ScepticalStan

If that's the case, then why did Clyne, Lovren, Shaw, Aldeweireld, Lallana, Lambert, Van Dijk, Fonte, Mane, Wanyama and Schneiderlin all (at the very least) attract interest from bigger clubs whilst absolutely none of them have gone for Davis? Its almost like literally no-one in a neutral position ascribes our success to him. We really ought to tell the Cities, Liverpools and Uniteds how underrated Steven Davis is.

Isn't it funny how NO other player, but NO other player gets this defence whenever he has a bad game? The line that "after-all-we're-only-little-old-Southampton-and-we-can't-possibly-expect-better-than-Steven-Davis-can-we"? OP's point massively proven.

Surely VVD isn't in too much doubt for the final is he?

Clasie and Davis, useless once again. No threat from deep means that once again teams can simply get men behind the ball safe in the knowledge that there's no danger of Saints having a midfielder who'll thread a pass or shoot from distance. So ****ing easy to defend against us.

Ha. Innit.

Psh. No-one else in this league would want either of them.

We have a pair of **** centre-forwards in Shane Long and Jay Rodriguez, neither of whom are Premiership standard.

Had a season ticket for the past 8 years but no, could never be bothered with the FA cup. Went to the United game in 09 and the Yeovil game in 14, but that's about it.

Tinpot trophy. I won't be going.

Thanks to all you grandads insisting on the BBC being given exclusive coverage there are, ironically, no streams to watch our game.

No matter what they do, they'll always be the smallest of the four clubs in the North West and no, they're not going to break into the big 6 with any kind of permanency any more than say, Spurs will break into being regarded as one of the biggest 4 regardless of how high up the table they finish every odd season. They're a very, very frustrated club.

I personally stuck with Puel for a long, long time. I said at the start of the season that the players we've brought in as replacements are a clear step-down from the ones we let go, that our expectations should be lower, and that we ought to give him a chance. The problem is, I just can't see any real plan under Puel or, more to the point, anything really being built. We've gone into zombie-mode; trundling along until the end of the season where the better players will be on their way, and the not-so-good players will stick around and collect their lower-mid-table paycheque and their easy money. Under Adkins, Poch, Koeman and so on, you could see what we were trying to achieve and what areas of the team we were working on/improving upon, but under Puel I just don't see any real future for this team. I'd say stick with until the end of the season but get a replacement ready in the meantime.

I don't disagree with the latter part of your post but all three of those players are considerable steps down in quality. I mean, Lovren being replaced with Aldeweireld and Lallana being replaced with Mane and Lambert with Pelle were/are/is truly like-for-like replacements. Those three aren't.

This is one of those footballing statements that you can completely flip around; "where is the incentive to give 110% if you know that you're in the 1st XI and will be keeping your place no matter what/where is the incentive if you know you won't break into the team other than through an injury to a senior player".

We have a pretty crap team outside of VVD and Boufal. The manager isn't great but the team is woefully imbalanced with a load of average players with a couple of very decent ones who are demotivated by having to carry the rest of them. Can't wait for the season to be over frankly. Should still make it to 40 points but the whole squad needs a complete rebuild in the summer from the VVD money. If we can sell Fonte for £10Mn and/or find someone who'll take Forster off our hands that wouldn't be a bad bit of business either.

Not much Forster could have done there. Great strike

Yoshida beaten easily. Our League 1 level keeper lets another saveable shot in.

Not too sure I agree. We had a pretty fantastic team under Poch and frankly, didn't overachieve in the slightest by finishing 8th. We really ought to have finished higher. Oh, and we never came from behind to win in his entire 18-month reign at the club. Never. Not once.

Ah, right you are. That is indeed what I meant.

He's far from a complete disaster but he's rooted to his line, can't kick and doesn't inspire a shred of confidence among the defenders. I can't think of many matches (apart from the 0-0 away at Arsenal last year) where you really felt that he'd 'saved us a point or three'. Everything else is very 'meh'. Shotstopping, distribution, one-on-ones etc. Nothing terrible but nothing to write home about. All in all he's a just a bang average keeper. Still, Gomes, Valdes, Randolph, Fabianski, there's a lot of average keepers out there at clubs at our level. Mind you... Schmeichel, Pickford, Foster... there are a few others who would be an improvement. Boruc in his prime was the best keeper we've had in the Premier League by far.

It does make me chuckle when people still attempt the whole 'if we take any kind of steps or security measure to guard against terrorism, that's what the terrorists want!' No they don't. What the terrorists want is for their religion to be treated with passive deference and given undue respect and credit. What the terrorists really don't want is for Western countries to fearlessly mock and pillory the nonsensical claims of invisible men in the sky, winged horses and miraculous codswallop that is at the heart of the Qu'ran and their religion, whilst both defending their right to do so with strong security measures and backing up their right to do so with unrestricted science and a culture of free speech.

This sort of thing certainly does happen but I'm very, very confident you've simply made this little anecdote up

Dangerously ignorant bull**** that doesn't have a shred of evidence behind it and peddled despite all evidence to the contrary, including testimonies from both current and indeed ex-jihadists.

Utter horse**** that's been peddled for years. The 19 9/11 hijackers all had college degrees and many had PhD's, Jihadi John was a computer science graduate from a middle-class background, Al Bakri is formally educated in Islamic theology, al-Zawahiri was a doctor, Bin Laden was a squillionaire. Finally, the extremists that carry out these mass murders *TELL US REPEATEDLY* that they do so because of their beliefs and their condemnation of the moral deviance of West. None of them *ever* come out and say that they're motivated by poverty.

Must be one of those Hindu terrorists at it again