Graffito

Sorry but that's complete nonsense.

Good performance from saints. They all put in a shift. Fans totally behind the team. No criticism of the substitutions. A couple of signings, sharp end and rear end, and we're good to go.

Some of the people in the Kingsland are a little unsteady on their feet to begin with. Standing up and turning around will make them dizzy and a little confused.

Do you lot just want him sacked or do you have any idea who might replace him? A reminder. There are two sides to the coin. If there is nobody better to replace him then sacking him at this point would be the wrong decision.

If Shane Long believes the players are taking responsibility for our position, he could start by not claiming they deserve to be further up the table.

I think you're right. In January, in our predicament, we need someone who is oven ready. In the summer then maybe look abroad for the value buys. Add in Walcotts pace, and goals, which we lack, and I think there's a case for going all out to get him. Maybe we did and he just doesn't think he'll make his case for the WC in the current Saints team.

Ought to be possible to attract decent signings from abroad, even in January, with this kind of comparative wealth. "For the first time, the average wage bill of the Premier League (153.9m euros) is more than double that of the next highest-paying league - the Bundesliga (75.3m euros)." http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42704713

Everton........ because I want to work with Sam Allardyce.

The manager has a problem with substitutions but....what bothers me about what you've said is that in the home game against palace, a similar scenario to Saturday, the manager took off a midfielder and put on a forward (hope I've got that right) which left a big hole in midfield which palace quickly exploited and we conceded and lost. Yes that was a LOSS not a DRAW like saturday. Pelligrino was hammered for that substitution against Palace including by me. On Saturday he tried to shore up the defence and we conceded. Which approach is right? Secondly, the manager is primarily responsible for performances and if there were anyone better to replace him I think he would have gone by now but without wishing to sound condescending by stating the bleeding obvious there's clearly a whole range of reasons why the team is struggling on the pitch this season which are not within the managers control, from the ownership down to crass refereeing decisions which robbed us of a win on Saturday.

Pellegrino, though, defended his decisions. “When you decide to play direct maybe we did something normal to put Oriol in front of the back four,” said Pellegrino. “We don’t have somebody else to press the centre back for example because Tadic plays a little bit deep. “Why? Because in this aspect in the physical battle they are stronger than us and you have to do it. “We have to manage the ball when we regain it. We gave it away and couldn’t be danger in counter attack when we have possibilities. “I think most of the time we control well the direct balls and for this reason it was hard.” It's logical. Maybe another tactic would have been to bring Gabbiadini and for him and Long to press their centre backs but that may not have worked either and would have left us light in midfield. Normally we try and keep the ball. It's a difficult one. Imo it's failing in the execution, or yesterday with the officials.

Left at home for tactical reasons.

Is it unreasonable to expect this team to be able to defend a lead? Any number of duffer teams have come to St Mary's in recent seasons and defended deep and taken points. Even the top six have often found it difficult to get past the bus. Yet our lot seem incapable of defending deep. Begs the question why the manager keeps taking decisions which suggest we are playing to see out games but is he really being cautious by telling them to defend deep. Why would he tell them to defend deep? After all, it clearly doesn't work so it's the opposite of cautious, it's high risk. Why would he do it? We saw this phenomenon last season under Puel. This season, same players (more or less), different manager. I see a lack of aggression from some players (we're basically a soft touch) and a collective mental fragility.

Except that LR said Hoedt had been bought to play alongside VVD.

Quite. The Board's doing a great job, which we don't boast about by the way, and it's now up to the manager to deliver.

Anything over a fiver a ticket and I'm staying in bed. No, joking aside, I'll be going. It's a boring draw but that doesn't mean it will be a boring match. The league's a right off unless and until we get to the sharp end of a relegation scrap. That just leaves the cup as the only competition in which we can make some meaningful progress.

£4.50 a ticket I reckon.

He didn't have a howler of a game. He was average. Nobody had a howler, largely because Fulham were so powder puff and put us under no real pressure.

Brereton stood out but I thought the young lad Cash on Forest's right played really well, much better than Walcott on Arsenal's right.

Reading that you'd barely know he was talking about a football club. VVD is less a cloud, more a smokescreen. The real issue for the Board is the change of ownership. No clarity of purpose. The board has taken its eye off the ball with potentially dire consequences.

I wouldn't spend a penny in those toilets.

Just watched highlights on the OS. As I thought at the time, there was no foul by Long for which nonetheless the ref gave the free kick which led to their first goal. And yes Benteke was offside for the assist. I hadn't noticed at the time Gabbiadini being pulled back by the shirt in the box late on. Just saying for the record. Doesn't disguise a woeful second half effort by Saints but we do get some woeful decisions at times.

If there's a correlation between wage bill and final league placing then we are on course to underperform by some margin this season. I just hope the contracts allow for wage adjustments in the event of relegation.

Just got home. I'm sure this point's been made many times in the preceding 7 pages but contrary to the BBC report crediting hodgson's substitutions what I saw was a fcking great hole where Hoijberg was. Oh and I saw heads drop again. Unbelievable.

Dann stretchered off.

The way I saw their goal in real time, though it didn't come across on MoTD so I could be mistaken, was the Belgian, whose name I can't remember, took one step forward then one step back to lose Yoshida and make space for a simple header. One of the oldest CF manoeuvres in the book, and Yoshida fell for it. Nothing to do with Forster.