mrfahaji

Well I'd hope that not every club operates that way, but I guess it wouldn't surprise me. Only the big clubs have the power to leak stuff to press and use that effectively though. I'm not talking about hard bargaining either, just the intent to unsettle a player so that they push for a move before a decent offer has even materialised. If I remember correctly, I believe Cortese tried to screw Sc*nthorpe when we approached Adkins, and to his credit Nigel refused to join under those circumstances. Of course I always want Saints to get a good deal, but that doesn't extend so far as completely bullying a smaller club out of a fair deal for them.

Yes exactly, they were remarkably similar. Difference is at Anfield (if I recall), there was also a case of Stephens not knowing where the ball was. Not sure you could say that on Saturday...!

Pompey, Spurs, Everton, Liverpool & Man City are my hated group. I'd probably enjoy seeing City relegated more than Spurs, but would prefer City to win the league/cup than them.

Well if you don't mind Spurs then I can totally see your point. I think Levy should be applauded for keeping a strict wage structure, and it's much better to see a club build a team without having 'cheat mode enabled' like Man City (who, lest we forget, were a distinctly mid to lower PL team before they had a cash injection). The trouble is, I'm not a neutral. I hate Tottenham doing well, and the fact that they are doing it with Pochettino, Wanyama and Alderweireld, that Levy employs all the usual underhanded tactics when trying to sign players, and that I know soooo many Tottenham fans (some of which are bearable, some aren't), means I can't ever be happy with the prospect of them winning things.

Oh man, I can't believe this. First van Dijk to Liverpool, then Cedric to Chelsea and now... Yoshida to Everton!

Pretty much!

I'd probably say "no penalty" to Stephens' handball as well, BUT... the ball was close but not particularly 'fired' at him, and he does move his elbow up towards the ball in an unnatural way. I think the best explanation might be that it was an instinctive reaction by Stephens rather than an intention to block with his arm, but I don't think it was the same scenario as someone blasting a shot at goal and it hitting the defender on an arm by his side.

The Express must have the least talented group of "journalists" out there. I've always thought they were in the same boat as the Daily Mail for odiousness, but actually I think it's just that their stories are embarrassingly low quality.

Would it though? Really?

True enough, you're probably right to claim that 'soft' should be more about how obvious or severe a foul it was, rather than how often they're given. I'm sure West Ham fans would argue it "wasn't much of a push", but rather than the blaming the ref they should probably focus on Zabaleta who gave the ref a decision to make. Do you think Stephens handball was a penalty? I certainly think there was a case, even if it would have been...ahem..."soft"! I hope Noble gets suspended retrospectively. Could have broken our new £18m player's leg in his first half of Premier League football...

As long as Tadic doesn't have to take it.

If Yoshida had nudged Sakho just before his header leading to the second goal and a penalty was given, would you have felt aggrieved, or at the very least have thought "that wouldn't have been given against a Liverpool or Chelsea defender"? You could argue that the foul on Tadic last week by Swansea would also have been a 'soft' penalty - it would surely have been given if the incident was on the half way line - but referees are reluctant to effectively decide the game on such a moment. Tadic wasn't about to score, and I'm not sure Yoshida was going to either. Doesn't make it the wrong decision, just that you often don't see them made, especially in the last minute.

I can think of one poster who would love to see that...

Haha, I'd say not being on the pitch is a pretty good reason for not taking the penalty! Wonder if you're being a little harsh on Gabbiadini though, his penalty against United was decent, but it brought out a fantastic save from Romero. I know there's the old cliche about "a good penalty is one that goes in", but I'd argue that Tadic has scored with some of his worst penalties, not sure a miss is always a sign of a bad taker.

Cedric

What circumstances would he play ahead of Austin though? Austin is a "different sort" to Gabbiadini and Long, so can't see that Gallagher would get the nod unless Austin was injured. Of course that could happen, which is why I hope we have an option to recall him early if need be. It's a funny one, because 4 strikers for 1 position seems overkill as 1 is never likely to even make the bench, but as soon as you lose one to injury, only having 3 strikers seems severely lacking!

Thing is, he had so many "he got away with that" or "seen them given!" moments for us, I'm not totally surprised his luck has run out!

Well I'm still here, in my 12th year, and I can confirm there are still lots of areas I would consider decidedly unsh1tholey - plenty of which I'll never afford to live in! And considering I grew up in Winchester, apparently the best place to live in the UK, it can't just be that I'm easily pleased :-) (Of course there are plenty of annoying things about London, but lots of amazing things too, guess it just depends how much impact these various things have on you. I expect I'll reach the stage where the cons outweigh the pros for my life, but not to the extent I'll write the city off completely. The UK in general on the other hand...)

Bit of a generalisation there! Some (myself included) would argue it's one of the best cities in the world, with plenty of nice bits.

Is that a rhetorical question? From what I recall he was in front of Sakho - perhaps poor positioning in the first place? Nonetheless, Yoshida could see Sakho when the ball was about to be delivered, Stephens couldn't. As for the second ball, I don't remember, but it's common to see strikers react to the second ball faster.

A lot of the comments on here re Yoshida's general good game are fair, but I'm not sure you can explain away the second goal. Yes it was a good cross, but also one from deep where it was clear a cross was about to come in. Maya has to be closer to Sakho in the first instance - you learn as a kid to be goalside as a defender, he was about a yard the wrong side. Yes, Hernandez should have been picked up but I think that's more forgivable - when a cross comes over your head it's not easy to stick on your markers, and strikers like Hernandez have made a career out of sniffing out the right place for loose balls. Fantastic finish too.

In the second half he was pretty anonymous, and kept losing the ball when we were building attacks. His crossbar shot was in injury time and took a big deflection. He actually had an ok shot earlier on (Hart had it covered) but he is frustrating when he takes shots instead of playing someone in who would have a better chance.

Can't believe people are saying Forster was not to blame for first goal. It did take a deflection, so I have some sympathy there, may explain why he was so slow to get to ball virtually in the middle of the goal. Having got to the ball though, if you can't catch it you either have to push it away from danger or (if you have the presence of mind to) to one of your defenders. Second goal has to be on Yoshida. Cresswell looks up, clearly going to cross it, no excuse for Sakho being stood on his own in the middle with Yoshida stood a yard or two behind him. He had a good game generally, but that wasn't good enough.

It is amazing how biased football fans are. I'm sure I am to an extent but some of those comments are laughable. Someone wondering sarcastically whether the time would be added on after the penalty because the penalty "took ages to be taken"... only because all of your players, particularly Joe Hart, were trying to delay it as much as possible!

Awful in the second half though. Don't mind him shooting from time to time but it's frustrating when he opts to do so when there is a really good pass on.