ErwinK1961

And Hull...

Poor lad will get the s**t kicked out of him!

Both I think. The second half of last season played to his strengths - getting the ball forward as quickly as possible to him, stretching defences, forcing defenders into errors - the space he created also helped Tadic and Mane create chances for him. He was also on possibly the best hot streak of his career and the confidence was flowing, hence scoring goals like Newcastle at home last season. This year I don't think we play to his strengths - our forward / build up play is a lot more technical and 'patient' which I don't think suits him at all. You can also see he seems completely devoid of any confidence - it's like he's concerned he'll only get one chance and must take it, whereas last year he knew he'd likely get several in a game. Still a valuable asset for us, but probably wont see the best of him unless we change out style, which aint going to happen.

Was that before or after Alan Brazil said that John Terry would be a perfect replacement for VVD?!

Fairly sure Dusic is Saint Charlie

Probably would be 5 points better off as well.

Football loves to throw up a surprise... would have thought a man in your position would have known that better than anyone.

I think JWP puts a good ball in the majority of the time - I think finishing has let us down. In the Europa league alone I can think of several chances (mainly VVD!) where we've missed free headers / volleys from his set pieces.

Great minds and all that SS

Reckon it will be:- Forster Cedric - Fonte - VVD - Bertrand Romeu PEH - JWP Redmond - Austin - Boufal Personally would rather give Sims a go in place of Redmond, as I think NR's been pants the last few games.

The way the media is building this up about possibly being Pardew's last game, you can just see them nicking this in a dirty 1-0.

Enjoyed Chamberlains debut against Huddersfield. Not old enough for Shearers debut, so Sims wins hands down for me.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11700/10675738/five-southampton-academy-stars-who-can-match-josh-sims Apologies if posted elsewhere already - nothing earth shattering, but interesting coming from fellow team-mates.

Seeing as he wasn't the manager at the time, that would have been impressive!

"an evident difference in each half's displays so far" - sounds familiar.

100% this.

Best thing he can do is stay at Blackburn, keep getting games and experience, then come back next season ready to compete for a place. No point in him being here now, he wouldn't get the game time he needs.

If true, you would expect a replacement has been sorted.

They're due a bad result, right? Please?

Gets down slowly to shots, doesn't command his box and is slow off his line. He's not a bad keeper, but wouldn't say he's one of the best around either. This lacks of saves argument has come up before with Gazza and Stek - we must have one of the highest shots to goals conceded ratio's over the last 2-3 seasons.

Only other thing I can think of is Yoshi has been promised the EL matches, or they are easing VVD into a captaincy role, with a view to him taking over next season?

Absolutely loved he had the mineral's to confront the dirty, cheating, penalty spot scuffing b*stard's last night. Lad.

Wouldn't mind seeing a few 'tactical' withdrawals from international squads with 'injuries' - lets act like a big club!

Disagree - thought he was a pathetically weak referee. It's Europe, so I guess you have to expect players falling over and getting free-kicks at the slightest of touches (Redmond won us a couple of very useful ones like this to run the clock down!) but I thought he gave them quite a lot of cheap free kicks - one in particular in the first half where it looked like J-Rod (?) seemed to get fouled, yet he gave it the other way?! I also didn't enjoy him giving us 'advantage' for approximately 2 seconds then never actually going back to the original incident when we lost the ball. But then again, I do have my saints tinted specs on