SFKA South Woodford

Interesting to see the opinions of Clasie on Sunday, I thought he started a bit shaky but grew into the game and played well. When the team had gone flat after the usual break neck first 10 mins, he took it upon himself to be more advanced & started to press their defence when they had the ball, it was then quite noticeable that Davis & Tadic followed his lead & did the same, limiting their ability to break effectively. Something that the team haven't done this season up until then, which has allowed opposition teams more time to setup their attacks & be more dangerous against us. Hopefully this will be an evolution of Puels system, as up until now we've allowed the opposition much too much time & space on the ball. As for Redmond, he played well on Sunday but all of the things he did well were when he was wider out and not central, he needs to beef up and not allow himself to be nudged off the ball so easily & to look for the through ball and have the confidence to take on the defenders more. He's still looking to pass the ball when he is central & should be able to go inside or outside his man to put some doubt in the defenders mind. Too many times on Sunday he attempted to go outside & the defenders just took the ball off of him.

It's plain for everyone to see that Redmond is not a striker, he does not have a strikers instinct, he's almost always way behind the play when the ball goes into the opposition box, he doesn't make runs to try to break beyond the defence, his shooting accuracy is woeful & his decision making is laboured. Put him on the wing & he is much more effective. Les made a major error in not replacing Pelle's physical strength & Mane's pace & shooting accuracy like for like in our attack. If we had those attributes, we would have had more points by now. As for Jay, let's hope it isn't serious, he's been showing how good he can be & was just getting his confidence back again, one of brightest sparks in our season so far.

Can any of the ITK' s who revealed that the club were taking a new direction this season elaborate on what this direction is please? Do they have faith that it will pay off in the end or are they worried about where it is taking our club, can they also say who is responsible for issuing the instruction for the new direction?

Can someone please show me quotes from the club/Les which say that they consider such & such a player to be a replacement for such & such a player rather than people's supposition that they are? Austin is no where near being a like for like replacement for Pelle. We have failed to replace his physical presence, hold up play & ability to play others in with superbly weighted passes or his 10 plus goals a season. People are now starting to see what he brought to the team & why we will miss him this season. Yes I do also remember how frustrating he could be at times. As for replacing Wanyama, as much as I like Romeu, he needs to be getting himself focused for the whole of a match and looking at where potential danger is coming from & snuffing it out just as Victor & Morgan used to do, to be considered a replacement. Hojberg is a more refined ball player than a ball winner unless we are going to attempt to change his game, then he can't be considered a replacement for Wanyama.

We simply cannot let him go now, that was the old Jay rod we saw out there yesterday he was excellent for the ten minutes he had. Austin looked knackered after 25 minutes and Redmond cannot play through the centre, he was always five yards behind the play yesterday and is not making any runs or showing any anticipation, he always wants the ball to feet. The one good thing you can say about Austin was that he was showing that anticipation & trying to break beyond the defence although his timing sucked. With all of the games we have coming up it would be stupid in the extreme to let any of our players go, we need to add to what we have already got with more quality in more areas than those mentioned.

Pot & kettle, Mr 'are I case of' warrior! So everything is rosy with the team in your eyes then, 1 point from 2 games is ok with you?

