madruss

This disruption could relegate us. Even some of the best foreign coaches have failed in the premier league... Absolutely gutted for nigel

So how exactly could he have avoided the challenge AND stayed on his feet? Or are you saying he should have let the defender hit his foot?

This is exactly what happened. By withdrawing his foot, he loses his balance and goes down. What's he supposed to do, let the tackle hit him when he can avoid it?

Agree with this, he was absolutely woeful: panicky, flappy and nervous, it's no surprise that the back line was in a state of panic with him behind them. If Boruc really isn't the answer, then we need a new keeper as a priority in January

This seems most likely. Adkins did say a couple had taken knocks on Wednesday. I expect they were Clyne and Gaston, with the former not fit for the bench. Still doesn't explain why FR is not playing at right back today

Clyne must be injured, but surely Richardson would be the better option than yoshida?

Having watched the highlights, federici pushes yoshida which makes it look like yoshida has pushed the reading defender in front of him, for which the ref gives a foul. In short, a bloody terrible decision which thankfully didn't cost us

We weren't that bad! Liverpool passed the ball very well in the first half and controlled the game, as you would expect the home team to. Second half, we stepped things up but just lacked a bit of cutting edge in the final third, despite getting into good positions. Defensively we had a good shape, and this is now 5 games with only 4 goals conceded. Credit where it's due though, Agger and Skrtel completely nullified Rickie and Liverpool gave a good lesson in how domination of possession can make the opposition ineffective

Fonte for me. Actually looked like a premier league defender today

We did score at Brighton, in the first half, only the blind linesman didn't see the ball crossing the line! Let's hope for better luck at the weekend

Is it too ridiculous to suggest that Guly didn't make the squad because Cork returned? Davis drops to the bench, therefore no place for Guly. The 18 in the squad on Saturday, I would suggest, are Nigel's top 18 players.

This is an excellent summary, they massively underperformed last year. Everyone expected them to steamroller the championship with a prem squad, but they didn't - far from it. Saints, on the other hand, massively overperformed and (crucially) built up a lot of early momentum in the season which never relented for long enough for us to drop out of the top two. This season, we have only bad momentum and it will be very hard to overturn. West Ham have had a good start, signed some key players in the spine of their team and play effective football..fair play to them. They'll still finish bottom half though, but annoyingly look like they won't be joining us in our relegation battle this year after all

So you presumably expected us (as a newly promoted side) to beat man u, man city, Everton, spurs, West brom, arsenal this season did you? Regardless of when the fixtures happened?

We've got ramirez to come back, J-Rod is getting better with every game, the fixture list is starting to get kinder and November will be defining. I think we'll stay up, and I'd put money on it too. Honestly, I genuinely believe that the majority of people on here have completely forgotten what it was like when we were last in the prem.In our 13 previous seasons in the league, we would lose more games than we won in all but 2 of those seasons. Yes, we've lost a hell of a lot already this year but mostly (bar 2 teams I would say) against the teams we were always.fookin.losing.to when we were last in this league. The games against the teams around us will decide it. Like they always did

Quite. I was in the chapel today and there was absolutely no reason for our own player to be given verbal abuse. He chucked the bottle lightly against the bottom of the advertising board as a gesture of frustration. It was in no danger of hitting or harming anyone. Can't believe what cretins for 'fans' we have. Abusing a player on his home debut Ffs

Keeps leaving out? Only lallana, Morgan, s. davis, fonte and clyne have played more minutes than rickie this season. People are just over-reacting to him being left out for the West Ham game and pretending that game is somehow representative of the whole season.

Why three weeks? Because it's guesswork based on nothing, just a journalist trying to stir things up. Nothing to see here

This. Every day of the week.

Lambert missed three very good chances against Fulham. If he'd scored even one of those, we would have won the game. I would have hoped that if either party was having "words" with the other, it would be the other way round. If a defender/goalkeeper makes a cock-up and it leads to a goal, they are at fault and blamed for any defeat/draw that arises. Similarly then,a striker should be equally culpable for missing 3 chances that you would expect a premier league quality striker to put away. People on here are very quick to blame "suicidal tactical decisions and substitutions" of NA or other such melodramatic blamethrowing, whilst simultaneously ignoring the simple fact that player errors or underperformance have just as much, if not more, of a bearing on the end result

I think the problem is, we've spent the last 3 seasons being the best/second best team in the league. In almost every match we've played in those years: we've expected to win, the form guide has expected us to win, and in most instances we did win. Any defeat/draw in those games needed to have an explanation, someone was at fault because the form book was upset by us not winning. This year, there's a new reason why we're losing games....The other team is better than we are We have to accept, and remember that it was like this last time we were in the Prem, that sometimes no matter what the tactics, player selection or however many centre-backs and left-backs we signed over the summer...the other team had better players, better form, had been playing together in the Prem for a long time, and rightfully, as expected, beat us. That's how the Premier League works! If our first 6 fixtures had been: Norwich H Swansea A QPR H Reading A West Ham H Wigan A and we only had 3 points, then yes I would be very worried. Am I worried, or did I expect that we'd get anything from playing 4 of the top 7 teams, 3 of which were away? Not a bit.

Really impressive full debut. Very composed, vocal, has great timing with his interceptions and tackles, excellent on the ball and has an eye for a pass. Not spectacular in the air, but more than enough for the Villa attack today. Plus like others have said, I thought Fonte raised his game today in response

Totally agree with all this, the sort of player who's worth the ticket price all on his own. Already looking forward to watching him in action again. Great great signing, and with raise the game (if he hasn't already) of our existing players. Win win

Reminds me a lot of last season, when we smashed teams early on and they didn't expect it. Fact is, we could have scored a LOT more than 4 in that second half. But yeah, it's not that our attacking play was good, just bad defending and bad luck...heard it all before from sore loser sides who've just taken and SMS beating!

Totally agree with this, his kicking was a big improvement on Kelvin's. Found Rickie with pretty much every kick. Only had one save to make, which was a good block on a one-on-one with Bent, near post as well. Has a great presence about him for such a young keeper. Very good Prem debut

Ah yes, 3 games is of course the most accurate period over which a player's quality should be measured. I for one wrote J-Rod off after 10 minutes