scorchio21

He had a mixed first season with us and was a bit inconsistent in his performances. But he has the makings of a good defender and I can see him hopefully following a similar path to Yoshida, who similarly was unreliable at first but in time grew in confidence. This injury is obviously a bigsetback but at 26, time should still be on his side.

Losing these three players can't be seen as anything like the 'meltdown' we experienced this time last year for two main reasons: 1) We've still got our manager. Having our manager taken from us last season gave a sense of having to start everything again from scratch, whereas even with different personnel in the team, by keeping the same manager for a second season we will still be trying to build on what we achieved last season. 2) This time we've already bought some decent-looking replacements before anyone's actually left. So there won't be any repeat of Koeman's infamous "all ready to start training" empty pitch photo this time around.

Just for the record, everything in this post, perhaps other than exaggerations like 'worst since Ali Dia', was actually true at the time. The nature of football is that things can change rapidly from game to game, we can all be Captain Hindsight and say "look how stupid you were back then" but you can never know how things will turn out. I'm sure there are dozens of players that have looked poor early on and have continued to be poor, but we're all delighted that Mane is not one of these and has progressed beyond all our expectations.

I doubt it, as Lineker said on the last MOTD, football didn't exist before the Premier League.

I don't mind the international breaks actually. It's not just about England, it's also fun to see Bale for Wales, Davis for N.Ireland, Scotland's latest embarassment, various Saints turning out for their respective countries as well as following the latest controversies and chaotic scenes in matches in eastern Europe (Montenegro v Russia this time). And then when the Premier League returns this weekend it feels even more epic after two weeks of anticipation... I do agree that it's bizarre having the friendly after the competitive game, although I thought that this week was the exception rather than the rule.

If it was a tournament match then sure, that could be considered 'wrong', but who really cares about the result of a friendly? Would be nice to see Pelle get a goal and maybe go on a scoring streak the rest of the season.

I saw this, the finish was just scrambled in via a deflection off the defender, but his first touch to bring it under control was pretty impressive. You can kind of see why they seem to have lost patience with him though, they said it was only his second goal for them in competitive matches. I know he's about more than just goals, but he could certainly do with scoring more 'ugly' goals like this.

This is the one that comes to mind for me. Great control, 3 or 4 stepovers then lays it on a plate so that Cork can't miss even though he scuffs it. Reminds you of when Tadic was actually good. Also as I type that, I remember Tadic's assist for Clyne in the very first game of the season was pretty hard to beat too.

Completely agree with point 1, I'm sure when the advantage rule was first brought in, the advantage would last for about 5 seconds and the ref would bring it back for the free kick if the ball wasn't kept throughout that period. Nowadays, refs are still good at sticking out their arms so that everyone goes "ah he's playing the advantage, great refereeing" but then the arms immediately go down if the ball is lost and it's not brought back for a free kick. What's that about? On the second point, I don't recall that but that clearly isn't how it's supposed to happen and I don't think that normally would happen. Maybe the Saints player involved had forgotten we'd had the ball when the play was stopped as he clearly shouldn't have given it to them.

I've been tracking this too because I was completely fed up with watching saints lose on tv. I think this is all our tv games since the start of last season: West Ham (H) 0-0 Fulham (H) 2-0 Chelsea (A) 1-3 Tottenham (H) 2-3 Chelsea (H) 0-3 Sunderland (A) 2-2 Sunderland (A) 0-1 Liverpool (H) 0-3 Tottenham (A) 2-3 Man City (A) 1-4 Everton (H) 2-0 Liverpool (A) 1-2 Aston Villa (A) 1-1 Man City (H) 0-3 Arsenal (A) 0-1 Man Utd (H) 1-2 Chelsea (H) 1-1 Man Utd (A) 1-0 Ipswich (A) 1-0 Newcastle (A) 2-1 Liverpool (H) 0-2 W: 5 D: 4 L: 12 Before the Man U away game, the record was W2 D4 L11 which felt statistically significantly but I've kind of abandoned following it properly since then because of the upturn in TV results. As said above, the standard of teams that we are likely to be playing against when our matches are televised are on average far better than in general across the season. So the record is pretty much what you would expect really.

Amazed at people saying he wouldn't be first choice at Man City, if their manager has half a brain he'd be straight in alongside Kompany, especially with the Belgian connection.

Nice jinxing. His poor effort at saving Markovic's weak shot for the first goal was anything but world class.

During the period from Aston Villa away to Sheff Utd in the cup his performance level was seriously poor and I think most of the comments around the start of this thread were quite justified at the time. Many players come in from foreign leagues and struggle to make an impact at first, but with Mane it went beyond that, he seemed to be having an adverse effect on the players around him whose form had previously been excellent. Since the Crystal Palace game it's been one of the most staggering and sudden changes in form I've ever known and now we all love him. Such is the fickle nature of being a football fan.

