The9

It appears once again I'm in the minority by not being a knee-jerking manager-sacking social media whoring ****womble. Bloke who's got a reputation for developing younger players doesn't appear to be developing anyone at the moment but apart from that all I see is a load of players who don't appear to be as bothered as they were last season and a heirarchy that hasn't worked out that only having one system makes you predictable and incredibly easy to defend against. Sad times, the lack of anything remotely resembling evidence of cause and effect is one of the reasons I CBA to discuss stuff on here any more as well. A little concerned that Guan's on the other team though, but I guess that depends on his sources.

Pulis may be Newportonian and a former classmate of my aunt, but he's also a dirty Skate... Not sure the Wales job would pay him enough tbh though previous "functional" coaches like Mark Hughes in the early 2000s were relatively successful (ie lost in playoff rather than finishing 5th in group). Will be interesting to see where West Brom go from here - Stoke bottomed out for a while when Hughes tried to turn them into a football team for a while, it's not like most of their players have been signed for their creativity and flair.

FIFY.

Completely agree. The problem is in midfield.

And 2 points off 15th.

Yeah, I started and gave up after a couple of minutes. They're only going to ignore it and pick the one they want anyway.

That's not relegation form, especially the conceding from the only shot - only conceding one shot is a very good indicator you're not going to lose often. That kind of shot to goal ratio just doesn't continue across an entire season (and nor does missing loads of decent chances like we did in the second half of last season, which is why our chance quality dropping off this season is even more annoying).

Those stats though. It shows how poorly we've been doing in defence (pretty high Shots on Target against, and high xG against compared to previous seasons when our shots faced were much lower and so was expected goals against as a result). That the goals actually conceded is lower than xG isn't just down to the keeper, though he should be a significant factor. A quick check of the goals conceded map shows most of the goals conceded are within the 6 yard box - which explains the high xG against. However, the three from outside the area (and the one from out wide against Newcastle where Forster basically ran out of the way of the angle after stopping the initial shot) are contributing to the feeling there have been goalkeeping errors. You can create them yourself here: https://public.tableau.com/profile/paul.riley#!/vizhome/PremierLeaguexGandShotMap2017-18/PremierLeaguexGShotDashboard2017-18

Yet despite our atypically low goals scored, we've still scored more than Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Swansea and Palace, the same as West Brom and only one less than the team in 7th. If we get even remotely close to previous seasons we'll be somewhere midtable. FWIW I'm going for Bournemouth Swansea and West Brom, with Palace, Huddersfield and Stoke down there too. West Ham and Everton *should* have enough to get out of it, but depends on their managerial appointments - which isn't really the case for Saints, as we'll always pick a certain "type", the downside of course being our predictability...

It isn't, but we still basically should have won 1-0. Margins are slim though.

We're bog standard mid-table at the moment, somewhere between 8th and 15th depending on how bad our finishing is. You have to be truly abysmal over at least a 6 month period to get relegated from the Premier League and we're not even close to being that bad.

You are seeing things, the only difference is the lack of sponsor. It's probably the floodlights and rain.

Sort of, ish. All but Sims had already played for the first team though.

Jesus Christ, they can't help themselves can they? Here's the last one, 3 years ago - 55% voted to change it. I wonder if it's the same 55% voting to change it again? https://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/news/2014/october/fans-vote-for-crest-change/ As well as 2018 and 2014, they've also changed it in 2008, 1997, 1995, 1993, 1989, 1980 and 1973. I'm not sure whether its impatience, delusion, inferiority or what. In contrast, Saints have only made tiny cosmetic changes to the club's badge since original introduction in 1973 (eg putting the design into a circle - and then retaining part of that circle ever since, or adding a circle or shield shape to host the main design, making it monochrome or, the only actual change to the overall design, amending the ball to be 32 panel rather than 18 for copyright reasons.) So basically retaining the same "halo/ball/scarf/shield/tree/flower/waves/scroll" motif throughout whilst Portsmouth have changed theirs nine times.

Lol, no, Cork still wouldn't get in the starting side even now without an injury to Lemina, Romeu or Davis.

No, but I remember Five Star from the 80s...

Take a look at last season's fixtures and let me know where the opportunity to do that was, yeah?

Huddersfield's is mainly white and a bit clashy with the white band on the home kit, but Brighton's (and West Brom's) is mainly blue.

The home kit didn't clash with the West Brom kit on Saturday and the Brighton kit is only a slightly lighter blue than that. Also the predominantly black/jade away kit with home black shorts wouldn't clash either. Bournemouth away will be a different story, but there's no clash with any of the teams in blue.

I should think they're more than aware, it's been in place for the 6 years the stadium has been open and used to be mentioned on the back of the match tickets. Now they just have it on the website: https://www.brightonandhovealbion.com/siteassets/pdfs/away-fan-guide-201718-full-july17---final.pdf (Page 5 of the pdf).

Also, feel free to ignore the scaremongering about the trains that certain vested interests are putting about - there's nothing listed on the Network Rail site for engineering works between Southampton and Brighton, only bus replacement at Lewes if coming from London.

How recently? It's basically the same game now as FM13 with a bunch of unimportant tweaks...

Basically bo110cks.

I'm surprised we haven't done it already tbh. But then at home we can play him in the shuttle role Ward-Prowse was starting to get decent at last season (not a patch on Lemina though), along with one striker and one support striker in the AM slot - whilst away we'd tend to lean on the 2 DMs more.

Yeah, quite the lol - any other keeper at that tournament would have taken a step back and just caught it. They may also have dived before all the penalties faced hit the back of the net, too. All that ignores the point that keeping is a very different skill nowadays, and yes, it's down to the ball, speed of flight and the various materials used, and partially the speed of the game.