Saxon

Post-match report after being at the game: Really gutting to lose that point, definitely didn't think they were better. Unfortunate with injuries that game massively. Everyone put in a good shift. Pelle just lacking in confidence at the moment. Long actually put in a great performance defensively this game which was impressive, Mane too, did some good cover work. You can see how the whole team is defending. If we hadn't lost Toby we wouldn't have conceded for sure. Good defensive performance, and big Fraser was immense. Good reaction from the away fans too, we were singing in response to the conceded goal. I think this was an excellent reaction to the City loss, shame about the points, but geared up for Utd now, bring it on!

If he is happy to stay, keep him. Has been good for us this season. Fonte and Yosh have done it together plenty of times so if he has to slot in, its not unfamiliar.

Unfortunate really. This was one of those games where once it went one way, that was it. The sending off turned out to be bad for us as we've pressed a bit too much and let in two goals going for it, but then, if we hadn't we probably would have lost 1-0, so fair enough to go all out. I don't think we've been sh*t, too many children on here. Lots of positives from this. This was always going to be tough, having City after they beat Bayern midweek. Bring on Arsenal midweek, I'll be there, very much looking forward to it. One game at a time, game on. We're 3rd, on 26 points. Brilliant frankly. We were always going to have some bad results, what were some people expecting?? Us to just win every f*cking game? COYS.

Tough first 25 mins, but we rode our luck, excellent defending in parts (Toby) and now we've ended the second half, I would argue, posing the bigger threat. Shame we couldn't get a goal before half time, but I think 0-0 is very fair, especially considering Aguero's unfortunate card (for them that is). Good half time talk from Koeman and we're ready to go I think. We're starting to look good now. Someone just needs to give Pelle some caffeine so he's a bit more awake! The midfield three have slotted into place now and the engine's up and running. Now its nice and warmed up we need to take it to them!

Brilliant commentary there "Wanyama not really renowned for his goal scoring is he" erm... maybe not last season, but I reckon 3 in 12 for a DM is pretty good going tbh...

No I disagree. Look at what happened with Rodgers and the Real Madrid B.S. Koeman clearly, and rightly, doesn't believe in the match priority stuff. We take each game as it comes, and try to win it to the best of our ability. I would always want this from our squad. Besides, if we win at Villa and lose to City, or lose to Villa then win at City, what difference does it make? We just need the points. Each game at a time. Get the 3 points from Villa, then we can look at the next game. If we don't get the points from Villa because we were complacent, then that's the whole "plan" ruined.

Well I guess since Villa have so many injuries, and crucially to their defence, he's really wanting to exploit that. Though I have to say, whilst we're attack minded, we still have a solid f*ckin defense in there, the usual culprits. I have to say, whilst this will be a tough game for sure, I will be dissapointed if we don't win this. Being 100% realistic, based on both team's pre-break form, their injuries and our fully fit squad (minus Davis), we should be able to win this, by hook or by crook, especially with Koeman at the reigns. Come on Saints, you can do this! set us up nicely for next week against City!!!

I'm trying my best to go with this at the end of the day, regardless of the other results, we need to win games. So we just need to keep our heads down and stay focused. Always getting behind the team, regardless of the situation. We're heading into the crunch, the last 8 games before the halfway point. Lets f*ckin do this

15:01-16:00 for me please. Good luck all, that's a cracking prize!

One thing I would say is that, regarding the paper selling theory... The quickest and easiest way of the media selling more papers is to report hot topics. Us being 2nd and upsetting the status quo is a hot topic. The media love bandwagons. They love jumping from one current issue to the next (because it sells papers as its "fresh" news; look at how crisis etc are reported for a week or so and then they move onto the next one, despite the fact the other ones aren't over (e.g. ebola and every other big story ever). The thing I would have thought they would hate is stale, dreary, week in week out the same, as then there's no point buying a paper as you already know what will most likely happen. So why would they waste effort trying to manipulate (and I find it ridiculous that this is even a theory) the football results so that it always stays the same... I would have thought they would be loving what's going on. No one would buy a paper if it said, "chelsea, utd and city all win as predicted against mid-table teams". They would be more interested if it said, "saints increase gap between 2nd and 3rd place in surprise hunt for title and champions league whilst spuds slump to 4th home loss from 6". Not too difficult to see which is more interesting and different from the norm and hence which will generate more interest. Still I fully accept its subjective... With regards to the spuds related spiel. Is there any chance any of you have considered the reason there's a lot of press related to us and spuds, e.g. buying our recruitment guy and morgan jrod etc, is because its to do with spuds' atrocious start to the season (what with them being a popular club... for some reason, yet to see it ) and what they're going to do about it? Its easy to look at everything from a saints viewpoint when you're a saints fan. But I don't think any other supporters are going, oh, another anti-saints story. I think they're going, oh, spuds are trying to get out of the hole they're in... good f*ckin luck (unless its a spuds fan in which case who knows what they think ).

