saintwbu

Thought we were average, but Palace (like West Ham) set up perfectly. Playing Ayew over Wickham/Benteke showed they were here to let us have the ball all night and just counter when they could, which worked well. Felt for Stephens, thought he was good first half, won everything in the air all night, but seemed to have about 80% of our possession in front of a packed Palace side. Our support is a ****ing joke, took until the 89th minute for the stadium to sing anything, even despite Palace making multiple references to our support throughout. Team full of young lads, many of whom weren’t playing under Hughes, all getting the groans from 5 minutes in. The jeering Stephens got for not wanting to give the ball away was embarrassing, and the sarcastic cheer that accompanied his long awaited pass to JWP was one of the most pathetic things i’ve seen at St. Mary’s. Thought Targett and Valery were better than people are giving them credit for, Targett up against Wan Bissaka who’s been one of the best RB’s in the country this season, and found it tough but still found space for the winning assist. Valery made a great recovering tackle on Zaha in the first half, as well as one in the second half, Zaha was largely ineffective all night I thought despite the goal. I bloody love JWP, he’s played right back for 15 minutes and made more successful forward runs than Cedric in the last 18 months, great awareness and finish. Topped off with his winding up of Zaha, which is something we don’t do anywhere near enough. Andre Marriner is ****, don’t think he was particularly generous in favour of anyone, I just find he literally doesn’t make decisions, and last night we made more fouls than them, which meant he went in our favour by default. Stephens and Wan Bissaka both lucky with potential red cards which went unpunished. Showed the weaknesses we still have when expected to dominate possession, but good spirit to keep going and find an equaliser, which isn’t something we’ve done for a long time it feels.

All I would say about Moi is that Ralph has shown no hesitancy to freeze out and move on players he doesn’t rate, yet Moi is still playing a (very small) part. I like many others, am not entirely sure why, but it says something to me that he’s still getting some opportunity to play.

He’s Danish so almost certainly true we are trying to sign him

I liked him at Sheff Utd, would be pleased to get him especially if around the £10mil mark.

I liked him at Sheff Utd, would be pleased to get him especially if around the £10mil mark.

That’s subjective I guess, I wouldn’t say he’s amazing, but we’ve won 4 games from 8 with him in the team, so I wouldn’t say he’s a weakness either. Hazard and Richarlison have both failed to score against him and I don’t think we’ve conceded any headers from players he’s been marking?

Absolutely appalling crossing, never seen a player hit the ball out of play from a cross as often as he does. Lost count of the number of times we’ve lost points because big strikers have pulled off to the back post to beat Cedric in the air. He may not get beaten very often on the ground, but he constantly gives his man acres of space to cross or shoot, so they don’t really have to beat him. He just isn’t good enough. Nothing against him personally, went to that Saints quiz thing last year and he seemed a good character, and I don’t see a lack of effort from him on the pitch, but we absolutely can improve on him and need to if we are going to progress.

Hopefully we’re saying it’s a loan so as to not make Genk aware:uhoh: we’re about to pocket €17mil for the player we are replacing, in order to stop them whacking the price up for their player. Hopefully

€20million!? With 18 months on his contract?! Christ we should snatch that and run.

For the first time ever, I want us to sell more than i want us to buy anyway. We built a squad with strength in depth when we got to Europe, but the problem was that it wasn’t that strong. Now we have multiple senior pro’s not getting in the squad every weekend, or out on loan. For a club of our size that isn’t sustainable at all. We desperately needed to trim the squad, fill the gaps with youngsters and eventually replace some of the first team with genuine quality. We probably won’t ever have a squad of two quality players in each position, but i’d rather we had a great first team instead like we used to.

Someone mentioned to me earlier Arsenal should sign Cedric. Not a bad idea I thought! Won’t be that expensive as his contract runs out next summer. I think he’s crap, but neutrals seem to think he’s not, so who knows!

I really don’t think he can play centre back, and i’m sure Fulham fans will agree, he was hopeless for them until they moved him into midfield where he is now doing fairly well

For me personally, Koeman’s team was better than Poch’s

He kicked the ball underneath Gueye (who was shielding it with his body) and Gueye got up tried to start on him so Redmond held him and shoved him away

I like him. He's marked Hazard, Chilwell and Richarlison in his last three appearances and none of them have got a thing out of him, so much so that Chilwell got him in a chokehold last week because he rattled him so much. He's not amazing, he lacks confidence going forward, but hopefully that will come. When we were 2-0 up he looked a lot more confident with a few flicks and nice passes. Strong in the tackle, bit feisty, good in the air and fairly quick. Has a lot to work with, and a great manager to do it.

Absolutely superb. Real shame to concede because they didn’t trouble our defence at all the entire game, and even the goal wasn’t a result of our defence being breached, just a nicely placed shot from the edge of the area. Hojbjerg knew he owed us today and he was majestic, disciplined and was absolutely everywhere all game. Shame for Targett as I thought he started brilliantly, he’s got a hell of a cross on him. But so pleased for Prowsey again, gets so much stick (unfairly usually imo) but two goals in two games, 5 consecutive starts, really making himself a big part of this manager’s teams, and what a strike. Up the table we go!

I’m not sure he’s touched the ball until that shot has he?

Then it’s a bit fairer to make a judgement But my point is, after one or two appearances for a new foreign signing we’d be told it’s unfair to write them off yet, but with a youngster it seems much more acceptable. Both need time to adapt sometimes.

I have, but if you looked at how he was talked about after his first, second, third appearance i’m sure it would be as i’ve said ‘he’s still adapting’

He gets slated by most of the fan base like every other youth product you mean. If he was foreign he'd be getting the 'he's still adapting to the league' treatment. All these lads have either had a couple of lower league loan spells, or just played youth football up until this point in their careers, there is an adaptation period that should be allowed here too. Kayne Ramsay has gone from marking 16/17 year old academy products who may never make it as a pro, to marking Raheem Sterling in a couple of weeks. I'm no expert, but I'd imagine that takes some getting used to... Likewise with Sam, he's played about 3 Premier League games in his career, about 5 years ago, and has been injured for ages. I'm sure Ralph is absolutely livid that he didn't light the world up in his substitute appearance for our reserve team. Not one of our academy products has made a contribution worse than the worst moments of Hoedt, Cedric, Elyounoussi, Vestergaard this season. But none of those have been discarded by the manager after one mistake, so thankfully Ralph is aware that things don't happen overnight, and the best way for our academy products to improve and adapt, is to play them. Tyreke Johnson, Yan Valery, Callum Slattery, Matt Targett, Sam Gallagher, James Ward-Prowse, Kayne Ramsay, Marcus Barnes have all featured under Ralph, and we've picked up 10 points since his arrival and left the relegation zone, and only gone out of the cup on penalties. Personally, that makes it all the sweeter.

No one picking up on that comment about Obafemi? Would expect an 18 year old being brought into the first team ranks to be desperate to do everything to get an edge and stay fit as it may define his career! Be interesting to know in what way he doesn't look after himself.

Played a big part in our second goal if I remember rightly. Not bad, definitely got something.

On the plus side, we won’t have to listen to Danny Murphy commentate on any of our other games this season

Gunn has gone the wrong way for 10 penalties in a row from what I can recall. McCarthy solidly our best keeper.

Why what?