scorchio21

Underwhelming transfer on the face of it, but he has shown glimpses of brilliance. I recall the West Brom v Villa game last year when he looked absolutely outstanding in the first 15 minutes when he scored two goals. And I've seen him pop up in other games where he has suddenly seemed like a world-beater. But consistency is always the thing, it's useless looking great a couple of times a season. And the £12m fee I just don't get. Just a few months after Hull paid £7m, and I don't recall him doing much for Hull. Maybe I missed something.

K Davis, Hooiveld and Guly are all unacceptable picks straight away, we've seen time and time again that they're not up to it at this level, let alone ready to be brought in for the most important match we've had for weeks. In addition to that, we have Ward-Prowse and Wanyama in midfield. Now I can see the argument for Wanyama being a first-team pick, even though IMO he's sub-standard in comparison to the other players we have in position. Ward-Prowse is ok as back-up but not a first team selection by any means. The biggest miss of course was Schneiderlin AND Cork from the midfield. We'll always have way more of the ball with them and therefore create more chances. At Sunderland a month ago, we managed 63% possession, today we managed 52% against a mostly reserve team. That's an enormously weakened team. And none of this is being said with hindsight, we were all already saying this before the match even started. The argument that there are too many games doesn't hold water, especially for the goalkeeper. Even if players need a rest after playing on Tuesday or in preparation for Saturday, which I find hard to believe, this is the match that should have been in the calendar as the one to prioritise ever since the win against Yeovil. Very disappointing. At least there's an outside chance of the holy grail of 7th place still to play for.

Awful selection. Playing one of K Davis, Hooiveld and Guly is bad enough but playing all three is unacceptable. Would have been fair enough playing them in the Hull game, but this is our most important game for weeks. Clearly Poch doesn't see it that way (even though Lallana does) and favours going all out for 7th over extending the cup run.

It's not that bad a draw. We showed how we can completely outplay them at theirs just last week, but obviously just need to sustain that over the whole match. The loss to them in the league cup is hardly comparable at all, we'll be taking this way more seriously for several reasons - bigger competition, we have very little in the league to play for, and they still have lots, plus the league cup final.

Not a good performance really, but can hardly complain at seeing a rare Guly goal and Hooiveld/Davis clean sheet. It always felt edgy at 1-0 but after the 2nd we should really have scored more. Cork MOTM yet again, as if his ball-winning and good passing throughout wasn't enough, he also played a good ball to set up Gallagher for his goal. Don't know why people are saying Guly MOTM, fair play he did take the penalty coolly in a nervous situation, but other than that his play was mostly poor. Special mention to Kelvin Davis, who never really looks comfortable with the ball at his feet but did make a couple of important saves. One point blank effort that he couldn't have known much about, and another one he tipped round the post with his fingertips. Also Gallagher looks class. Really looked lively and full of confidence, shortly after coming on he cut inside and fired a decent shot that dipped awkwardly in front of the keeper and could easily have gone to a Saints player for a tap in. Then took his goal well, and after that showed a great bit of skill in the area. We shouldn't be afraid of giving him lots more minutes in the league until Osvaldo sorts himself out (ie. until we replace Osvaldo).

Which ones in particular are bizarre?

Oh yeah... JWP, I forgot about him. You're right, he was practically invisible. He picked up the ball in promising positions on the right a few times, but pretty sure he failed to find any decent crosses. Sad considering his consistent pinpoint crosses earlier in the season.

