Dan Johnson

I’m surprised we scored?! Otherwise the result was exactly what I expected, said to my dad this morning it’ll be 5 or 6. They put 5 past Burnley, 5 past Cardif, 6 past Huddersfield now 6 past us, shows exactly what our level is. This won’t be the worse result of the season, Man City are exceptional! Doesn’t make up for how crap we are but I expected to lose heavily all the same. Next weekend will be a far worse result if we don’t get 3 points, homes games against clubs outside the top 6 are all must win as far as I’m concerned!

I largely agree with this, I liked the appointment of Hughes for the last few games of the season because he's what we needed to stay up but not what we needed to change. The last 3 managerial appointments have been dire, i'm not advocating Hughes gets sacked but I feel there's enough talent in the squad to achieve comfortable higher mid-table (8th-10th) I would say Austin is the only player that worries me, purely because he's just not mobile at all. I'd honestly prefer to see Long over Austin pulling defenders wide and at least unsettling defences and creating space for others to exploit. We are team hugely low on confidence and it shows, that is the managers responsibility

I said after both the second half of the Everton game and the Leicester game that I’d seen enough to suggest we were better than last season and today has furthered my optimism. Saw 11 players that seemed to be enjoying their football and playing for the shirt. An unchanged starting 11 would also suggest that Hughes is close to finding his best team. The left flank of Redmond/Bertrand is a real highlight already this season and Ings is looking a barging at £20m after my intial thoughts of him being excessively priced. I’m glad Hughes has indentified that the Lemina/Romeu partnership wasn’t dynamic enough as Lemina/Hojiberg look great together, both technically very good, Lemina showing how good of a player he is! I still worry we lack pace at the back but we are looking to release the ball early and play out so maybe Hoedt/Vest is the right pairing, Maya may add the pace we need in there though. Elymo seems to be improving with each game. Felt we struggled once we changed the front 3 and went to 5 in the middle as it allowed their CBs to push up and pin us in more, but we got the result. Looking forward to the rest of the season

Relatively good performance up until they equalised then both fans and players knew what was coming and confidence, effort and application seemed to fall off a cliff edge! We are so so fragile, I hope it’s a hangover from last season because if it’s not then we are in for a long season. What’s so frustrating is I thought we were better than Leicester for large periods. Lemina and Redmond both looked good, we looked better with hoj in midfield more industrious than last week, created some good chances should have put the game to bed then as soon as they scored all the good work was undone and we reverted to being as poor as last season.

Ridiculous comment, players can improve, players form will fluctuate along with their confidence. Redmond has the potential to be a top premier league player, I hope he's given the chance and encouragement to achieve that under Hughes.

Don’t think the performance was as bad as some are making out? We’re better than this time last season yet ultimately it’s the same issues dragging us down. The team needs more bite, we looked naive in the first half, very timid. I don’t know if it’s a lack of confidence/belief in the squad or a lack of application from certain players? Defensively we look poor and our lack of quailty at Center back hindered us today, both in possession and defensively. There’s not much difference in quality between Stephens and Hodet, I’m not sure if either would benefit from a stronger partner but for me that’s our weakest CB pairing and it showed today. Second half was immediately better, same as last week in both games I’ve seen enough going forward to show that we aren’t as bad as last season, I’d also say that Austin has offered very little in both games so far. Positives For the second game running I thought Redmond looked lively going forward, making positive runs and facing defenders up, I hope it continues and we see the best of him this season. Ings is looking every bit a £20 million pound striker from what ive seen of him, he’s shown more quality than all other attacking options out together already this season We were poor first half but showed a bit of fight second half which was pleasing, Everton were better than us but not by miles. We had Gabbi, Mo and Vestergaard out the team today. I think bringing those three in would make a big difference. Leicester are without Vardy next week All in all, not great but I’m not upset either, enough in that defeat to a good Everton side to show me we will be alright this season.

For what it's worth, i'm really looking forward to seeing him play. I havent seen him play much but I know he was rated at Liverpool and there is no shame being behind their strike force in the pecking order, a local lad with passion, something we missed last year.

To be honest, it's irrelevant how much Liverpool paid for him, the value of the player is set by the current market conditions, which are absolutely mental at the moment! I paid £80k less for my house than it's supposedly worth today, yet its not done anything in 3 years either.

This kind of thing really interests me, I would love for someone like Dyche to get so frustrated that he just starts calling players out and quoting the wages they're demanding so we can actually see just how crazy the transfer market has become, it looks mental from the outside so if someone like Dyche is completely gobsmacked when having inside knowledge it must be allot worse than we can imagine!

