The9

There are plenty of others, but this isn't the thread for it.

Nothing like jumping the gun on players we've signed to develop. Now if you'd said Ramirez, Juanmi and Forren...

I've been talking about it since October, so it's unlikely to stop now. It certainly didn't help us. We'll only know for sure if Puel remains in charge of course.

I'm sure he'd be happy with it given the far better chance of the players recovering before the next game throughout next season.

Not paying any of the players wages then, just the manager? We need 2 CBs even if we don't sell VVD unless Gardos is an acceptable 4th choice, which he wasn't based on anything he did after he came back last season. Definitely need a #10, hole player, etc. unless we're planning on giving Boufal that responsibility after a pre-season. Another DM to push Romeu would be nice but I think we're going all the way with Ward-Prowse now he's started to show some consistency. Keeper? I'm going to assume any other departures will also raise money to replace them (eg Tadic).

It was the Wednesday before, EFL Cup away to Arsenal: 1 (G) F Forster 3 (D) M Yoshida 15 (D) C Martina 17 (D) V van Dijk 21 (D) R Bertrand 4 (M) J Clasie 8 (M) S Davis 18 (M) H Reed (65) 19 (M) S Boufal (66) 38 (M) S McQueen 7 (F) S Long As you'd expect, we used the squad a bit more for that one, 7 changes from that game to the following one at Palace but probably still stronger than you'd expect. Still there were 4 starters for both the Arsenal and Palace games, and Forster, Van Dijk and Bertrand played all 3 games. The win at Arsenal was an absolute triumph for our squad rotation, as we still looked like a team even with those changes, whilst Arsenal switched a few reserve players in and looked completely disjointed. I've only covered off the starters here, some of the subs played too. Austin went off against Beer Sheva in the first half injured having played the game before (another reason to rotate players, especially those susceptible to injury when they DON'T have fatigue) but at least Long was fresh... Of course to get a firm grasp on the "patterns" for the whole run I'd have to go back a further three matches (two weeks) and three matches (two weeks) after too. Which underlines the scheduling problem facing Puel.

There are a few things here: 1) Saints rotating the squad means calling on clearly second-choice players, many of the top 6's reserves are better than most starters for the rest of the division. Rotation for them doesn't mean noticably weakening the team the way it does when Saints pick (say) Martina. 2) Two of this season's top 6 weren't in Europe at all and didn't have any issues as a result. There's a clear correlation between Liverpool's League position in European and non-European seasons over the past 3 years. 3) All but Spurs and Man U played fewer games than Saints last season. 4) Football is a meritocracy - Top 6 players are fundamentally better than our players, they cost more money, they get paid more because most of the time they are better. They therefore have to do less to get better results to begin with. That's evident in Saints' finishing stats this season. 5) Look at Leicester's league performance when in Europe compared to the previous season. Obviously any Leicester season is going to look bad, but they had stuck to a first XI as far as possible the previous season and they couldn't do that this season. 6) One of the reasons we beat Arsenal in the EFL Cup was that our squad players were clearly more familiar with their teammates than Arsenal's weakened first team plus some kids they'd never played alongside before. Also, feel free to track down the stats on rotation to support your point.

This was the team that lost to Palace: 1 (G) F Forster 2 (D) C Soares 6 (D) J Fonte 17 (D) V van Dijk 21 (D) R Bertrand 14 (M) O Romeu 16 (M) J Ward-Prowse 19 (M) S Boufal (76) 22 (M) N Redmond 23 (M) P Hojbjerg (59) 10 (F) C Austin (76) This was the team which drew home to Beer Sheva: F Forster (G) 1 C Soares (D) 2 M Yoshida (D) 3 V van Dijk (D) 17 R Bertrand (D) 21 S Davis (M) 8 O Romeu (M) 14 N Redmond (M) 22 (82) P Hojbjerg (M) 23 (59) J Sims (M) 39 (39) C Austin (F) 10 I've highlighted the THREE changes in bold. Clearly having eight players who'd started the previous game doesn't tally with your recollection.

Clearly answered that in the post above, yes. We played Sat-Thu-Sun-Wed-Sat-then Beer Sheva home on the Thursday. Funnily enough the Palace away game immediately before it was the match where Saints players ran less than any other team in any other Premier League game in the entire season. Feel free to try to make the point that "they should have been fresh for the Thursday then", but clearly they were already knackered by then from the cumulative effort.

