mrfahaji

Anyone notice Long's reaction when Hesketh scored? Still smarting from his own missed chance, which is partly understandable, but strange that he gave up on the play - what if the ball had been deflected back to him again?

Apparently Puel is keen to play a different team every match due to the extra games we have in our schedule this season. It means we can look forward to having an understrengthed midfield every week...

Commentator talking about van Dijk's run and being out of position, but both in the attack and the later defence Rodriguez was too slow and let them have possession. Don't think it was a high foot but only because Clasie pulled his head out the way rather than attacking it and putting himself on the line.

Sorry Mosin, but I don't agree that he regularly puts in killer crosses or through balls. In fact, I have regularly been surprised by how poorly Ward-Prowse strikes a live ball considering how well he strikes a dead one. Not sure I'd go with 99.9%, but I agree with the general sentiment that he is good from free kicks and corners, and that in itself can be valuable. If he could cross and pass in open play in the way you describe, he would be staking a stronger case for a starting berth. I hope we see more of that from him, and also a big improvement in his shooting - again, the disparity between his dead ball shooting (admittedly he hasn't score many FKs, but they are normally hit well) and those during open play is remarkable.

Very interesting piece. It mentioned Jonathan Wilson's "Inverting the Pyramid", I would also recommend his "Anatomy of England" - I'm not a big fan of the national team by any stretch but I found it really interesting, and also shows how England's knack of being behind everyone else while thinking they are or deserve to be ahead has been happening pretty much from the day we invented the game!

It doesn't mean we are destined for a relegation scrap this year, but at the very least it suggests that if we don't start seeing results from this system, and if Puel is too stubborn to change it, then we might have a problem. Or Puel might have a problem. It's not from a rumour site. I know this sounds like an easy option but I'm not comfortable revealing the specific details. I have heard that a number (I don't know how many and who, maybe the entire squad) of players are not feeling this new system, and like many of the fans, wonder why we are not playing a system that suits the players we have. On top of that, I know of one player that has been especially critical of it. It wasn't Tadic. I don't claim to be generally ITK about things at the club but once in a while I do hear something which seems relevant to the discussion boards. Lots of people have questionned the body language of the players, some people think others are reading into it etc, and this snippet supports one of the views. Doesn't mean things can't change and improve. Regarding the new system, I hoped it was being trialled as an alternative to use against certain opponents, but we don't seem to show any sign of reverting to the previous one. Failing that, I hoped (still hope) that this new formation is revolutionary and when the players grasp it we'll be great. But, it must be said that it is looking questionable at the moment. I wonder whether our quiet transfer window reflects the current unease with how things are going so far as well. We were apparently tracking Boufal for 18 months - presumably then we had identified him being a good fit for our old system - so why have we still signed him? Maybe Puel wanted to get some more players in to play his tactics, but the board are reluctant to fill the squad with players suited to a system that we might not be continuing with? I'm probably jumping to conclusions on this bit, but it does make you wonder if there's more than meets the eye.

Thanks New Forest Steve. I'm just posting what I know to be the case (the first bit at least, the second paragraph is my opinion but don't see what's so far fetched about it). I'm not looking for doom and gloom, in fact when people are constantly looking for negatives it annoys me. Maybe this place isn't somewhere to post info as you get immediately shot down for it.

We haven't, the players aren't happy with the system and don't understand why we are persisting with it. Don't think they like Puel too much and one or two have already had a bit of a dust up. Swansea home is pretty important, if we don't win that will be winless from Watford, Sunderland & Swansea home matches. Players don't really care about the club, they care about their working environment. They know that if they don't perform ultimately it will be Puel's head on the block. My main concern is that the players lose interest but the club are too stubborn to get a different manager in, then we really are in trouble. A win might help lift the mood and general commitment in the camp.

Well the "no arguments" idea was a nice one, but it didn't last long.

Now the window has closed, will we get any more insight from the ITKs about who we were looking to sign? I think Guan described a left sided attacker, a new nationality who had similar career ups & downs to Pelle (perhaps was an alternative to Boufal), while AR-10 hinted that another around £10m was coming. I suppose these players may still be targets further down the line, but would be nice to spend the day wallowing in "if onlys".

Unfortunately I don't agree that you could rely on Rickie for goals now. His lack of pace and mobility outweighs his ability to play a part in attacks. The only way to get anything out of Lambert is to cross balls into the box, and if we started doing that I'm sure we'd see Austin looking a lot better than he has shown so far. We have missed Lambert at his best, which was 4-5 years ago. It's like saying we should bring back James Beattie.

It's not always easy to tell if a comment is tongue-in-cheek on here...

All the letters must be present as well though, so "Daedlne" doesn't meet the requirements...!

This. It's like the man is auditioning for a Spoken Word competition (which he wouldn't win). Just tell me who's got the ball, Peter.

I'm not sure comparing two teams 13 years apart is a good reason for depression.

I doubt Everton would be keen on selling their new signing already...

I'm sure we could find room for Steven Davis in there somewhere

I guess the obvious answer is Nice.

I have said on another thread somewhere that I wouldn't be surprised if we saw one or two unfancied teams being amongst the pack and one or two big names struggling again, for the reasons you have listed. I doubt it will be as mixed up as last season, but what I really meant by "hard to see how it could be improved" was in response to presenter & pundit views that the big teams looking strong equates to it being an exciting season, whereas actually the best seasons are the ones like last year. I suppose part of their job is to big up the season ahead - not sure Sky would be happy with a presenter who said "after last season, let's face it, this one is going to be a wash out. And you mugs at home have still shelled out for our ridiculously priced sport subscription package."

Yep - on Monday Night Football they were discussing this "could be the best season ever". What they mean is, lots of the big clubs look strong again. Hard to see how last season could be improved with Leicester winning the league, Spurs (even though I hate them) in the top 4 and Saints and West Ham in the Europa spots.

At the start of each recent season it has appeared like we've taken two steps back and one forward, whereas it's probably been the opposite. Would you agree? My issue with this season is that we haven't even tried to replace all the players we've lost - I'll give the club the benefit of the doubt on whether they've made a good signing, but they have to at least sign someone in the first place! That doesn't even factor in the extra Europa League exertion. Or the new formation which depends on players adapting well to positions they've never played previously. It could be a masterstroke but feels a little like a house of cards.

I don't mind spending close to what we've brought in, but we must be sitting on a net spend of -£30m odd at the moment. Very frustrating.

Maybe the reason why someone would join Everton or West Ham would be because of more money. However I don't think that's the only (although of course it is a big one) why players go to Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United. You're performing on one of the biggest stages of world football every week, alongside superstars of the game (maybe not quite so much for Liverpool, but close). A trip to the Emirates or Old Trafford, even if they are notoriously quiet, and you realise what a step up it is from St Mary's. If I was a professional, I'd want to play for Southampton. But if I played for years and had an opportunity to play for Manchester United at some point, even I'd consider it (maybe a 1 season loan, ha).

He hasn't had much game time at Liverpool but I think people might be underestimating him. I'd certainly take him here if he was affordable. Even when he was a bit part player he still scored a few.

And they clearly want to recoup as much as possible for Benteke given they paid £32m (?) for him. Ultimately though, being extremely stubborn on prices means someone is going to be left with egg on their face - either Palace are silly or desperate enough to pay whatever Liverpool ask, or Liverpool are going to be left with a player they don't want when they could have had £25m in the bank. I agree that we could have held out for a bit more or a bit longer on Mane, but at best we would have squeezed an extra couple of million out of someone. The downside was probably a lot bigger. I don't feel we've been swindled, even if we didn't get the best deal imaginable.