison stretches, given Pochettino had a major transformation job to do whereas Puel inherited a very good squad, but Reed hinted at youth policy by pointing out Kane was out on loan when Poch arrived. Perhaps the club sees Project Puel as a transformation of the sort Pochettino's made at Spurs, but that's not obvious from the outside. The reference to deadwood was mine (highlighting the scale of Pochettino's challenge on arrival) not Reed's.

Reed very convincing on this issue in his interview. Interesting that he compares us now with Pochettino's early days at Spurs, where he had to clear out deadwood and results weren't going his way. And doubly interesting that he says Puel isn't getting much time to coach, because all the sessions have to be recovery and fitness prep.

This is similar to how I saw Long before he came to us, the difference with Snodgrass being that he has quality but less workrate (from what I've seen, don't tend to watch his teams for 90 minutes often!) All he'd add to the team is 1) a healthy wage packet and 2) what Ward-Prowse offers but with a better scoring record. Is that worth it? I dunno.

Maybe he shares all the fan's grievances! That would be convenient.

Must say I took at as a sign that the dressing room may not be fully together at the moment.

C'mon, he's the captain. He did (and should) want to lead his team into Europe, who wouldn't? Especially after helping to take us there all the way from League One. It's not like getting dropped for the League Cup.

He's wanted to leave since the summer but has played with full professionalism all season. I highly, highly doubt he'd refuse to play.

This is also the context for his much-maligned Champions League target - that if some of the big clubs slip up, we can be in a position to capitalise. That's a good, sensible aim, even if such an opportunity doesn't any time soon. From this vantage point it looks like seventh is probably the limit this year. It'll take improvement but it's manageable. Anyone got a link to the interview, by the way?

“We’re all in it together," says Redmond. "The most important thing is about the lads in the dressing room sticking together.” Hmm.

I'm with you there, but we don't know how effective or otherwise the alternatives would be. Would tiring players out be better or not? It's an open question. It is of course possible that fitness isn't the only consideration and there is other (potentially flawed) reasoning, but we don't really know and I'm loath to speculate. In fact, I'd like to hear Puel answer that question. EDIT: Bad news for rotation sceptics - Puel's dropped a hint that he'll pick some youngsters for Liverpool

Spot on - though lone strikers have been the norm for years in this league. There's been a recent renaissance in partnerships for some teams but they tend to come with a back three or, gulp, a diamond.

No, they wouldn't. We have no idea how a different approach to team selection would have affected the results. We can claim that certain players are fit enough to play every game, but we don't really have a clue. Football isn't a science but fitness is. Far more productive to talk, as you have, about how Puel uses energy conservation in his tactics and how that might be hurting us.

Without the effort of going through the numbers we're not informed enough to discuss it properly, but it seems to me that what we really had, in line with common practice, was a league team and a Europa team, both of which were fairly stable. That changed with injuries and the festive fixtures, as you have to expect, but it's not like we've been rotating from Saturday to Saturday with no game inbetween. That would be unusual. 5-8 is surely off the mark as well, more like 4-6. Again, though, why not trust the people who know? They know about their meals, their training regimes, their individual muscles, everything. We know diddly squat. It's not quite like the day to day pub chat of football, where opinions matter, it's science above all.

There are all kinds of annoying posters on here, but they're made more annoying by you picking them out and having a go. Some restraint would be much appreciated by the lurkers! Anyway, Puel is an experienced European manager and Ward-Prowse has improved this year, to my eyes anyway and apparently Reed's.

To sum up, our arguments against the expertise of professional physios and scientists hinge on Eddie Izzard and Matt Le Tissier. Great! This is something that everyone does to some extent. Football fans tend not to notice the changes other teams make between games because it's dull - especially when middling teams play in the Europa League, which is our best point of comparison, rather than big clubs with squads full of expensive talent. But you will see weakened teams from English clubs in the Europa League almost as standard in the group stage. As mentioned above, Liverpool and Spurs did it, United did it this year despite all their riches. It is normal.

Yep, agreed, but the West Brom team will have been selected with an eye to Everton away two days later.

I remember when West Ham briefed the press that they were going after Vardy. Spin masters, that lot!

An interesting read but doesn't speak to the Puel problem or lack of goals - quite the opposite, in fact. It's about defending, which we remain very good at with some recent exceptions.

Love all the randoms coming out with claims of inside info all of a sudden.

It looks like he wanted to leave in August, but the funny, redundant bit of paper known as a transfer request probably did come in recently. The club may have asked for it so they could say it had been made, as has been done with previous players. It doesn't really mean anything. It's not really possible for one centre half in a pair to do 'the hard stuff'. If the attacker's on your side, you deal with it. Fonte has been about as good as his partners for the past three years, give or take. Alderweireld went easiest because he wasn't our player and buying from Atletico is cheaper than buying from a Premier League team. I'd suggest Liverpool threw cash at Lovren because he was younger, arguably better in that season and perhaps more dispensable for us than Fonte a long-serving player who would shortly become captain. And because Lovren wanted to leave, of course.

No Paul Mitchell, no problem - just take his recruits once Spurs are done with them! (He does look like he's got something about him, and it's no great shame to be kept out of the team by Alderweireld and Vertonghen)