My concern is that we haven't replaced Mane or Pelle and could still do with a creative midfielder. For those that say Austin is Pelle's replacement, I don't agree, Austin does not have either Pelle's physicality or eye to put others through on goal as Pelle has done for the last couple of years. Redmond is not Mane's replacement he's no where near as good as Mane and far less clinical or decisive as Mane is. I was watching him on Saturday and Redmonds anticipation was rubbish, just kept wanting the ball played to his feet and not breaking beyond the Watford defence as he should be especially when they went down to ten men. I know his natural position is on the wing and his best play on Saturday was when he was out wide but when he was central he looked lost and way to easy for the Watford defence to deal with. As for Puel, he'll be living on borrowed time very soon if keeps coming out with starting line ups like last Saturday, any idiot could of told him about Yoshida and Ward Prowse's limitations. Getting three points on the board against an injury ravaged team whose 1st team squad should be getting beaten easily at St Mary's more often than not, should have been his number one concern, not dicking about with his team selection so much that it had half the fans in the stadium groaning even before the warm up, let alone after that abject 1st half display. I certainly don't get why Pied had a much better game than Cedric in most people's eyes, yes Cedric got caught a couple of times in the first half but he was causing their defence problems on the overlap and got a few decent crosses in, once he was replaced by pied the overlap stopped and Pied was trying to cross from deep like Targett. Ok he had a decent shot at goal, but for me Cedric did just as well.

Have I missed an announcement or is emery still available? Same goes for the others on our initial shortlist?

And moaning and running the club down at every opportunity is what you seemingly do batman. It comes down to the fact that Saints want stability within the club for the long term to which end they offered koeman a new deal worth a lot more money and he said no thanks and went for one with more money and an easier success path. The only thing you can run Les down for is trying to get him to sign, as koemans past record says he doesn't stay anywhere for long. It's all about enhancing his reputation to get him back to Barcelona one day.

Cedric played quite well yesterday, he had a hand in two goals, put in a few good crosses, was beating their full back a lot of the time including off of some weak return balls from Tadic, which only his pace gave him a chance of getting to and headed off of the line right at the end. So it's harsh to say he was poor. He certainly didn't get much help from Tadic whose movement, passing and decision-making were poor, but that'll be overlooked because of his two goals. He has been a solid replacement for Clyne overall and shown in a number of games that he is good going forward and others that he is good defensively too, he just needs to put both together more often. He had a great game in the win over West Ham, snuffing out any danger time after time, he was easily our best player that day and won us the points. With a long run in the team he will show how good he is & is a much better player than Martina who looks clueless in most games.

I'm with you both on this one. Fantastic manager with a great record, does what Pochettino did but better, will improve the first team players and ensure that the academy gets used more than under Ron and that the players in it in the future will not only be ready for the first team but will be the equal of their respective first team player or better. Only issue is that he's bound to go to a bigger club than us.

That's not what several thousand people looking directly at the incident right in front of them in the kingsland thought at the time! Costa clearly had a go at Virgil after being beaten to the ball by him and had his hand in a fist directly after the incident. All of the players closest to it came over and complained to the ref and linesman straight away, so they saw something too! Also the penalty call was for the handball whilst he was on the floor rather than cahills challenge on Austin.

Don't think it was that incident which riled the players, it was more the fact he'd gotten away with punching Virgil a few minutes earlier! Shane also came over to show the ref a wound he'd picked up off of one of them during that stoppage, he was quite adamant that he'd been attacked by one of them. They were getting away with a he'll of a lot of roughing up and we were getting bookings for nothing fouls, which was also having an effect on the players. That Clasie booking was a joke, he barely touched willian.

Having gone to a West Ham dominated school in East London I have a big dislike for West Ham and their fans. They consider themselves to be a big club and much bigger than us coming out with arrogant statements such as 'We shouldn't be losing to little clubs like Southampton' so it's no surprise their players think they can act in the same way with refs as a Fergie Man U team would. They are no bigger than us with the exception of a couple more trophy wins than we have. As others have said both Payet for sliding through the back of our player and not getting the ball and Byram for going over the ball with his studs up on Bertrand should of been sent off. As for the dive, the guy took several more steps after getting away from Yoshi before he threw himself to the ground and should have gotten a card for simulation. As for the game, yeah they had a lot of possession, but it was mainly in the area between their penalty box and the first quarter of our half, they were painfully slow getting the ball forward and generally pretty rubbish, so it would have been a travesty if they had left with even a point. After we had done such a good job of containing and limiting them. The two stand out players for me were Virgil and Cedric, with Cedric just shaving it, as aside from the slice, he didn't put a foot wrong defensively and won so many headers and tackles and always looked calm when bringing the ball out of defensive he has improved more than Clyne did in his first season with Saints and Ron would be an arse to drop him now as he did earlier in the season. The defensive seven were immense yesterday and will rightly take most of the plaudits but spare a thought for Long who put a shift in defensively as well as getting forward and who made some great challenges and blocks late in the game and also Charlie Austin who came on and did everything you would hope a sub would for a team down to ten men defending a slender lead then there was also Romeu who came on and was straight into the game, great run to set up Charlie too, looked on the stadium replay as though the shot took a deflection, would have been lovely to seal the win with only ten men on the pitch and with all their possession. I don't know about anyone else but that win felt as good as a six nil win to me.