Oh right, against the team that beat Inter home and away. Well, it was clear throughout the Europa campaign that we were playing within ourselves out of necessity and basically attempted to finish one goal better than the side in third. Unfortunately we ended up being one goal worse than the team in second. By the time we played that Beer Sheva home game we were into our third week in a row of playing weekend/midweek (Sat Liverpool H, Thu Sparta A, Sun Everton H, Wed Arsenal A, Sat Palace A, Thu Beer Sheva H) and with another two weeks of that to go (Sun Boro H, Wed Stoke A, Sun Bournemouth A) it was hardly surprising we tried to play within ourselves and get through by doing as little as possible. I tend not to challenge the decisions on player recovery, given that the facts are proven and clearly known, and the club has all the data on player condition which the fans don't.

Which of the teams are you referring to? Tell me about it, I was at all of them.

Hell of a point, that.

We screwed up in the Europa League because we conceded when we absolutely had to not do so. We then scored almost immediately. Scoring wasn't even needed, not conceding was.

I haven't done that once. Find it for yourself, it's your attempt at making a point.

Maybe he's happy he could pick up a shirt for £15 in the club shop. I've lost track of all the different team shirts I wore when I was younger just because they were still a novelty back then.

They're getting paid until July 1st so they can afford to wait and see if any other offers come in. I'd think that was a good move for Isgrove and a terrible one for Martina.

Actually I didn't. That one was just based on my feeling that Lambert was getting on a bit and wouldn't be as effective as he had been in the Premier League. As it turns out I was about 12-18 months early on that one. I'm sure the distance run stats for Lambert will bear out the evidence - Sharp also has never come close to being as fit as he was at the end of that Championship season again for anyone either. Bit of a punt without any supporting evidence at the time, that.

So apart from the two wins, away draw and very unlucky Cup Final defeat against top 6 sides we were a billion miles from them? Is it even worth me pointing out that we didn't win most of our games against those "top 6" sides when we actually finished in the top 6, and actually we got up there just by being comfortably better than the other 13 teams (after all, that's 78 points if you beat them all twice)? Everton got 61 this season and were 8 points off the top 6, but usually (especially when all the usual suspects have Europe) anything upwards of 60 points is a top 6 challenging season. 63 got us 6th the year before, Liverpool were 8th on 60 but could have come 6th until the final day. The year before that 6th was 62, we were 7th on 60. 2013/14 was like this season (56 points got us 8th). 63 pts for 6th the year before, 64 the year before that (but 54 got you 7th). So basically, even if the top sides somehow manage to do what they did this season again, and we lose to ALL of them, we can still challenge for 6th anyway.

Amazin though, because my "fantasy world" has all the evidence and sports science on my side, whilst your argument doesn't actually consist of anything.

What, like "he's still the manager"? Why would they say that? Would you like to know who's the third choice sub this week too?

Quite.

Well, apart from the win at Anfield in the EFL Cup, the win at home in the first leg in the EFL Cup, the close run thing at Wembley, and the draw at Man City... Short answer, if we keep a decent core of these players, yes. Looking purely at the number of games likely teams will play, most of them will be worse and we'll be better. We don't have enough money to buy two full teams of top players to compete with the top 6 at the top of their game, but we without a run of injuries and with enough recovery time we can use a first XI that's good enough to challenge top 6 sides that are focused on other competitions. It'll still be tough, but like this season, some of it will depend on our luck with scheduling - if we get top 6 sides immediately after European away games that can only help us next season, just like it helped Saints' opponents this.

Not JUST because we were tired, but definitely a contributory factor. "the slower average speed during the RSA test observed after the Stroop task is also consistent with the hypothesis that mental fatigue has a negative effect on physical performance in football players" https://www.uefa.org/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/Medical/02/20/41/86/2204186_DOWNLOAD.pdf And that's just mental fatigue, never mind the physical stuff: "The primary finding was that fatigue induced by a soccer match simulation (SMS), which included ball skills throughout exercise, caused a reduction in passing and shooting performances during the second half" https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5901201.pdf But then anyone knows that playing a lot of football without enough recovery time will have an effect on performance and results, right?

I'll make a statement: "9-3 is impatient and entitled".

They had 16 contracted players on 11th May: http://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/pompey-release-calvin-davies-following-end-of-his-contract-3713847.aspx Since then they've re-signed Jack Whatmough (he's on the right at the start of this video) [video=youtube;-QRlyvmRHys] , plus Ben Close, Gareth Evans and Kyle Bennett, none of whom I have the remotest idea about. They've lost Doyle the captain to Coventry, and Enda Stevens the players' player of the season to Sheff Utd. Looks like they're going to be starting with 20 of last season's squad, which is fine, the last team to go up as Champions with under 90 points just finished bottom of League One.