saintwbu

Anyone see Matchday Uncovered and at half time as Vic walks out the changing rooms in his kit it seems like Origi and Sturridge look at each other as if to say 'oh sh!t here he comes', might've even been able to hear them mention 'beast' LOL. When he is on song I do absolutely love watching Vic.

My theory is that when it comes to a big decision, it's easier to go against a small club than a big club if you aren't 100% sure, because the coverage in the media and criticism for your mistake will be significantly less. I haven't watched the United game on MOTD but I'd be very surprised if they didn't do a big chunk on the penalty that United didn't get, despite it having no hating on the outcome of the game, and yet ours didn't get mentioned despite neither having an effect on the outcome (I know there were less talking points in their game). As if a ref is ever going to give a penalty and red card to a Liverpool player within 5 minutes of the kick off, it just would never happen against us as we have seen in this season and last season's version of this fixture in almost identical fashion. But no one will talk about it, whereas had it been the other way round you can guarantee it'd be played on repeat. Does anyone else find it irritating that all you have to do when applying for a job in punditry is say "I played for Liverpool" and you're guaranteed the gig? Carragher, Souness, Redknapp, Mcmanaman, David James, Michael Owen, Lawrenson, Hansen, Murphy, John Barnes, Ian Rush, Didi Hamman - Just the names I can think of off the top of my head that I have to listen to regularly on Sky/BT (albeit Rush and Barnes less so nowadays), and then even had to suffer Neil Mellor on the steam I was watching today!!! NEIL. MELLOR. and the disdain in his voice when we equalised seemed so clear to me despite his efforts to hide it. God I hate that lot, beating them is amazing but to do it in that fashion makes it an incredible feeling.

Have we been fined for failing to control our players? That seems to be the usual compromise from the FA when they admit a refereeing error - "oh yeah that decision was wrong but we are going to fine you for trying to tell the ref how wrong he was"

I feel like one day we will move out of the mindset from the era where Rory Delap was our record signing at £4million, and realise that £12million is not a great deal of money and does not buy you much in football anymore. Yes at the time I thought the fee for Shane Long was over his value, but not because I thought it was a lot of money but more because I didn't rate him particularly highly. Last year at Stoke at home I think it was, I was crying out for us to bring him off the bench, which I didn't think I'd ever be doing when he signed! But his run in the team this year has really shown his worth, yes his finishing is hit and miss but he creates a hell of a lot purely through his exceptional work rate, the guy just does not stop. Steven Fletcher, Matt Jarvis and Andy Carroll - 3 British players that cost over £10million and I would not want anywhere near our team, that money really does not get you a lot (and was worth more when those three signed for their clubs at that price).

I loved Alderweireld whilst here, and I often didn't really notice him in games which as a defender I think is a positive thing. Whereas Lovren I always felt was the sort of defender that gets fans on their feet with last ditch sliding tackles and the like, which is why I actually think he's been let down at Liverpool by having to play alongside the (in my opinion) woeful Skrtl, because he has a similar all guns blazing approach, where Lovren needs a cool, calm Fonte-type alongside him in order to allow him to run around a lot and clean up. But I think Van Dijk shades it for me, mostly because i'm just astounded by how good he really is, and I absolutely love the way that he can pick it up in his own penalty area and then end up in the oppositions half in a matter of seconds, having beaten a player or two along the way, just sheer class on the ball.

IT WAS MARCUS BENT

i'd guess it's because they are slightly slipping downwards, whilst we have hit a pretty dramatic rise, so on momentum we would be the most likely. But I think they've got substance and think they'll remain pretty close to us for the remainder of the season.

I'd like to have seen the reaction had Fonte or Bertrand made that challenge last night. VW was brilliant until his dismissal, as he has been on this 5 game run, and the red looked ridiculously harsh from where I was sat and nothing I've seen on TV has made me change my mind. I feel like he's now paying the price for upsetting some of our fans and quick becoming a bit of a whipping boy when things don't go to plan. I get that it was an unnecessary tackle to make, and he 'shouldn't have given the ref the decision to make' but that is just excusing an extremely poor decision during an extremely pathetic refereeing performance (very much a performance).

Seeing a lot about Papa Waigo on Twitter and on here but he never played in the promotion seasons, just the JPT winning one. For me I'm just looking forward to seeing Rickie back at St Mary's properly, and hopefully Nigel Adkins, two of the biggest contributors that never actually got to say goodbye properly.

