ScepticalStan

Billy Sharp - Half-season hero.

Glad to have been proven right that a team with seven changes would be quite sufficient to comfortably dispatch Aston Villa (happy that Mr Koeman agreed that it was quite unnecessary to put out a full-strength team). Not so happy to be proven right that even though there were three major upsets and the other cup ties couldn't realistically have gone much more in our favour, the tourney still appears to be a bridge too far. Despite the upsets, the big clubs just keep on avoiding each other and like I say, I think we need both to happen if a club like us is going to win a trophy. Liverpool will be a very tough challenge and even if we win, we'll probably have a 2 in 3 chance of facing City or Everton over two legs in the semis. I don't think we'd be much better than a coinflip to beat Stoke either (although doubtless some posters will object to my saying this despite the fact that we've had an identical head-to-head record with them for the past three seasons). Having said all of that, I'd certainly go full-strength against Liverpool. Should be a cracking atmosphere and the match ought to do it justice.

You do have a point here, but consider this: In February 2014 we had 38 points and were completely clear of any danger of relegation, but were something like 10-15 points off the top six. Had we won, our route to a cup final against Arsenal would have been a weak Hull City who we'd beaten home and away that season, and third-tier Sheffield United. Pochettino let this opportunity slip away by playing a weakened team against a distracted, relegation-threatened Sunderland side that should have been there for the taking because he wanted to save our players for the league, which didn't pay any dividends whatsoever as we lost both of our next two league games against West Ham and Liverpool. Whilst it is technically an opinion to say that anger at all I've just described was 'justified', could you really make an argument that it was unjustified? Were you not angry? I remember that game provoking more anger among our fans and on this forum than any event post-Lowe.

One real upset. Beating a second-string Liverpool in the early stages is nothing special. Beating Chelsea over two legs was their one serious upset. They played Middlesborough and Bradford in the quarter final and final. As I said, one real upset. One real upset. Find me a club of our size or smaller that's won a cup whilst having to beat three or more strong opponents in their run. You seriously think that we have a stronger squad now than we did last season or the one before? Let's wait and see where we finish this season and what our points tally is. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman Please. Stop embarrassing us. We have beaten MK Dons so far in this competition and are in the last 16 (or is that just an opinion too?) If this was on Stoke's, Palace's or especially Leicester's forum we'd all be having a good laugh at how delusional they are.

How so? All of the bolded is just a series of facts, so I presume you don't take issue with that. With regard to how strongly we should line up tonight; the reality is that despite last night going better than any of us could have hoped for, we're still likely to find ourselves in a 1/4 final draw with fully half of it comprised of City, United, Liverpool and Everton. Meaning it is statistically likely we'll face one of those teams. Our last five matches against those four teams have yielded no wins, one draw, and four defeats. Nevertheless, as I say, a club like Saints should take each cup on a case-by-case basis. The more the tournament opens up for you, the more you go for it. The less it does so, the less resources you should spend (potentially at the expense of the league) on trying to chase an unrealistic goal. As such, given last night's results, I'm happy to say that I care about the cup a little bit more than I did prior to last night, as winning the trophy has become more achievable. If United, City and Liverpool all lose 0-1 tonight, and Saints' match goes to extra-time, I'll care about our result against Villa hugely, just as I did in the Sunderland FA cup match I mentioned. However, don't kid yourself. When a club of our size (Swansea, Birmingham) wins the cup, its invariably because they've benefited from an easy route to the final with perhaps one genuine upset along the way, and despite its 'Mickey Mouse' tag, the League Cup has been one by a 'Big Six' team on the other nine occasions over the past eleven years. If you could somehow tell me that our route to the trophy would be some combination of City/United/Liverpool/Everton in three games in a row, I honestly wouldn't give a hoot about the result of tonight's match. Nevertheless, that's obviously the worst case scenario and far from guaranteed, which is why, as I say, I'm advocating judging each cup on a case-by-case basis. If, for example, there's another upset tonight, we get a weak team at home in the 1/4 finals and the two remaining big guns run happen to run into each other, then my opinions would change as the facts change, and I'd advocate going for the trophy full pelt. I am obviously, obviously, obviously not suggesting we play a weakened team throughout the competition no matter how glaringly huge the opportunity to win a trophy might be, any more than you are advocating playing the same 1st XI in every single competitive match this season. But let’s not embarrass ourselves. So far in this competition we have beaten Mickey Dons. And that’s it. All this talk of the trophy now being within our grasp at this stage because of a few upsets would sound daft as anything if it were coming from Leicester, Palace or even Stoke, as it does from us.