Wow, i don't know where to start with that one. One of the bizarrest games I've been to in recent memory. There's often a lot of debate about whether £20 is the right price for the ticket but I at least feel I got my money's worth here. It was entertaining stuff, albeit painful to watch at times. Davis 4 - not really at fault for their first goal, but his old near post nightmares returned for the second. Need to rewatch the third as it was a weird one as it slowly looped into the net after the corner, but he certainly wasn't commanding his area. To be fair he made an excellent point blank save right after they equalised. Distribution a lot worse than recently too. Shaw 6 - got forward reasonably well but seems to be afraid to take on defenders. Got caught out defensively a few times too, not great. Hooiveld 3 - alright for the first half when Burnley hardly threatened, but pretty horrendous in the second. So incredibly slow for their second goal. Yoshida 4 - kept giving the ball away, generally looked uncomfortable and not up to the task. Clyne 7 - scored an absolute screamer, and looked lively going forward. Generally ok defensively but by the end everything was such a shambles that even he was making errors. Schneiderlin 6 - some decent ball-winning and passing but also gave the ball away a few times. Cork 5 - great for the first half hour, pretty awful after that. Misplaced passes and getting caught in possession, not as up for 50/50s as usual. Davis 5 - anonymous, I remember him losing the ball a couple of times but don't recall much other than that. Ramirez 4 - poor, had 2 longshots one of which was pathetically weak and the other went miles off target, then failed to shoot when relatively close to the goal. He went off immediately after the 2nd Burnley goal, leaving us down to 10 men until lallana came on for him about 2 minutes later, anyone know what that was about? Lambert 6 - took his goal really well, other than that not great. Had another great chance that he ballooned way over the bar. Looked out on his feet after half an hour. Rodriguez 6 - similar to Rickie, took his goal well but did little else right. Had plenty of opportunities after his goal but failed to hit the target. Lallana 8 - shone out way above the rest. Fantastic goal after collecting the ball when very little seemed to be on, also set Rodriguez through with a sublime pass and came up with various other moments of magic. Fonte 5 - error prone, looked lethargic, hardly even an improvement over Hooiveld.

The idea of a compulsory 5 minutes off the pitch when receiving treatment just sounds ridiculous to me. Genuine injuries do happen, and with this rule a player is effectively punished for being injured, whilst a player that manages to injure another player is rewarded by getting 5 minutes playing against 10 men. Treatment on the sidelines regularly takes 2-3 minutes anyway so you'd be left with the situation of a guy just sitting there waiting for a few minutes like a 'sin-bin' where the sin was to get injured. The suggestion of play continuing whilst a player gets treatment on the pitch also clearly would not work in football. Although a winger cutting in and dribbling round a player lying in the area, or playing a one-two off the physio would be pretty funny. I don't really see any way of solving these situations where judgement of whether a player is being honest or dishonest is clearly subjective, other than the minimal effect of ridiculing players who are blatantly being dishonest. It's just another area of football lost to bad sportsmanship.

It was interesting that Davis now appears to be fit but was only named on the bench. Many were expecting him to go back into the starting line-up today (well I was anyway) but Poch kept faith with Gazza and was rewarded with an improved performance. Could it be that Gazza is the real number 2 and Davis the number 3? I guess we will find out the answer to that in the next match, but I'd be surprised if Gazza were to be dropped now after today's clean sheet.

