itchen

That's the best I've seen this year. It never looked in doubt that we would win. Mane constantly caused problems as did Pelle. Romeu looked strong when he came on. JWP had a good game - especially the corner that led to the 1st goal, as did Tadic. In fact, it's difficult to criticise any of our players. The fact that Gomes and Shelvey were both replaced is a testament to how well we contained them compared to last season. Good to see Bertrand back.

Which pie in the sky policies? Investing in our infrastructure to provide jobs and boost the economy? Stopping the marketisation and privatisation of the NHS? Opposing the complete emasculation of the trade unions? Not sending our troops into reckless foreign wars? Taking the railways back from private companies and running an integrated rail service? I'm not sure why someone who has voted Labour all their life would oppose any of these things.

I'm normally reluctant to criticise the team, but that was bloody awful. Just lofting it up to Pelle with nobody playing off him just didn't work but it seemed to be our only tactic. Has Big Sam been giving coaching advice?

I know we no longer like to speak his name but Lovren was pretty good for us. And it's hardly fair to say that CB is the club's blind spot as if only you have noticed the shortage in that area. Koeman and Reed have both said that this position is a priority and I have no doubt that they are working to sign suitable recruits. As others have pointed out, this isn't a video game. Getting the right player on the right terms is complicated.

Lot of experts on journalism here today. I'm not a journalist but I do know that subs always write the headlines, even for established top-name columnists. If a freelance starts getting uppity he/she will starve. Yes, Alex Crook and others do recirculate what they find locally whether that be press releases, gossip, lines from message boards or contacts with players. They are the ears of the nationals at provincial (sorry, face facts) clubs like ours and that's how they earn their living. You don't have to believe everything they write. Finally, the Star/Express are totally reliant on freelances because Dirty Desmond has sacked almost all the staff reporters.

Nothing wrong with that. But the lead character in that work was called Frederick. He had a sense of duty.

Your definition of comedy clearly differs from mine; as you've proved so many times.

I do. I've got nothing against Pelle, unlike some of the people round me, but we looked much better when Long came on.

Was interested last night that, when W Ham had a free kick, he was directing Wanyama where to be. Shows confidence for a relatively junior member of the squad.

So anyone who does not support their local team is a "plastic"? We should support our local team? I sort of agree but then have to wonder why it is that Pompey fans get so much stick for being Pompey fans. It goes far beyond sporting rivalry. Some Saints fans seriously question their intelligence, their parentage and their honesty. We belittle their efforts to rebuild a club shockingly done over by people who had no connection with the city. Don't get me wrong, I love watching Portsmouth struggle and enjoy it when they lose. I wish them no success beyond survival. But they should survive because, if people should support their local club, then this applies in Portsmouth as much as in Southampton. Would we really prefer to see kids in Portsmouth following Chelsea, Utd or City than following their local team? We need local teams to feel to measure against and feel superior to. Given the plight of Pompey it's surely quite an admirable thing to stick with them rather than go glory hunting. And before anyone says you see a lot of shirts of other clubs in Portsmouth, you do in Southampton as well. Yes, I'm all for sporting rivalry and banter. But, in the end, most Pompey fans are ordinary people like us (apart from the pr*ck with the bell, obviously) supporting their local team, like we say they should. They had no more control over the way their club was run than we did during the Lowe era (or, indeed, we have now - we just like the way it is run now). The same goes for fans of, random examples, Brighton, Millwall, Sunderland and QPR. Some people take the rivalry way too seriously.

From the Guardian's match report: Balotelli was at his ineffectual worst and Rodgers surely made a mistake selecting Dejan Lovren when Kolo Touré had excelled in the Bernabéu. Lovren, at £20m, increasingly looks like a dismal piece of business on Liverpool’s part. He was signed to bring some leadership to the Liverpool defence but there was absolutely none.