Look forward to seeing this in full before the match tonight. "We are Southampton. We are players like myself who four years ago was playing in League One. Never forget where you have come from." - almost sounds like he's been watching the promotional videos a few too many times. Funny that they would interview him before this match though because I thought he had a fairly poor game in the first match v Ipswich, despite scoring. It looks like he struggles to get up for the matches against lower-level teams because I thought it was the same against Sheff Utd. Absolutely outstanding at the weekend though so he's clearly capable of raising his level for the bigger games.

Kitchen roll, eye, champagne bottle, trouser logo.... and I'm out

You have a point as history does suggest this to be true, I recall Swansea's league form dropping around the period they won the cup, and I think Birmingham got relegated when they won it, as did Wigan when they won the FA Cup. But that can be explained by the fact that Swansea were in mid-table with nothing much to motivate them in the league, whilst Birmingham and Wigan were just generally poor teams that somehow rose to the occasion in the cup. I think it's fair to say we've faced bigger challenges and done pretty well, like losing the manager, losing the captain, and losing a large part of our first team. So let's just chalk this up as yet another trend that we'll buck during our unstoppable rise.

There is no way we will be seen as favourites for these three games. The way everyone sees it, is we've just had a lucky run of games, beaten all of the 'lesser' teams that we're supposed to beat, but will crash back to reality when we finally have to meet the bigger teams, and that's when the inevitable slide will begin. To be fair that may still prove to be somewhat accurate, but of course we know from seeing the standard of football we've been producing every week that we actually have great cause for optimism and can prove all the doubters wrong.

It would be an embarrassing decision by Hodgson to persevere with Chambers at right-back instead of Clyne after the way he was humiliated against Swansea yesterday. The number of times he was skinned by Jefferson Monteiro throughout the match was incredible. This season Chambers has looked far more comfortable at centre-half so I wouldn't actually blame Hodgson if he plays him there with a view to the future. Johnson struggled a bit against Chelsea too, Clyne just looks head and shoulders above them both.

Meh, technically you're right as the booking could cause an important suspension later in the season. I've no problem with it really, it's always better to see the passion from the players after scoring a crucial goal. Think of it as a by-product of his intense desire to score and win the game for his team, you can't have one without the other. Fonte running across that running track to celebrate with the fans after scoring in injury time vs Brighton was one of the great memories of our League 1 promotion season. I do agree that the yellow cards should count in all competitions though. It works both ways, you can be suspended in the league after being carded in the cup or vice versa.

Four away ties out of four, we're doing this the hard way. Might've gone if we were at home but don't think I'll be going to this, fair play to those intending to make the trip.

I saw that too, made me burst out laughing even at half 7 in the morning. It was the way he didn't seem to be saying it tongue-in-cheek or anything, he actually meant it in all seriousness. Do people really have to keep saying Bompey on here though, really makes me cringe.

Injuries and lack of squad depth did play a part in our fall down the table last season, but it's not incorrect to state that the tougher fixtures around November/December were the reason as that was clearly a major factor. Very good article. Especially interesting was the comparison with the philosophies of Ajax and Porto I thought. I wish he would mention that "5-6-7-8" was only played as background music whilst showing all the goals on the big screens though, the way he makes it seem like it was blasted out as part of the pre-game entertainment is a bit embarrassing.

As someone mentioned, this also means that Tadic holding the joint record for the most assists in a Prem game is now officially untrue. Which is a shame. Until reading this it hadn't even crossed my mind that it was touched by the defender. Even being at the game and after watching it on MOTD I though it was just a tap-in by Mane.

Looking at last night in particular, from what I recall Tadic was fairly anonymous for the first 20 minutes or so when he was out on the left, but then everything changed when he swapped sides with Mane. Mane straight away got the penalty and Tadic became far more influential. Tadic's link-up play with Clyne is especially great to see, we saw in Tadic's first game with his superb flick for Clyne's goal at Anfield how they seem to be naturally on the same wavelength. There were at least three instances of them linking up over on the right wing to create good chances last night, including another move similar to the Anfield flick, albeit further out. Tadic's crossing from dead balls was better than Alexis Sanchez last night too, although that isn't saying much.

I agree that at the moment the top Spanish and German clubs are better than the top English clubs, but I think to a certain extent this is cyclical and in a few years English clubs are likely to be winning Champions Leagues again. The main reason why the Premier League is best league in the world is it has so much more depth. I don't know much about the Bundesliga, but there was a game in La Liga on Monday night at Eibar that had an attendance of 4,452 (in a stadium with capacity 5,250). In England there are numerous big clubs (Leeds, Notts Forest, etc.) that can't even make it into the top tier. You have to go a really long way down the English league structure before you start seeing attendances as low as that. I know attendances aren't everything but it does give some idea of the gulf in class between the top and bottom of La Liga. The fact that Barcelona's B team is one of the consistently best performing teams in Segunda is pretty damning as well. Well I can get the general idea of everything but I was intrigued by the following: "He has scored three goals in four games, the people are very satisfied. Without myself knocking on the chest I had even foreseen." And also what exactly does he mean by "That comes in the afternoon to me, politely gives a hand and then with my shoes away neatly brushed back." ?