Rasiak-9-

Good grief he really is ****ing terrible isn't he. Utterly dominant and now we're in very real danger of dropping two points against a team we've completely battered.

Curse of the commentator. Although in fairness it was him who won the ball tracking back I guess...

Had quite a positive feeling about this game. Saints have a habit of being outstanding in the most meaningless matches. Still, be nice to win this, beat Spurs and keep the top four show on the road assuming that City are capable of dropping three more points between now and the final day.

Not concerned about Liverpool. We need to win every one of our remaining matches to catch City and there isn't a cat in hell's chance that Liverpool will beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, meaning that should we succeed in attaining the minimum needed to catch City, we'll certainly overtake Liverpool in the process.

I think its pie-in-the-sky to suggest that anything less than 5 out of 5 would be enough to see us going there with a chance on the final day. We aren't realistically going to catch them on GD so we need them to drop three points. So, we need them to either draw against both Spurs and Swansea or lose one of them. I think it'd be nothing short of miraculous if they dropped points at home to the other three. Still, every win keeps the show on the road in the chase for fourth. Win our next four matches and (provided Liverpool don't win their next three matches and then beat Chelsea away) all the talk of the battle for fourth place, even if it ends with City comprehensively destroying Swansea at the Liberty, will be about us (as Liverpool and Spurs will both be mathematically out of it). That would be a delight, regardless of what happens then.

Good to know. I can definitely see a ground share being a handicap on our performances on the pitch. Not a huge one necessarily but a handicap nonetheless. Could easily see us having a ridiculously awkward fixture list as well with the Ropey League games if we have to fit in the fact we've got to rigidly alternate home and away league games with Bournemouth.

The obvious question that I'm rather surprised hasn't been yet covered is whether or not the Premier League can make us ground share with Bournemouth? Even if ground-sharing is necessary, can't we just reject their application and tell them to go and bug Reading or whoever?

Most Bournemouth fans are pretty cool. They readily admit that they know that Saints 'don't give a **** about us' but that it'd be a great feeling to get one over the local neighbours. Honestly? I'd be very surprised if most Bournemouth fans wouldn't much rather see us beat Manchester United than the other way around (and of course, vice-versa. The same couldn't possibly be said for Pompey.

Yup, beat me to it. In a vacuum you'd see an away team that went to a very tough, well-established, Premiership club, played them off the park but just couldn't score. If that was all you saw, you'd be full of praise and encouragement for them and expect their fans to go home disappointed with the result but not with the performance or method behind it. The problem is that we've seen precisely that same result happen repeatedly this season. The fact that we're repeatedly getting what many would consider 'less than we deserve' from matches is the problem, just as pundits and fans often say its the mark of a great team to win despite playing poorly. (...and of course, its really very obvious where to attribute the blame for all of this - we have the best defence in the league but we just can't score. Simples).

Its not just Pelle, its the whole 4-5-1 in general coupled with the fact that we still don't have a winger with real, electric pace to get past the full-back and cross it early (apart from Mane, who we'd rather play in the number 10). This means that whenever the ball moves forward, wingers have to check back, cut inside or twist and turn past their defender in order to get the cross in, rather than just bursting past them and crossing it early. As such, Pelle never gets the chance to run ontoanything, instead he just ends up waiting static in the box for a cross (which is why there are so many that he struggles to get much of a firm contact on or that defenders aren't ready for) *Sigh* I did suggest Aaron Lennon in January. In fact, we've been crying out for a (fairly ordinary if necessary) "bag-'o-pace" for a while now (occasionally had the same problem with Lallana-Lambert-Puncheon).

I'd give Pelle one last chance to score and get his confidence up and if he blows it, seriously think about whether or not its worth persevering with him in the long run. There are no easy games in the Premiership, but there are most certainly easier ones. This is one of them. If he scores a couple I can see him following them up with another few but if he still can't score then you do wonder whether or not we should let him go in the summer. So many of our dropped points have been down to persisting with Pelle and the 4-5-1 in general.

Graziano Pelle equalled Rickie Lambert's goals from open play for all of last season by 20th December. That's a fact.

Typical post-February Saints really. Its not that we don't even look like scoring, because we do. ...but we still don't actually score!

You have to chuckle at the fact that JWP is regarded as a set-piece specialist having never ever scored.