This. It isn't merely a case of what's been happening at Newcastle where a big club with a squad full of internationals have massively underachieved thanks to awful management, disastrous tactics and a dreadful atmosphere in the club from the top-down. Whilst these factors do indeed apply to Villa, their main problem that dwarfs all of the above is that they really do have the weakest squad in the league.

Or United or Everton at home. My point is that should we win tonight, the three matches standing between us and the trophy are very probably a combination of Chelsea, United, Liverpool, Arsenal, City and Everton, which our weaker-than-13/14-squad will have to beat three-in-a-row (although admittedly a cup final against whoever would be very enjoyable). The run to the trophy in the FA Cup in 13/14 with our stronger-than-we-have-now squad would have been Hull, Sheffield United and a weaker-than-they-are-now Arsenal. Ridiculous to suggest that this is anywhere near as big an opportunity for a trophy as we had 18 months ago. Or even in the League Cup last year for that matter. I'd pick the squad accordingly and make sure that we don't drop any of the three points that should be on a plate for us at home to an injury-ravaged Bournemouth currently down on their knees on Sunday.

When it comes to cup competitions I think its fair to take it on a case-by-case basis. The infamous Sunderland defeat in February 2014 came in a competition where a maximum of only two of the 'Big Six' would make it through to the 1/4 finals (Spurs and United already out and Liverpool/Arsenal/Chelsea/City running into each other), along with plenty of easily-beatable lower-league fodder guaranteed to make it through. It turned out that had we beaten Sunderland (who played just as weak a team as we did by the way, and would certainly have been there for the taking if we had gone for it), we'd have been two cup fixtures against relegation strugglers Hull City and third-tier Sheffield United away from a cup final against Arsenal that we genuinely could have won. All in all, given the way the cup opened up for us that year, it was a huge opportunity missed for a club of our size and people were justifiably angry. However; this year's league cup competition just hasn't gone that way. The big guns have all avoided each other, we haven't got as strong as squad as we did two years ago and aren't as liberated from the perils of a potential relegation battle as we were then. As such, in this case I'd be happy to play a second-string team. If we 'wake up' in the Semi-Finals then of course, let's go for it, but it looks very likely that we'll simply be faced with a run of big clubs that will prove to be a bit of a brick wall.

Hand on heart I was planning to come on here to say that we actually did OK when we were 1-0 down and of course, assuming that would be the final score. Individual players were poor going forward (Tadic, Pelle, Bertrand) but the spine of the team VVD/Fonte/Clasie/Wanyama did reasonably well. Stekelenburg is fast becoming a vital player for us. He may not quite be the CL-level shotstopper that he was 5-6 years ago but his experience, distribution, communication and organisation improves our entire defensive set-up no end compared to the absolute catastrophe that is Kelvin Davis or Paulo Gazzaniga. I was going to point out that if you don't score, you can't complain when one moment of magic is all that it takes to beat you, but its great to nick the point that our performance merited. We really weren't that bad today at all, and like I say I'd have said the same even if we didn't nick the equaliser. Oh and a very well done to Gaston as well. Great header for the assist and a fantastic run from our left-back position to fashion a very decent chance for Pelle. I personally think he deserves a genuine run in the team at some point (hopefully at the expense of the perpetually useless Tadic). Finally, am I right in thinking that Mane will use up his red card in the cup against Villa in midweek? If so I couldn't care less about it so long as he doesn't repeat the mistake. Says he made 'two stupid fouls' in the post-match interview so sounds like he knows. Onward and upward! I honestly thought we'd be fighting relegation after the Midgetland and Everton defeats and it looks like I'll be completely wrong. Good-o.

Not sure about that. We did the double over Villa in 12/13 without conceding from Benteke. Benteke didn't score against us in 13/14 although we did only get one point off Villa...and in fact...thinking about it...his one goal against us was the completely unimportant consolation when we beat them 6-1. So this is clearly not true. Having said all that, he's still a major threat and could easily do us, but we have kept him quiet before mostly.

Tadic has been pretty awful. Gives the ball away time and again and slows the game down when often all he needs to do is be able to return a pass first-time to Mane.

Haha! And yet everyone loves The True Geordie who's fundamentally doing the exact same thing!

