Baird of the land

Decent win against a team going strong in the championship. Hopefully we will get another decent home tie. Hope rickie's injury isn't serious and that we can get Boruc, Fonte & Lovren back sharpish.

Played a very good team who have been better able to rotate over xmas. Our manager made very poor use of tactical substitutions. Hopefully we can beat Burnley(have an FA cup run) and pick ourselves back up in the league and try and stay top half.

Yep all he's done today is opened up the floodgates by taking Cork off. Either he's got to buy someone he fancies instead of Cork or he's got to stick with him until he gets Wanyama back.

Sadly got to blame the manager on this occasion. Doesn't make a change even though they've clearly got on top then once they score he takes off centre mid and we concede again.

While part of me thinks Cropper can't be worse than Gash anniga the cynical part of me thinks he could be even worse. Davis/Boruc back as a christmas present would be nice. Shaw and Fonte back in is a must of course too.

He's a good keeper but i'd be confused if he came to be 2nd choice here behind Boruc considering the wages he'd be likely to be on & his need to be playing regularly in a world cup year.

Happy to get an away point against a decent Newcastle side. Good to see Schneiderlin back. Now we just need Boruc back sharpish.

If you'd offered me a point beforehand i would have bit your hand off. Says a lot about how well our patched up team played that i'm slightly disappointed not to get all 3 points. Important that we keep Lovren/Fonte partnership together imo.

Well at least Osvaldo got a goal. Other than that a very disappointing result. We're going to have to make it harder for City to score at the weekend or we could leak shed loads.

Yep & that would be a real shame imo as i really rate Cork but he's not going to hang around if the manager doesn't rate him enough to play him when one of the 1st choice pair are absent.

Davis in for Boruc if he is available. Otherwise Gazzaniga. Cork has to come in for Schneiderlin. Davis for JWP Lambert for Osvaldo

6 weeks out would be a disaster. I really hope Kelvin(even if he is no Boruc) is fit for Wednesday as Gazzaniga's positioning doesn't fill me with confidence.

Think Boruc would have saved the second. He or Kelvin certainly wouldn't have been as laughably badly positioned for the third.

Well it was going fantastic for 54 minutes. Then a bit of luck, a centimetre either side of the post and they wouldn't have scored & they equalise. We lose Boruc which is a double whammy, why that waste of space that is Gazzaniga is on the bench is beyond me. Second goal is poor and i'd hope Boruc would have saved it, 3rd embarassing by gazzaniga. Hopefully Boruc can play wednesday, otherwise i'd prefer Davis to the clueless wonder.

For me the longer the league keeps throwing up surprise results & the top half remains tightly bunched the better for Saints prospects of finishing higher up the top half & make for an extremely interesting season too. Finishing 10th was what i was hoping for before the season started, now while i still would consider that a very good achievement, i have some optimistic dreams of 7th.

Think this game is an opportunity to give those who haven't played last couple of games a runout, making Hull at the weekend a priority. Davis Chambers Yoshida Hooiveld Fox Cork Davis Guly Ramirez Isgrove Osvaldo

The only change i'd make is Lambert in for Jrod.

Yep i wouldn't trade him for any other midfielder in the prem. Just hope we can keep hold of him.

Went to the Norwich game and Fox was quite clearly limited but not cut apart by snodgrass. That week it was chambers being slaughtered by Redmond. This week it was Fox being slaughtered by a great winger dyer(how i wish we'd been able to nurture him rather than let swansea benefit). Our reserve fullbacks aren't as good as our first choice ones shock horror. Maybe in a year or so's time a youngster like Targett will be in a place to act as back up instead. In the meantime i hope fans don't make it worse for fox by getting on his back when we are forced to play him.

Banana skin avoided. Both strikers score early in 2nd half. Very happy with that result & being 4th in table.

Great result. Was hoping for a point so 3 is very nice indeed. Sounds a good performance. Next step is to put teams to the sword at home as we've shown we're very solid.

Wanyama was a good addition to the squad. What i find utterly bemusing is that Cork, one of our best players from last season can't get a look in or even a place on the bench. The midfield was crying out for change yesterday.

Osvaldo looked lively, Lambert looked decent, the defence was pretty solid with exception of panic where collins almost scored. Terrible conditions, mediocre west ham team, 2 points dropped. Personally Wanyama was rather poor today and Saints were far too slow and cumbersome in possession. Can't believe Cork wasn't even on the bench as i would had him on today to get us moving the ball around.

Largely happy. We've signed 3 quality players that have improved our squad. Little bit disappointed both Mayuka & Puncheon have gone and no one else pacey has come in.

Finally back home after going up to Norwich to watch the game. Saints were dogged but lacked much cutting edge. Both fullbacks in particular were clearly in trouble(chambers got forward but had a really tough afternoon with Redmond) while fox seemed so intent on not screwing up defensively that all he seemed able to do was pass it back to Lovren. Lovren was my MOTM for saints, what a player he is! Boruc:6 (Taken off guard for the goal but otherwise looked decent) CHambers: 5 (Rough afternoon for the lad, hopefully clyne will be back next week Fox: 5 (limited but not terrible but need shaw back to give us attacking impetus. Lovren: 8 (superb never seemed to miss anything) Fonte: 7 (Solid game by fonte) Wanyama: 7 (Needs to improve his passing and shooting but certainly gives us muscle in the middle but outdone by their guy fer) Schneiderlin: 6 (Worked hard) JWP: 4 (real off day for the lad. Outmuscled by their mid and offered nothing going forward. Should have been off when Davis came on. Lallana: 7 (bright sometimes trying to do too much and delaying the shot. Really unlucky with the shot off post and unlucky to be taken off) Lambert: 6 (Some lovely layoffs and lovely ball in to jrod at the end that i felt sure was going to be the equaliser. Playing too deep for my liking and his freekick effort was poor. Osvaldo: 5 (I'll give him time. He still hasn't developed an understanding with others and he really should have been off much earlier for jrod. Subs: Davis: 6 (Gave us energy and unfortunately snatched shot when well placed) Jrod: 6 (Real difference was the understanding he had with others and he'd no doubt have a higher stat if he'd been on longer) Ramirez: 4 (So frustrating as he is so talented. Had a glorious chance to chance but utterly refused to shoot. Several times just gave the ball away cheaply.