Does anyone know for sure it is all going to charity? The quotes I have seen only say that charity will benefit, they don't say all proceeds will go to charity. Should he even have to give it all to charity, I doubt he's ever been on a massive wage at Saints? The monetary aspect of it, is of no significance to me, I am seeing it purely as a chance to say thank you to a great team, who gave me my happiest experiences of supporting Saints and a chance to give a proper goodbye to the greatest goalscorer I ever saw in a Saints shirt bar MLT! I hope it will be a massive show of appreciation from the fans to Kelvin & those other players and St Mary's will be rocking in appreciation. Seeing as it's their thing nowadays, maybe Will Champion can get his band to do a half time gig too!

Unfortunately Jose is just as guilty of shirt pulling as anyone who plays against us, so we'd probably end up giving away just as many penalties as we were awarded. If you watch him closely he does it at least a couple of times each match usually against the players he struggles to handle like Walters, Mirralas & Giroud.

You've obviously never met a Liverpool fan then. Worse than them though are the West Ham fans who were saying 'we shouldn't be losing to small carp team's like southampton' when we mashed them at Upton park last season at least United and Liverpool have pedigree & history on their side.

Much rather see a hungry Reed who is full of running, closes down and challenges oppo players than an ineffective JWP.

You clearly didn't see the Everton or Arsenal games at St Mary's last season then, where Reed played from the start and was hugely influential in both victories to the extent that Koeman was singing his praises in his post match press conferences. Then Koeman goes and drops Reed to the bench only a game later then only gives him the odd few minutes in a few games for the rest of the season. Reed has shown enough to suggest that he should at least be given a chance at this level. I've seen a he'll of a lot more from him in his limited games than JWP has contributed in ten times the number of appearances. Yet JWP gets chance after chance and has only impressed against a woeful Norwich team and then only when they went down to ten men.

Are you wearing JWP and Tadic tinted glasses? JWP only ever tracks his man from three yards away where he can't do anything to stop a pass put a tackle in or put any pressure on the player he is "tracking" he has no pace, his supposed world class delivery is more like Hermes than DHL and his pass completion is only good when it's backwards or sideways. So no, he doesn't deserve to start, especially when he can't put his foot through the ball when he has plenty of space in the box to score from less than ten yards out. As for Tadic, it's sickening how he bottles out of challenges that he is a clear favourite to win, let alone the 50/50's he could win with a bit of guts. He needs to start having a shot occasionally too, he has been in some excellent scoring positions this season, only to look to pass it to a player who hasn't got a hope of getting a shot in. His tracking back is non existent, leaving the full back horribly exposed and causing the midfield to have to attempt to cover dragging them out of position. He has also stopped dropping to look for the ball and turning on it, preferring to pass it backwards instead. He needs to want the ball and call for it, then drive with it when he does get it. We looked much better on Saturday when we were passing the short, sharp triangles which we did last season to great effect which he needs to be at the centre of. If he continues to put in half arsed displays like the one on Saturday he should lose his place until he can show a bit more commitment and movement. BTW, I know the other players are far less than blameless for our current predicament too!