Hmm. Yeah you may have a point there. I suppose its a case of: Are Saints one of the 10 biggest clubs in England? No. Where are Saints at the moment? 8th. Where did Saints finish last season? 7th. Where did Saints finish the season before that? 8th. Ultimately its pretty indisputable that we've been consistently overachieving for several years now, and as such, complaints about either 1) our players just generally not being good enough for us to challenge for a higher position or 2) us having specific weaknesses in certain positions, fall a little bit hollow as more-or-less every single team outside United/City/Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool will have precisely the same kind of complaints. Its only when you get to the top of the league that those complaints seem either somewhat justified, or just plain funny. To the rest of the league, our entire campaign is likely to be one massive, mediocre, mid-table 'meh' (although we'll obviously catch the eye if we give any of the big boys a bloody nose)

My old boss was this revolting, gappy-yellow-toothed old Northern c*nt of a Leeds fan. Constantly made jokes about Hillsborough (and I do mean with the victims as the butt of the joke). Awkward as hell watching everyone trying to offer a polite smile but utterly failing to be able to. All clubs have their brigades and both retards and normals but for some reason Leeds seem to have more than their fair share of contemptible mongs, but for some reason I wouldn't mind having them back in the Premiership. They have more character and make a better pantomime villian than the likes of Stoke.

I'm not against a 'Saints Fan TV' per se but its gotta be done right. You need a bit of a youth and energy and style, charisma and likeability. Just asking random people how the game went isn't really enough to get the channel off the ground. The second thing is consistency. You need to be attending every game as the home matches are going to be much-of-a-muchness. The regular characters are the ones going to the away matches. I think Arsenal Fan TV is a good example to follow - the fella who presents it is like a black version of Father Christmas: - charming guy and impossible to dislike - and provides a great foil to the likes of angry Claude and optimistic Ty who become the characters and get the show the attention.

Then it would have been because Schmeichel overbalanced and fell over whilst backpeddling or something. If Mane had got his lob absolutely perfectly on target, it still wouldn't have gone in as Schmeichel had gotten back well on time. Truly one of the most asinine decisions I've ever seen on a football pitch.

I'm assuming that this is sarcasm. Kelvin was one of the primary reasons we lost the lead and gave the ball straight back to the opposition so often throughout the game. Leicester (well done Ranieri) spotted that his kicking was woeful and in the second half instructed Dyer and Mahrez to cut off the short passes to both full backs whenever he had the ball whilst Vardy closed him down. Even with the ball in his hands he kept on rolling it out to Wanyama as if 1) he was Schneiderlin and 2) we were still in the Championship and under no pressure at all. He's been a terrible goalkeeper and a massive weakness throughout his time at Saints. Happily enough we've had, throughout the good years in the lower leagues, a strong enough defence to protect him/a midfield that dominated possession and meant that he was never tested + an attack that could outscore the opposition even if we did concede. Hopefully Koeman is dispassionate and objective enough not to have his observations clouded by sentiment and will have the nerve to replace old Kelv asap.

Both did absolutely fine. The problem was that we completely lost the midfield and gave the ball back to Leicester at every opportunity, which meant that both VVD and Fonte came under more pressure in 45 minutes than many CBs do in 2 matches. If anything, the fact that we were run so completely ragged and conceded 2 goals *in spite* of the CBs generally doing OK is a testament to how bad fhd midfield actually was.

Kelvin Davis is awful and cost us the second goal. Huge, huge weakness and always has been. If he really has to play again, we should have Fonte or VVD taking the goal kicks, no matter how humiliating that might be for Kelv.

I must say the Dutch have had a better run of it than we have. Hell, they've finished 2nd and 3rd in the last couple of World Cups. England are unique in their terrible-ness despite having, in theory, all that you need to do reasonably well at a sport (popularity/cultural importance/decent population size)

I'd go for the 0-1 against United at Old Trafford. At the time, United were actually in good form (If I remember rightly they were top of the form table over the most recent 10 matches or so) and many were expecting them to kick on. To win and overtake them really made people sit up and take notice. I remember seeing tonnes of posts on other football forums saying words to the effect of "Jesus...Southampton really aren't ****ing around are they...they really could finish top 4 ". Yesterday was a beauty but the only thing is that I think there's a real chance Chelsea could end up finishing outside the top four. I'm sorry to say I think a lot of teams are going to beat that Chelsea side and when you've got so many eggs in one basket with Mourinho's all-or-nothing approach we could end up being one of many teams to beat them comfortably (I mean hell, Swansea and Palace have gotten results at Stamford Bridge as well as us already).

He'll leave at the end of the season but we shouldn't be selling him for any less than £35-40Mn. If the likes of De Bruyne and Sterling are £50Mn+ then we're offering a bargain as well.

lol no chance. I remember when we (literally about 5 of us, spreading to 40-50 or so and eventually maybe 100-200-ish) got the 'Mane Mane/Sadio-oh-oh-oh' chant (to the tune of Ole Ole) on his first start at the Arsenal away game in the cup about a year ago. Within the next few home games it had been completely drowned out and replaced with the cookie-cutter, copied and colourless seven-nation-army version that literally about half the league now sings. The Premier League has killed our support completely.

I'm going for Tactical Timmy's Villa Circus personally.

If this happened to Saints I'd stop supporting us. Not sorry.