This was my first away game of the season and it turns out we picked a good one. Player performances as I saw them: Gazzaniga 7 - Fantastic to see him finally put in an improved performance. He made a great fingertip save to tip it over the bar in the first half, and although it turned out there was an offside flag anyway, the crowd gave him some (maybe slightly sarcastic) support and he appeared to take some confidence from it. Shortly afterwards he made an impressive reaction save to shovel it round the post off a tricky deflected shot. He's still not a commanding presence in the area, at all, but did make several decent claims from dead balls and crosses. He does seem to have an alarming tendency to punch the ball vertically upwards, causing obvious havoc in front of the goal but got away with it today. Also he's clearly not comfortable on the ball, always seemed to let the striker close him down and the resultant distribution was mostly poor. He was the first to come over to the fans after the match despite being the furthest away, although we were a bit confused about what exactly he was trying to do - seemed to be trying to give his shirt to a specific person but failing. Shaw 7 - Did the basics pretty well, but didn't get forward as much as he sometimes can, particularly in the first half when most of our attacks seemed to be down the right. But he did get forward more in the latter stages and produced a great run. He got clattered at one point in the second half in a 50/50 challenge and came out looking pretty groggy, hopefully there won't be any after-effects of that as we all know who tends to play if he's not available. Yoshida 7 - A bit of a mixed performance by Yoshi. He seemed down on confidence in the first half and was largely responsible for Whittingham's golden chance. Passing exchanges between him and Gazza were like walking over a rickety bridge but we just about got through ok. He certainly seemed to grow into the match and made some commanding headers out of defence. In the second half he also put in a couple of superb tackles in dangerous situations. Should always be playing ahead of Hooiveld. Fonte 8 - Jose showed how much we've been missing him. His performance here gave flashbacks of the first 8ish games and reminded us of how we at one point had the 3rd(?) best defence in Europe. Bossed the defence and ensured that their big Danish bloke could have very little impact in the second half. When necessary he put in perfectly-timed challenges to snuff out their threats. I didn't see any evidence of the 'knock' he's been carrying. Chambers 8 - Clearly our best back-up player as on this performance he could be good enough for the first team. Defensively sound and he seemed to get forward a bit more than Shaw. The clearest aspect in which Clyne is still ahead of him is his crossing though. These were inconsistent, the first went over the bar and the second straight into the keeper's arms, but he did improve in the second half. Schneiderlin 7 - He doesn't appear to be as influential on matches at the moment as he was throughout last season. Still a vital member of the 11 though of course and he was crucial as always in bossing the midfield and protecting the defence. It was his nicely-weighted through ball that put Lallana through for the first goal. Cork 8 - Excellent performance by Corky today. He just seemed to be popping up all over the park, pressing, tackling strongly, winning the ball and starting attacks. He even had a decent shot on target from the edge of the area but unfortunately wasn't able to break his duck. IMO he's outshone Schneiderlin in at least the last couple of games and I'd be disappointed to see him dropped when Wanyama returns. Davis 8 - Really commanding display by Davis and it's clear how he's become a mainstay of the side. He was pulling all the strings and linking up beautifully with Lallana and Rodriguez in particular. Lallana 8 (MOTM) - He's quite simply unstoppable at the moment. Whilst never coming particularly close to scoring today, he was involved in virtually every attack and it was his composure and accurate cross that created the first goal. His skills and control are at times just ridiculous. Lambert 7 - For whatever reason, Rickie doesn't seem to look quite as up for it at the moment as he used to. On the whole, it felt as though he was struggling to have much influence on the game, and yet you can't really argue against his smartly-taken goal and perfectly-weighted cross for Rodriguez to nod home. He largely seemed to be playing in a deeper role behind Jay-Rod until the latter stages, and I'm not convinced he's suited to that role. But with Jay-Rod performing as he is in the more advanced role, Rickie's probably going to need to find a way to fit into this system if he's going to keep his place in the team. Rodriguez 8 - On the scoresheet again with two striker's finishes, he's currently showing that perhaps he is the natural finisher that I always believed he's not. Today he was timing his runs nicely and showed great positional sense to get in ahead of the defenders for his goals. He even showed an impressive work-rate which I thought was epitomised by a moment in the second half when he won the ball way back in the left-back corner, and a few seconds later was the man running onto a through ball around the halfway line that their defender could only boot into touch. Cardiff put in one of the poorest performances we've played against this season, but it may have been a different story if Whittingham had buried his early chance. Other than that they didn't really have any clear-cut scoring opportunities. Heard very little from their crowd as well but I suppose that's to be expected when they're three-down fro most of the match. There was a nice moment of a sort of solidarity against egomaniac owners in which the Saints fans sang "You look better in the blue" and Cardiff responded with their chant of "Cardiff City, we'll always be blue".

Danny Fox. For any doubters, Fox is definitely a Christian name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Mulder

This got me thinking about other Japanese players that have come over here and played for English teams. The main one I can recall was Junichi Inamoto, I remember he was a huge star in the 2002 World Cup so Arsenal bought him off the back of that. There was plenty of hype around him but I think he completely flopped. Then he went to Fulham where he also made little to no impact. Not sure where he went after that but suffice to say he didn't quite live up to the expectations. Another one was Kawaguchi, the goalkeeper for Pompey, who likewise didn't particularly make an impact there. More recently Nakamura was a big player for Celtic for several years but then, that's the Scottish league so i'm not sure how much you can rely on that. I think maybe we should reserve our judgement on this guy until we've seen him play a few times...