His Agent was quoted as saying he "deserved" £7.5 million a season, which is why he left Schalke because he wasnt offered anywhere near that, so I wouldn't be surprised if the figure was close to 170k a week as he was demanding 144k from Schalke and turned it down! http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11443137/max-meyer-former-schalke-wonderkid-without-a-club

Transfers are just utterly mental these days, £22 MILLION for a player who didn't make it at Newcastle?! Gobsmacked, you can see why allot of people are loosing interest in the game these days! In fact the World Cup reminded me how excited I used to get about football when it wasn't orientated around transfer fees!

In Sky Sports Transfer Center this morning we are linked with Danny Drinkwater. "Crystal Palace and Southampton want to sign Chelsea midfielder Danny Drinkwater, according to the Daily Mirror. Drinkwater joined the west Londoners from Leicester last season but has struggled to make an impact. Maurizio Sarri has given Drinkwater game-time in Chelsea’s pre-season campaign but seems willing to listen to offers for the player"

Part of our problem as a team over the last 24 months has been our complete lack of character and identify, our performances have been a reflection of our dreary\dowdy managerial interviews both of whom seemed to have very introvert personalities the team didnt seem to have any "oomph" I would say that's in part because personalities like Charlie perhaps felt a little out of place in that kind of environment. Personally I feel like you need characters like Charlie in the dressing room, they will be the type of players who will call team mates out when not performing, they maybe brash and they may not be that well liked by everyone (not saying thats the case with Charlie) but they have their place. Every majorly successful team will have someone loud, outspoken and who gives the team that "edge" and I believe Mark Hughes has given players like Charlie a platform to re-take the dressing room and make it a much more vibrant place. This is all just my opinion of course, but a flat dressing room is good for no one.

It's not worked out well but id be interested to read the comments in the thread started when he signed a new contract, it seemed like good business at the time we'd set a new clean sheet record, he had won numerous motm and player of the month awards in the months prior to him signing a new deal at a time when we were looking to establish ourselves as a non selling club, it was a statement by the club that allot of us, my self included thought was the correct move

spot on imho

Fans on here are bat **** mental Saints miss out on signing an ACTUAL CHAMPIONSHIP player for 24 million and some posters go into melt down, we then go for Armstrong and and the same people THEN COMPLAINS he's Championship level??? So by their mental standards we're getting a CHAMPIONSHIP player for 17 million cheaper than we were last week and those posters are complaining about it. Give the lad a chance FFS.

I'd have driven Tadic to Amsterdam myself at some points last season, he was that terrible on occasions! He has struggled the last two seasons, of course you can argue that he has been badly managed and his form in the last few games of the season would suggest that. However at 30 this year and his inconsistency over the last two seasons i'm not too disappointed to see the back of him, he wont improve, he's likely to get more inconsistent as he ages too, I accept that him leaving will leave a hole in the squad that will need replacing with a senior pro, maybe Jack Wilshire?

Stop talking common sense, posters on here don't debate about common sense, just hidden agendas, cloaks, daggers and pre-conceptions.

Yep!

Extremely Active? 3 of them have signed 1 player, the others haven't signed any yet?! Liverpool In Fabinho (Monaco) Undisclosed Details Naby Keita (Signed last year) Arsenal In Stephan Lichtsteiner (Juventus) Free Details Manchester United In Diogo Dalot (FC Porto) Undisclosed Details No Signings Chelsea Man City Tottenham

Why do the admins allow blatant trolls to ruin this forum. you literally have to sieve through the **** to find anything worth reading! It's gone from a decent source of information and debate to a playground in the years I've been using it!

I'd imagine there would be a good sell on clause for us. Maybe as much as 20%

I wonder if this is to do with the consultation the government have announced on IR35 legislation in the private sector. I'd imagine this could have an impact if a manager (on a fixed contract) isn't on on PAYE and operates out of their own limited company for tax reasons. As its likely to come in during the April 2019/2020 tax year they could be structuring a deal that ensures Hughes gets the same take home he would of outside of IR35

Absolutely, just shows how massively important it is to get the managerial decision right. Hughes has got the best out of Tadic, who 2 months ago optimised the type of player you didn't want to have in a survival battle!

We win this, survival is in our own hands, providing Stoke lose to West Ham tonight. Win at Leicester, and it's 2 pts to Swansea who we still have to play. Swansea also have Man City and Chelsea in the next two fixtures. It's not over just yet... although the walls are closing in.