ScepticalStan

Hojbjerg has certainly improved this second half. Granted, thats not hard to do, but he hasn't tried to hide at all which is due credit

I'm one of Davis' harshest critics but this is the sort of game he'll be useful in

That goal was all on Hojbjerg I'm afraid. Just stood there and let Ake nip in front of him. Even if he had vaguely contested the header he'd have done enough to prevent Ake getting a firm header directed into the corner. Forster maybe could have got to it I guess

Hm, I'm still not convinced about Austin. He'd look at his best in a 4-4-2. I don't like him as a central striker as whilst he's a decent finisher and certainly not bad in terms of heading the ball (if he can get himself a free header - a bit like Long), his hold-up play isn't actually that impressive. I don't see him as a striker who's going to hold off a defender with his back to goal, take it on his chest and lay it off - certainly not the way Lambert or Pelle could.

I get to watch people who slag off Puel for being boring, predictable, risk-averse and responsible for sideways passing, defend Steven Davis and JWP, who exemplify all of the above.

Yup. One thing you can bet Stoke will do now is kick the **** out of us to get a reaction, whilst being safe in the knowledge the ref will be ultra reluctant to give them a second red, but will certainly be happy to even it up as you say. Its a sly tactic but actually increasing the amount of ****-kicking after you've gone down to 10 men is often quite effective for this very reason.

Ffs. Davis gets the ball 30 yards from goal, fakes to shoot, obviously decides not to and then plays a crap ball to Martina which bobbles out of play. Oh well. Should still win this.

Boufal is absolutely fantastic. Just give the lad the ball at every damn opportunity we can.

We'll certainly have enough to stay up but if we didn't have Boufal and Van Dijk we'd be in serious trouble as I can't for the life of me see where our goals are going to come from other than the odd set piece and moment of magic from Boufal. Sadly we have a lot of very limited players in the team (Davis/JWP etc.)

Boufal beats two players and both Clasie and Ward-Prowse are stood totally flat-footed. **** pass all the same but it goes to show how ineffective we've managed to make such an obviously talented player.

lol. Stopped reading there.

This. This is the first season where we've seen a clear step down in the quality of our recruitment. Puel might not be a worldbeater but I think the 'ceiling' for this squad is a lot lower than a lot of our fans realise. Our players aren't that good and Pelle, Wanyama and Mane (being cast as fancy-pants foreigners by our mong fanbase that would rather see Shane Long run around like Forrest Gump and failing to score a goal for 18 games on the trot) were actually far more crucial to our success than said mong fans would like to admit. Simple. The manager is pretty naff and our squad should have had enough to get through this ****ty group but the main thing that concerns me and should concern everyone is the ability of the playing staff. Its **** weak beyond the back four + Romeu

And we sold the best players that played a massive part in getting us there, and haven't replaced them. Redmond is arguably Championship standard, Austin needs to be spoon-fed goals, none of our midfielders can create a chance, beat a man or play a through-ball, our keeper is bang average. The defence is OK but that's not the issue if it takes only one goal to beat you. As I say. If all our players were playing for West Ham there's no way you'd be saying "hmm, West Ham are really underachieving this season, that lot should be way up in 6th or so"

No he doesn't. The players are average and the board have sold the best ones. Puel's doing the best he can with a very average squad that is in no way entitled to be anywhere higher in the table than it is at the moment.

If each and every one of these players were wearing Stoke, West Brom or West Ham shirts and had had precisely the same results in all competitions across this season as we do, none of us would consider them as particularly underachieving. We're a lower mid-table side with an average keeper, a very good centre-half, a decent left-back, and a bunch of completely average players throughout the rest of the team.

We brought him on when we were either 2 or 3 goals down, or defending a 1 goal lead with 10 men, with about 15 minutes to go and then played him out of position. He never got a proper run in the side.

Come on, not really. Fonte's backpass was completely reasonable and actually, very well weighted. Forster didn't have to take a touch but had time to do so if he really wanted to. He just mucked up massively and there's nothing more to say.

Yup. Ha, quite. And I'm a happy-clapper in general.

Here's a little video of a news report from their promotion. Really likable club that came from nowhere to compete in the top flight and make their first forays into continental-level football. There are a fair few parallels with us. Terrible to think that some of the players who were interviewed after the game are no longer with us. Bruno Rangel, their Rickie Lambert, was among the dead.

We look so much better without Davis and Clasie ****ting up the midfield. Sims had an excellent debut and gives us plenty to be excited about. Cedric was outstanding and Hojbjerg had his best game yet. Virgil and Fonte superb as always and Lukaku looked completely shackled. Had it not been for Stek that game would have been wrapped up earlier.

The funny thing is that as much as I slate Davis at times (only because he's overrated on here), I actually wouldn't be too critical of either him, or any of the above players as individuals (apart from perhaps Clasie who seems to be fairly **** at passing, winning 50/50s and everything defensive as well). None of them are supposed to be goalscoring players. We signed Romeu knowing full well that he had never scored a single senior career goal (in over 100 games) before he came here. What did we expect? We need to sign some proper, dedicated attacking midfielders because there is absolutely no way we're going to be able to convert any of the above players (with the exception of maybe Hojbjerg, given how young he still is) into goal threats. It simply isn't their natural game. Until we either sign some players, or somehow integrate Tadic, Redmond and Boufal into the same team, we're going to continue to be **** easy to defend against like we were tonight.

The main problem is that we have a midfield that would struggle to find a goal between them. Romeu, Davis, Clasie and JWP are all defensively-minded players who's role has always been to win the ball, pass it and keep possession. Up until now they've played in teams where there's either been other midfield players who've been charged with an attacking responsibility, or a front three (Lallana-Lambert-Rodriguez/Mane-Pelle-Tadic) who has been quite capable of shouldering the goalscoring duties all by themselves. Now that we have a fairly **** forward line, the fact that we have a midfield where none of them can beat a man, shoot from distance, arrive late in the box or really thread much of a forward pass is seriously starting to haunt us. I'm really struggling to think of a Premier League side with less of a threat from midfield than we have.

Could be the fella on the Betfair forum

Had exactly the same reaction myself. Still, its all words. Russell Brand's mind is 100% closed to the idea that immigration and globalisation present any kind of issues whatsoever because any criticism of either is 'racist'. As such, he won't offer any solutions, because he, like many others, is married to the idea that (even if both are a net benefit), they entail absolutely no problems whatsoever and absolutely no-one doesn't benefit from them.

Yup. Obvious straw-man argument but in a nutshell, yes. What Steven Davis offers is a nippy little midfielder who'll win it and give it, and can do so under pressure. Against strong teams he'll intercept the ball, recycle possession, and has excellent positional sense to do both. He massively disrupts the passing game of the bigger clubs, particularly those for whom winning is more-or-less contingent on getting into a rhythm, and maintaining a significantly higher percentage of possession than their opponents (Arsenal being a great example). Against teams like Hull, who we didn't even have to try and win the ball from (because all they did was hoof it up and gift it back to us via the head of Fonte/Yoshida/Van Dijk), Davis becomes a lot less useful. Possession is more-or-less a given and our midfielders aren't under any great pressure. The challenge in winning the game is slicing through them on the counter-attack, and breaking them down when they get men behind the ball. Essentially, Davis' strengths become unimportant and his weaknesses become more costly. So, yeah. The answer to your question is basically 'yes'. Davis is a limited player. That doesn't mean he's a bad player. Ruud Van Nistelrooy was a very limited player for instance. But, it does mean that he's a player who's limitations (and his strengths, in fairness), we should be alive to.