Right, you've both lumped in my tiny comment about pundits saying we have a tough run coming up (they have said that, and we do). With the crazy ramblings going on elsewhere that there's a media conspiracy or that there's a large body of the media hoping we fail. I never said anyone wants us to fail. I just said (and its really tiresome that out of my whole post, this little aside is what you focused on) that previously in the season, maybe not last weekend, maybe a week or so ago, whatever, pundits/media, whatever, had said,they're not sure we would be able to maintain this run, given our Christmas fixtures. Now, please tell me how that is a) an unreasonable observation of what they have said, b) how its got anything to do with anyone wanting us to fail - predicting a slump is not the same as hoping we have one. Or is that a hard concept to grasp. I also never said we weren't getting praise. Never mentioned anything like that. I have found it very refreshing to have such support for our club recently, and I bet there are loads of people, in the media included, who are enjoying the freshening up of the race for the top four this season. So in summary. My comment was a little aside referencing predictions we wouldn't be able to keep the run going based on last season's performances with a set of fixtures similar to what we have coming up now. Nothing more. Now jog on.

Firstly its tongue in cheek, I'm just making a reference to our tough run. Secondly, you clearly haven't watched match of the day once this season. So watch a few eps and come back to me. Thirdly, jog-on sunshine (but thanks for the positive comment).

Also, if we set 72 as the top 4 points haul minimum for this season (crude again). We need 1.74 points a game for the remaining 27 games. We managed 1.25 last season, so hopefully we can improve on that! The other "big clubs" need: Chelsea - 1.59 (managed 2.26 in last 27 last season) Man City - 1.88 (2.48) Arsenal - 2.04 (2.00) Man Utd - 2.07 (1.62) Everton - 2.15 (1.93) Liverpool - 2.15 (2.26 - with Suarez) Spuds - 2.15 (1.84) So hopefully achievable.

Last season, the minimum number of points any of the top 8 teams had at this stage last season (11 games) was 19 points (City). The teams that finished in the top 8 last season all had 19 or more points at this stage (19, 20, 20, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25) Arsenal, the then first placed club after 11 games, was on 25 points (same as us now). This season is obviously a lot poorer than that 4th place to 8th (16, 16, 17, 18, 18, 21, 25, 29). Basically what I'm saying is that it will be interesting to see how much they will be able to make up this sort of ground. Last season was especially competitive in terms of the top 8 teams. This season they are all a lot less competitive so far bar Chelsea who are more (and us and arguably City by points gained by this stage). There was only a 6 point gap between the leaders and 8th at this stage. That ended up being 30 points by the end of the season (86 City, 56 us). This season there is already a 13 point gap between the leaders and 8th. It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the season. I suppose clearly the rocky form has happened to these clubs at the beginning of the season rather than later, so you would expect them all to pick it up, but, surely there is more pressure on them already with the gap as it is? As a crude analysis, if we add the points each team gained in their remaining 27 games last season, to the total this season (to simulate a "typical" season (in our case what the pundits predict - our comeuppance)), the final 8 would look as follows: (top 8 from last season that is, not current top 8 this season) 1. Chelsea - 90 (29 + 61) 2. Man City - 88 (21 + 67) 3. Liverpool - 75 (14 + 61) 4. Arsenal - 71 (17 + 54) 5. Everton - 66 (14 + 52) 6. Spuds - 63 (14 + 49) 7. Man Utd - 60 (16 + 44) 8. Saints - 59 (25 + 34) What is interesting is that based on this very very very crude projection, we are only 12 points off 71, the same Arsenal would be projected for fourth place. If we look at 12 points coming from four games we should have won last season that we didn't: Arsenal home, Tottenham home, and away, Villa home, Cardiff home. I would argue this season these are games we would have been better equipped to see-out or finish. Plus there were many many points dropped to irritating draws last season (sunderland, stoke, west ham, villa etc). Basically, with a huge bucket of salt and bearing in mind how crude this projection is (I know its a load of b.s. really), I think we are on course for a top four finish. I'm not saying that the teams will finish in this particular order by name, but if you were to remove the names and just say the top 8 teams should have between them, runs similar to that of last season, if they do that for the rest of the season (i.e. improving, not continuing as they are), then we need to get get 13 more points over the next 27 games than we did last season, to get top 4. Which, I would argue is do-able. So far we have gotten 25 from 11 games = 2.27 points a game. Based on this crude prediction we need 47 from 27 = 1.74 (basically between what Utd and Spuds managed all of last season). Plus, who says all those teams will improve to that extent, and bearing in mind the top 8 last season was more competitive than ever. Last season we dropped from 1.9 points a game to 1.25 = 0.65 point drop. We can drop by 0.54 points a game this season, which is a smaller margin, but I would imagine we won't do as badly in the remaining 27 games as we did last season. Anyway, I hope this kind of makes sense what I'm getting at? Its just something I did to work something out in my head. tl:dr All this is supposed to crudely support is that I reckon, regardless of whether the other teams revert to how they did in the last 27 games of last season, we just need to improve slightly on last season's 27 games to get into the top four, based on the poor starts of this season's "big clubs".

