VictiAbNonem

Hope Ralph does some early subs.

I think Salisu got quite harshly treated, in a way that reminds me of how Wanyama used to be. They go in for 50 50s, and because they're proper units the other person usually gets knocked over. If they were the same size and just bounced off each other it would never be called a foul. I hope that Salisu can find a way to play as hard but avoid the fouls and bookings.

So is the Swansea game going to be in an empty stadium?

Yeah, if those two decisions had gone against us how much praise would the players be getting on here now? They could have played exactly the same game but lost 3-1 and the comments would be 90% about how shit Ralph, Forster and Bedders are.

Ha! I'm joking about the left side, but because I'm now confident after their performances today that Armstrong or Redmond can help out Perraud there. (Edit - and Ralph did joke in his interview that we've got two new left backs!) I do think that KWP and Tino both on the right interchanging is an option that we ought to have up our sleeve.

I think we should play double fullbacks. KWP and Tino on the right, Adam Armstrong and Redders on the left.

I thought Shane Long was at his best today. He's never going to score goals like Son or Kane, but put more into his 71 minutes on the pitch than the Spurs boys did in their combined 180 minutes. He never let their defenders settle and he gets back quickly to help out the midfield, before pressing forward again. Kane spends most of the match jogging incredibly slowly from the edge of the area back to the halfway line having made a feebly half-hearted attempt to close down the keeper following a back pass. The contrast was stark. Shane also won a load more headers from our long balls than I'm used to seeing him get, which really helped relieve the pressure when we did get the ball away. He really deserved the ovation he got when he went off.

Was my first time at St Mary's for ages today and I'm ever so pleased with the performance I got to see. I took my Dad (sadly a spud, though he was at the 76 cup final supporting Saints that day) and his fury at how badly his side played was rather amusing; he said he kept forgetting we were down to 10 men in the second half as it didn't look like one team had an extra man. He doesn't like to praise other teams (especially mine!) so he blames it on Spurs being awful, but he did praise the Saints crowd and he thought the atmosphere was excellent.

On JWP, I thought he was superb today. This from the BBC write up says it all - "But with the likes of the impressive Ward-Prowse winning all of his duels on the day, Southampton kept a solid shape to force Spurs wide."

He's a much better reserve than Valery though, I think.

In the points lost from winning positions, yes. And 2 points won from losing positions!

I hope at least a couple of our U23s are better than Long and Walcott. They couldn't do much worse.

Though I'm thinking of it as a point gained after that start, it'll still count as two points lost from a winning position in our favourite stat. Will for Palace too, but that doesn't help us!

Aaaarrrrrgggghhh!!!!!!!

Or Shlong?

If Tella off, Djenepo or Diallo on?

Great stuff from the Goal Knight!

He is, and he's getting better and better at left back.

Quite good bit of commentary there on BT about Tella being the trigger for our press. Rare to hear the commentators talk about our tactics in that sort of detail.

I've been really impressed with KWP so far. Was great to see him even covering Tino at RB!

I hope it doesn't end up the sort of game where we need the special talents of Theo and Shane.

And Leeds might well wonder what they were doing at Spurs.. Doh!

There's a very, very slim chance that we could move into a Euro qualifying spot this weekend. According to rough probabilities assigned from the bookies' odds and my maths, we've got about a one in two hundred chance of us winning and the teams above us up to Brighton all losing (or drawing up to the Spuds) with allowances for where we need goal difference improvements better than two goals, which would move us to seventh. We could go 6th if we win by 4 and Man Utd get beaten by Watford, but that's got to be about ten thousand to one! I can't be bothered to do the combinatorial maths with the variable probabilities, because it's a pain in the ass and the probabilities are far too rough to bother, but reasonably educated finger in the air I'd reckon there's about a one in four chance of us being top half next week. Even if we lose, we're unlikely to drop more than a spot; Brentford would go above us by beating Newcastle, but Leeds need to beat Spurs and turn round a 5 goal difference deficit. My predictions would be us to win and Leicester, Everton and Wolves to lose, moving us to 10. Tottenham and Brighton could struggle too - Gerrard might give Villa the boost against Brighton we hope Norwich don't get, and Spurs' form is so terrible that a draw with even Watford wouldn't be a huge shock. It's rather a large range of possible positions for us - 6th to 15th - after 12 games.

BBC aren't showing him for the assist either. I thought he'd got a really good touch in, but I was watching on a smaller screen than usual.

Livramento didn't have his best game, but for the first half hour I thought he looked the best player on the pitch