bazza

Its fairly obvious that Gao’s lack of finances coupled with Reed’s disastrous last couple of years (which has lumbered us with expensive duds we can’t shift & managerial payoffs) has left us seriously hamstrung, and will for some time to come. I’ll be seriously surprised if we get a decent centre back in at this stage.

I’m still not sure about BPF. He’s looked good most of the time he’s played for NI but there’s always a mistake in him. He’ll be swapping the Leeds bench for the Burnley one in any case.

An abysmal 45 minutes. It’ll be interesting to see what Ralph does to change things.

That’s some accolade in fairness.

He was brilliant that last season for us in particular and was fantastic for NI over a long period of time. I bumped into him one day in Southampton years ago with my then young son and he was such a nice bloke.

Two points thrown away. What an idiot!

Only saw the replay of the ‘penalty’ incident, looks like a dive to me.

I watched the full 90 mins of it last night, Palace deserved something out of it. Played really well.

Other than the fact we kept the score down in the second half I can’t take one positive out of that today. Shambolic.

Anyway, back on topic. Has anyone watched Ramsay play regularly? Is he a decent looking player?

No doubt the whinging keyboarders are the new breed who’ve never heard of Maine Road!

You should have a nosey at their forums. A bunch of entitled ****s. Despite their billions and FFP shenanigans some of them genuinely believe they’re being hard done by this season. Embarrassing really, I’d love to take points off them today. Can’t see it though, they need a win badly and have the firepower to do it.

Austria v NI wasn’t much better. It’s safe to say that when we’re bringing on a forward from Rotherham who hasn’t scored this season we’re up against it. Davis played well, should’ve scored though.

100% correct.

In fairness one league win at home since last November has probably sucked a wee bit of enthusiasm out of some fans.

Whether we need it or not we’re likely to get it this season.

It really isn’t!

Specifically on the players capabilities, are we doing so poorly because the manager and coaching staff aren’t getting enough out of the current crop of players or are they simply not good enough to make an impact on the PL? Unfortunately I think it’s both.

I don’t like what I’m seeing from Hughes (his tacticsc, formation & team selection leave me scratching my head) but the core problem is at board level. This is the third manager in a row who looks poor and the quality of the first xi has declined significantly in the last few seasons. It’s ridiculous that there weren’t changes at corporate level at the end of last season. We’re heading in one direction and it isn’t up.

Yep, significantly.

A concerning 4/10. The alarm bells were ringing once the pre-season three centre backs option was jettisoned during the first league match. It’s still early days but: The new signings, bar Ings, don’t look brilliant and the Armstrong disappearing act is a strange one; The CB pairing looks shaky. Vestergaard looks like he’s running through treacle & Wes has been a massive disappointment; Cedric still looks disinterested & there’s no real alternative right back in the squad. Hughes deserved a chance to take us forward but he’s worrying me already. That said, he can get only work with what he’s got and when you take a step back and look at our starting eleven it looks very average for the Premier League. We’re not as bad as the shambles under MP but it’s not great.

Good strike.

Great strike by Davo. NI 1 - Israel 0.

When we were in the pub post-match yesterday my mates were asking me about his lack of game time down here, and to be honest it’s been a long time since I saw a performance like yesterday in a Saints shirt. It was like turning back the clock three years. ‘Leader’ is exactly the word.

Played really well today against Bosnia. Also spoke to a friend today who works at Rangers who is sure that he’ll be off to Ibrox in January.