St_Tel49

My recollection of it was the acres of space through the middle of the park which allowed Brighton to get the ball out wide. We were stung on a break - something we are supposed to be good at. An awful lot of people were to blame, but as someone else said, you choose to focus on Lallana. I do think that some fans watch players with their prejudices rather than totally objectively.

I think that we should support the formation that Pardew chooses. He won't always be right of course but I think his knowledge of our team and the opposition makes him a better judge than us. I don't think we should get too hung up on formations.

That "rule" is so abused now that I think that play should continue until the ref's whistle. And teams should tell the opposition that that is what they will do. We'll see a lot more miraculous recoveries.

It worked for Reading!

What is equally pathetic is this kind of response to one bad game. Hell even Man U lost to Burnley

Grow up.

Very disappointing but, on the other hand, we are not going to win every game for ever and ever. We dominated possession but did sod all with it. Their goals were classic counter strikes assisted by the fact that our midfield was awol for all three goals. (Who the hell should have been tracking the guy who scored that last goal?) It might be a gentle reminder to some that the play-offs really are not a realistic option. I worked out that we would have to win five more games than the team in position 6 to realistically have a chance of the play-offs. That effectively means winning almost all the remaining games. That is not going to happen - sorry!

In the middle of the ecstasy of winning we should focus on one point.We were playing 4-4-2 which according many posters on here is the answer to life, the universe and everything. I have only the Solent commentary to go by but it sounds that for the whole of the first half and good portion of the second half we were sh!te so the format that we start up with is next to irrelevant to how well we play. It could be argued that we create more first half chances with 4-5-1. My point is that perhaps the "experts" on here just leave it to Pardew to decide what is appropriate for any given game.

That is exactly the kind of comment that Clifford Nelson was talking about

The first bit is right ;-)

I bet they're not ;-)

There is the nub of it - tactics are far from irrelevant but they are not more important than the players.

Pardon my ignorance but who the heck is Dan Kerins?

Good post

There is no evidence that Lallana wants to leave and even less that we want to sell him. For my money he is here for the season and possibly even next if we get promoted (unlikely I know). If he does leave next season it will be to a premiership club and not a CCC club. What would be the point of the latter move? - he would not be playing at that much higher a standard and probably for not much more wages.

I do not think that Surman DECIDED to leave. I don't think he was given any option since the administrator needed the money. If the Swiss bid had not been delayed I suspect Drew would still be with us. I don't think that he really wanted to go.

It is 4-3-3 attacking and 4-5-1 defending - that is not being negative. We had a number of unconverted chances in the first half.

Sorry - your leap in logic has lost me!

H'mmm - Souness did no better than Merrington - the team only just survived in the premiership under both and Souness had more resources - so that one does not stand up. Anyone would have been better than Branfoot, ditto Gray. As to the numerous other changes, they were all really successful - weren't they?

Fair enough - he succeeded!

So - if you saw someone in a Saints shirt commit a brutal, unprovoked assault you would say nothing! That says everything about the mentality.

Why? Is he wrong?

I don't think so. He was hired because he was cheap and he had to buy himself out of his existing contract himself. Lowe did him no favours at all.

Ponty - the problem is that the statement is so utterly consistent with his other utterances that you can hardly blame people for assuming him to be serious. Perhaps a winky-eye thing would have given us a clue. ;-)

We have crossed swords a few times Alps but I would say that you have not been especially negative in past few months. I can think of other more guilty parties than you.