I hate how nice our team is. Alli just flew into Juanmi and every other team in the league would run in with their arms up pushing and shoving and the ref would probably panic and send him off. We just walk away and he gets a yellow. Regardless of whether its a red card or not (probably not from the replay i've seen), the ref's in this league are utterly abysmal, and none more so than Kevin Friend, so put some pressure on them ffs, everybody else does because IT WORKS.

We are so used to having full back's who play high and bomb forward (Clyne, Bertrand, Shaw, even Fox and Richardson in times gone by), that having a more 'defensive' full back in Targett has been foreign to us so far this season. I can see why people wouldn't favour him as our left back because it's not 'our style' really, but he is nowhere near as bad as people make out as Shance pointed out above. He has unfortunately been put in the Yoshida bracket of 'groan every time he doesn't produce a perfect piece of play', whilst other players get away with far bigger errors without any criticism from the crowd whatsoever, and i've found over the years that it's very difficult for a player to shake that off once they've got it sadly.

VVD in Glasgow airport on his way to Southampton according to this Celtic fan. £11.5mil

Anyone notice how the press are praising Chris Smalling for a massive improvement in performances lately? The Schneiderlin effect. I've said it to people for ages, Morgan Schneiderlin can make a good centre half look great and an average one look good. Lovren struggled after he left, Toby hasn't looked as good so far (very early days) and now it's Jose's turn

As much as despise them, Liverpool's use of this for Mignolet is brilliant, fits perfectly.

Did we ever make use of the old Balotelli song from his City days? Could work well with Jordy Clasie. Oooooh Jordy Clasie, he's a... etc. Someone else can think of the rest

Feel like I'm in a parallel universe where for a change we as fans are actually playing down the quality of one of our players, whilst the rest of the country is hyping them up. Usually I'm saying how [...] is good enough to play for England and being laughed at, whereas I find myself saying to people if JWP was called up to the senior England side then I'd be a bit disappointed as I don't think he's really done a lot. I do like him however, and I do think there is a lot more to come, I just find his inability to score from open play a real irritation, especially when him and Steven Davis are playing in the same 11. Hopefully once he gets the first from open play then they will start flowing, to be fair to him I don't see him miss the target all that often, just hit them straight at a keeper or defender instead.

Part of me is glad City aren't starting any talented youngsters who are hungry to prove their worth in their one big chance. City have been uninspiring on many occasions this season, if we take it to them and are on our game then I think there's definitely something in this. Amazing that i'm hoping for us to finish 5th today after having seen Oldham sit 10 behind the ball and catch us on the break at St Mary's not too long ago, who'd have thought it!

We have a central brand logo on our two Hummel kit's for the youth team I manage, as they do for all of their team wear range. As a result we place the club crest central, underneath the brand logo, which looks brilliant. No idea why Adidas use a central brand logo given the size and placement of it, and the fact that they only seem to use it when they fancy, it just doesn't make sense! I'm a big fan of having the club crest central, but it just wouldn't work on any of the Adidas kits so it's quite bizarre! Still like the home kit mind...

Raheem Sterling won 'young player of the year' for Liverpool last night, so if we are doing it to include first team players as well, would Mané be eligible at 23? if so then i'd go Players' Player of the Season - Fonte Young Player of the Season - Mané President's Choice Award - Kelvin Davis? stepping in to replace FF, if not then Fonte again or even Schneiderlin for getting his head down after the summer episode Goal of the Season - Tough, probably Pelle, just Fans' Player of the Season - Fonte

I guess a problem with SportsDirect is they often discount (even if only slightly) which may detract from sales of shirts from the club. But sticking them in all the national Adidas shops alongside the Chelsea, United, AC Milan, Real Madrid shirts wouldn't do us any harm! (I'm not comparing us to those clubs, obviously)

Elia looks like he's got his back up and wants to take control of this shambles to be fair to him

Good signs so far from Turnball and Stephens, both like a dribble and Stephens in particular looks very calm & composed on the ball.

Sky Sports News mentioning all day how Bournemouth have been linked with Charlie Austin. Surely a good enough option for us?

How could i forget Targett!? i knew there was someone significant I was missing haha.

Whenever I hear people criticise our lack of academy players making appearances this season in comparison with previous years, I always think how many other clubs could have three first team regular academy products (Lallana, Shaw, Chambers) taken from them and still have any even close to the squad let alone one fairly regular (JWP) and one regularly on the bench (Reed). On top of that we had Gape, Seager, Hesketh, (maybe one i've missed?) all make substitute appearances and if it wasn't for his injury Gallagher would've probably been used as well. I think it's amazing we can even field one academy player with what happened to us last summer, i'm sure we'll see more inclusion next year.