Need to be smart, savvy and play a proper away game for this one. Everton's defence is utterly shocking and slow as **** to boot. For the past two seasons Palace in particular have known exactly what to do up there (winning 3-2 away both times). Sit back, play on the counter and even if you concede once or twice, you can still outgun them with far less possession if you've got pace, trickery and can distribute the ball from the back and get it wide quickly.

Yeah it was apparently nowhere near as surprising as it should have been; pretty much literally a 3rd XI for Portugal. Definitely. Considering he was called up for Portugal's important match against Serbia and rested for a meaningless friendly (in which the fringe players clearly failed to perform) I think this little international break has done him plenty of good for getting his crack at at least one major international tournament in 2016 (and if he's lucky, maybe the WC 2018 as well).

16 appearances 0 goals for Portugal 156 appearances 39 goals in the (very average) Portuguese league Very ordinary indeed. No idea what we'd see in him.

It happens incredibly rarely, largely because he shots would only trouble a goalkeeper if he makes a huge mistake, which happily enough Speroni did. ...er...yeah.

Sad really as the effects of his poor form are beginning to ripple throughout the team, who now look like they just don't want to give him the ball. Its a lot like when Chelsea had to try and carry Torres along two seasons ago under Benitez, desperately trying to avoid having to pass it to him until they could effectively spoon-feed him a goal.

I think we realistically need to win the other ten games aside from Chelsea and City away to guarantee it (that'd give us 76 points). Failing that, winning nine, drawing one and going into the City game needing just one more point (against hopefully a team with nothing to play for) would get us to 75, which I also think would just about do it. The odd draw here and there however, creditable though they might be against the likes of Spurs and Everton, would entail realistic best-we-can-hope-for tallies of 69, 70, 71 or so, and that just won't be enough I'm afraid. Two of Arsenal, United, Spurs and Liverpool will beat that total. The West Ham game struck me as the one where we lost it as soon as the final whistle went. Still, best thing to do is to gamble and go all out to win these next two matches. If we do get six points out of West Brom and Palace then we can at least go into the Chelsea game fairly relaxed and able to enjoy ourselves knowing that we're not reliant on a result and that the following match against Burnley should be one of the easier fixtures. Beat them and get nine points from the next four matches and we'll have made it to 30 games with ourselves still in contention for a Champions League place and from there, its probably best just take it one game at a time and keep the show on the road. The challenge will be winning matches knowing that yes, we really do need to win them. Winning at somewhere like Everton isn't necessarily impossible, but winning consistently away against the likes of Everton, Sunderland and Stoke when your hand is completely face-up with your opponents knowing that you have to chase the win is a different kettle of fish altogether, especially if you concede the first goal. Assuming we lose away to Chelsea and City our maximum points tally is 76. One loss and one draw here or there in the other games and our ceiling drops down to 71 or so. That won't be enough. Still, maybe, just maybe, it could be us or United to finish 4th on the final day against a City team with nothing on the line.

Lovely silky touch and very relaxed on the ball. Able to play one-touch passes with either foot very comfortably and certainly looks like he's got potential. Would definitely be willing to give him a go ahead of JWP/Davis in the attacking-midfield position. Sorry to those two but we're not scoring goals and the fact that neither of them have a single one between them, despite them playing as the fourth most advanced player in the team, does most definitely count for something. That as well as the fact that finding the forward pass isn't a strength that either of them have. I'm afraid Davis is good, but only in his very, very specific role within our fully-fit first XI with Schneiderlin and Wanyama behind him. He's a good player but he's surprisingly un-flexible positionally.

Yeah I mean Jesus I don't want to have a go at one of our own players, especially a youngster from our academy. However, its pretty obvious to even the most ardent JWP apologists that all the factors that I've mentioned are just utterly indisputable. Despite my rather harsh, yet reluctant criticism of the lad I'm more than happy to defer to expertise and grant that our manager knows best, but I just honestly don't understand what Koeman sees in him.

Well lets see... He can't shoot from distance He can't get himself into the penalty area He can't score He can't tackle He can't defend He has no left foot He is weak in 50-50s He has no pace He can't beat a player He can't win headers But other than that he's fan-dabbie-dozie.

...bu-bu-but... He's English! He's from our academy! He's still young! There were other players who played worse...ri...ri...right guys?

Panic setting in at United looking at RedCafe. They really do think they're in danger of missing out on fourth and many of them have lost faith in LVG completely. About 2:1 saying he should be sacked if they do miss out on fourth and a fair few saying he should go even if they scrape it. Hardly surprising considering they've spent a war chest of £150Mn.