Well we made hard work of it for a while but got there in the end. Wanyama was immense. They just couldn't get the ball off him. And his passing has moved up more than a few notches. Who was that Scottish manager who said when they were playing against Wanyama they hoped he'd get the ball because he always gave it back? I quite enjoyed the opinion of the man sitting behind me, just before the first goal, that "Shane Long couldn't score in a brothel". But he redeemed himself seconds before the second goal by screaming at Long to pass it to Pelle.

Nice to see some praise for Long. I thought he had a good game but the people sitting around me were looking for every opportunity to slag him off. Why do some people need to have a whipping boy all the time? If they can't see that his main job isn't to score goals (though that would, admittedly, be nice) but to draw defenders and generally bustle about upsetting the opposition. The amount of headers he wins is astonishing for a not particularly tall player.

Yep. We closed it down.

According to the Guardian' http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/ng-interactive/2014/oct/13/next-generation-2014-20-of-the-best-talents-at-premier-league-clubs

I've just asked myself why Poch left and this was the answer given by myself. He left because Spurs are a bigger club. They have an average attendance of 37000. They have a more successful history. They could offer him more money and a chance to manage one the recognised top 6 sides in England. They have spent a fortune (badly) on players but successive managers ave failed to produce the results their fans and board expect. Poch is confident (or arrogant) enough to believe he can deliver where others have failed. That's why he left. He may have been told of the plan ahead. And what was that plan? As we've all now found it goes further than who gets sold and who we bring in. It's a philosophy that we grow talent. That all of our teams (from the youngest to the first team) play the same way so that, if one component - be that manager or player - does leave, we arrange replacements to slot in with that philosophy rather than the scatter-gun approach of some other clubs (I'm looking at you QPR). Les Reed, although you think him a muppet, has been a big part of building that structure. And, yes, it's a plan to live within our means. How can we sneer at Man City and Chelsea and their rich owners when we are doing the same thing? If we forget the local rivalry for a moment, how can we denigrate Pompey in their current aim of building a sustainable club from the bottom up? They tried the other way of ambition over resource and look where it got them. I would rather have a club living within the money it generates, with the occasional high league finish and cup win, than one constantly requiring loans until the owner tires and says "No".

And Terry Paine. And Stanley Matthews.

I thought the same. It reads as though it has been written by someone on work experience. Still, it's praise in the Daily Hate so I guess it's a step in the right direction.

Well I'm glad he's staying and I'm glad he's not sulking. But, come on. He only recently signed a new contract and part of that would have been a raise in pay in the expectation that he'd see the contract out (or most of it, anyway). I may be old fashioned but he shouldn't have assumed he'd be allowed to leave.

It's fairly tempting to see the flaws in Poch's approach last season because of the way he left us. But I know that, last season, I saw the most exciting football I've ever seen Saints play (and I'm pretty old so I've seen a fair bit). But, yes, he had his limitations. I'm extremely optimistic about Koeman and the latest two signings can only make us even better. I wish Poch all the bad luck in the world but I'm not quite ready to write off his achievements last year.

It really gets no better here, does it?

I wasn't there but thought it just emphasised how differently we feel about the way Lambert and Lovren left. One gets a song, the other gets booed.

I wasn't there but thought it just emphasised how differently we feel about the way Lambert and Lovren left. One gets a song, the other gets booed.

Sounds a fair assessment of the situation.

All summer I've been reading on here how the board is asset stripping and about how money is "sitting in a Swiss bank account". I've read how we have made "derisory" offers and it's no wonder we can't sign players if we're not prepared to pay. Now the same people, with no sense of irony, are popping up and saying we have overpaid for a goalkeeper and are REPORTEDLY overpaying for Shane Long. Honestly, are we being asset stripped of are we being profligate? I doubt Long was top of our list of targets. However, RK and Les Reed must think HCDAJFU or they wouldn't be bidding for him. They are not obliged to sign anyone just for the sake of it. We got top prices for the players who left this summer, probably more than most of them were worth. It's not surprising that other clubs seek the same. I doubt the fee is as high as reported but, even if it is, it's less than we got for a relatively untested right back. The moaning on here can be so depressing.