Sad thing is that we actually played better today than we have in a while and caused spurs problems with some good pressing play then get undone and all the confidence drains out of the team. The ref and linesman must have been wearing spuds shirts for letting them get away with some very dangerous tackles whilst punishing Saints for the slightest hint of a foul. Letting spuds get away with time wasting just like villa did and allowing Alli to remain on the pitch for two nasty challenges in quick succession and Erickson to go in with an elbow on Van Dijk. Sad thing is that last season that would have fired up our players, now though they just weakly get on with it, someone needs to be a leader out there and to gee the others up when calls go against us or we go a goal down just like Morgan used to. I agree it's time that some of the youth players were given a chance and from what I've seen of Harry Reed he is more than capable of playing at this level and would bring some much needed energy to the team as would Seager or McQueen. The Ten million pound players have had more than enough chances and failed to deliver, so let's try something different. Lastly let's make Mane' s job a bit easier and give the opposition team something more to think about by keeping him pushed up when we are defending rather than losing his best attributes by bringing him back all of the time.

I think you must be confusing Tadic with Cedric there Red, Tadic did nothing of note all game except bottle a couple of challenges he would have won with a little commitment. He has no courage and no commitment, he needs replacing ASAP!

Hey now, stop that, those are just unsubstantiated rumours. No one has any proof!

What is going on with Koeman? Why can he not see the blatantly obvious, playing Mane where he is atm is wasting his talent and having him back defending is inviting more pressure from the opposition. We have to start leaving him forward when we are defending, it would keep two opposition players back with him, mean we have someone to chase an 'out' ball and if passed accurately enough, the chance to use his main attribute. His pace over the first 15 yards. He seems to start running out of steam after that and is getting caught and passed by the opposition full backs. Wanyama has been horrendous for months now and looks like his only attribute is his ability to win the ball which is then negated by his inability to pass it cleanly even five yards and his awful control when he is receiving a pass is putting undue pressure on the team as the opposition just come along and take it back off him or results in slowing us down whilst he takes another couple of touches to control the ball. Needs to dropped out of the squad for a while and Harry Reed given a place on the bench or in his place in the team if Romeu doesn't take his chance. As for Ward Prowse, what does he bring to the team? His set pieces are rubbish, he can't pass forwards, his positioning is a joke, he has no pace and he's constantly running three yards behind the opposition player who is attacking with the ball. A position that he will never be able to make a tackle from. His best contribution yesterday was getting booked. Tadic is a ten minute player, but I guess we have no alternative to him, so have to carry him for the other 35 mins of each half since Ramirez doesn't even give ten minutes when he is on the pitch. It was disgusting when Tadic bottled that challenge with Ireland in the first half when he would have been clean through had he got even the meerest of touches before Ireland did. Yet another rubbish referee and linesman again yesterday, Ireland should have been booked in the first minute for the drag back on tadic, Lescott should have had at least a yellow for the drag back on Pelle, the officials let Villa get away with the most blatant time wasting I've seen in a long time and were also letting them advance the ball ten yards on every one of their throw ins. Then there were at least two offsides against Pelle where he was behind a villa player when the ball was passed including one where he actually had to run inside Ireland to get the ball. Having decent officials for once could help get the win that the team's confidence so badly needs atm, as they look so fragile. I'll be amazed and very happy if we pick up any more points between now and the new year with the current starting eleven playing the way they are at present. Koeman has got to get his finger out and give them a kick up arse to get the energy back in the team and get them pressing the opposition again whilst dropping the players we can see are under performing.

Bring in Harrry Reed and tell him to stick to coutinho like glue. It might give Wanyama a gee up to be dropped, he's been awful for a while now, same with Bertrand since he's been in the England team. If Liverpool are going to press us, we will need to work on our passing with pace and accuracy and getting the ball forward quickly. Really want to win this one, don't want to have to share a train home with a load of jubilant scousers. Arrogant is an understatement for that lot.