As someone on the City forum said, and I was thinking about this yesterday, the international break is kind of like a reset button. We'll lose some momentum. The big sides might start to pick up a bit once they've had a couple of weeks apart to clear their heads. It worked a treat for us before, lose to spuds then rip Sunderland a new ars3hole. It could work backwards too. I would say, if we come out of this break and get a convincing win at Villa, that will be a huge sign of our new found powers. That will show how focussed we are. Two weeks is a long time. Plus there's the risks of injury obviously. But mentally i think the team needs to be prepared. I really hope we can do it. But if we come back and beat Villa, I reckon we're in with a shout of at least 5 points from the first three big games... which I wih for more than anything simply because we did so poorly against them last season (did better in the 12/13 season at the bog teams I swear!). Especially at St Mary's, w need to make it our fortress. No losses at home all season please that's how you get top four!

Just hope we have no injuries during the internationals. The only thing I'm genuinely worried about for this game. And two weeks is a long break, plenty of time for other teams to sort themselves out. Villa won't have so many internationals out so should be able to prepare a bit better for this than we can. I really hope we win this. To keep the confidence high for our home game against City more than anything. In Koeman we trust.

I actually have a bit of a deformity so I have a third tit... Little bastard always getting in the way...

One thread asking about trying to find something and I'm obsessed am I? and a woman! brilliant.

Love how he managed to find some trainers that match the training kit!

Tanks for the info. I have the home kit, it was the tracksuit bottoms (M) tbh I was interested in and, as a long shot, a medium away shirt (but I had a feeling they were all gone). Yeah I saw some stuff on ebay, I'll keep an eye out and see if the right stuff comes along. But I am curiosu what they did with the truck-loads of training kit that didn't sell.

Just wondered is there anywhere you can get old kit from last season? I was just interested in the training kit (I swear there was loads of that left over?). I mean surely they don't just dump it all? I'm gutted I never got an away shirt either but I think these sold out. Anyone know anywhere? Or know what happens to the leftover past season kit?

City clawed their way in to the elite, well bought their way. Who's to say that a club built on strong principles, and long term guidance and decision making based on those principles, couldn't do the same? I like to think of ours as a slower moving vessel, but one that has the weight of our principles and because of that, changes course slowly and subtly. But once on course... its very bloody hard to stop! We have a sh it hot team at the moment. With good depth considering we're only playing league and cups. I'm not ruling out what we can achieve at the moment based on two simple things: 1) I'm young and optimistic 2) all these other games, the hard games, whatever, haven't been played yet. They say football is played on the pitch and not on paper. Well, we haven't played any of the other games yet. In the games we've played so far we have done very well and we now sit second.That's all there is to it! Why can't we finish in the top four? Game on b itches, game on.

I reckon big Sam will win MOTM this month. Big wins, all 9 points, excellent performances. You have to take your hat off to him, he has delivered exactly what he was told to after last season. I think they're going to be a real competitor for the top spots we want this season. With regards to their two big wins at home, yes we lost our two, but, they were away games, they won their home games. If we keep form like this I'd put us down to win some home games against the big boys as well. As people have said, not the end of the season yet. Also, a draw in spurs (nice equaliser there) and utd games would do nicely so fingers crossed!

Fraser Forster. "Fraser Forster has the best saves to shots ratio of any first-choice goalkeeper in the top flight in 2014-15 (75%)" http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29670448 Pretty impressive. I know he's not exactly had many to deal with.... but still, impressive. I've definitely noticed an improvement from last season in the Keeper department. Distribution especially. Boruc was very good for us last season, but Fraser could really end up being immense for us. Certainly one of our best signings this summer (though its getting harder and harder to choose!).

That's a good price. We've been getting some brilliant players for about £10m a pop recently! Sign him up!!! And obviously they're not going to wave our big wads of scouse cash around needlessly. Besides, it may not all be back from the cleaners yet, hence the wait on the funds being available...