saintwbu

Because most of the criticism is because he's Stephens, not because of things he does. That's what some of us try to counter-act, like in this case where it wasn't actually his fault as he was fouled.

Was a foul on Stephens, and ball to hand, so shouldn't have been a penalty. But they should have had one, so even Stephens.

Exactly, and understandably, but it's of absolutely no benefit to us. Providing a short term fix for a relegation rival, whilst bringing in no money for a replacement and then being stuck with an ageing striker on big wages in the final year of his contract is of a level of stupidity that our board thankfully don't seem to have reached quite yet.

Sky keep talking about how many bids Burnley have made for Che Adams today (4 I think it is now) but no mention of us bidding. So presumably we haven't? Meaning either we aren't really interested in him and it's someone else we are working on, or (more likely) we aren't really planning to bring anyone in. Not a disaster, got rid of some real burdens in financial terms for a few months and hopefully permanently in the summer, but last night did show that in games where we are expected to dominate possession we still lack a cutting edge.

He doesn't want to move to the Championship, so it doesn't matter how much clubs offer us from there because he isn't going to go there so why accept the offer? And thankfully the club aren't stupid enough to loan him to a club in our league so that he can strengthen their fight for survival whilst we are still in it. If those clubs were willing to pay for him then maybe the club would consider it, but they probably aren't going to want to commit to 3-4 years of a 29 year old's Premier League wages when there's no guarantee they will still be able to afford it within 6 months. You lot need to wake up a bit.

I thought I saw this happen? I couldn't really believe what I'd seen and then didn't really hear/see anything else about it so thought maybe I just had a bad view from my end of the ground. I don't think Andre Marriner gives bad decisions, I think he just doesn't ever make any decisions. I've never seen a referee avoid making a call as much as him, it's insane. I said it before the game, he just runs around and avoids doing things at all costs, it's really weird. Thankfully we were the team that took advantage of this by doing things that should be called, and taking advantage of his unwillingness to do so.

Sam Vokes supposedly going to Stoke for £10million plus Crouch going the other way. I know which one of out of him and Austin i’d want, and his name isn’t Sam.

Where's Guan? :( :(

Bertrand going would really worry me, been looking forward to his return for ages, but that does seem to have gone quiet. Im happy with the outgoings this window, but last night showed we really could do with a couple of incomings.

Used as the second substitution last night. Didn’t get much of the ball, but still Ralph saw him as an answer with a fair amount of time left in the game.

Thought we were average, but Palace (like West Ham) set up perfectly. Playing Ayew over Wickham/Benteke showed they were here to let us have the ball all night and just counter when they could, which worked well. Felt for Stephens, thought he was good first half, won everything in the air all night, but seemed to have about 80% of our possession in front of a packed Palace side. Our support is a ****ing joke, took until the 89th minute for the stadium to sing anything, even despite Palace making multiple references to our support throughout. Team full of young lads, many of whom weren’t playing under Hughes, all getting the groans from 5 minutes in. The jeering Stephens got for not wanting to give the ball away was embarrassing, and the sarcastic cheer that accompanied his long awaited pass to JWP was one of the most pathetic things i’ve seen at St. Mary’s. Thought Targett and Valery were better than people are giving them credit for, Targett up against Wan Bissaka who’s been one of the best RB’s in the country this season, and found it tough but still found space for the winning assist. Valery made a great recovering tackle on Zaha in the first half, as well as one in the second half, Zaha was largely ineffective all night I thought despite the goal. I bloody love JWP, he’s played right back for 15 minutes and made more successful forward runs than Cedric in the last 18 months, great awareness and finish. Topped off with his winding up of Zaha, which is something we don’t do anywhere near enough. Andre Marriner is ****, don’t think he was particularly generous in favour of anyone, I just find he literally doesn’t make decisions, and last night we made more fouls than them, which meant he went in our favour by default. Stephens and Wan Bissaka both lucky with potential red cards which went unpunished. Showed the weaknesses we still have when expected to dominate possession, but good spirit to keep going and find an equaliser, which isn’t something we’ve done for a long time it feels.

All I would say about Moi is that Ralph has shown no hesitancy to freeze out and move on players he doesn’t rate, yet Moi is still playing a (very small) part. I like many others, am not entirely sure why, but it says something to me that he’s still getting some opportunity to play.

He’s Danish so almost certainly true we are trying to sign him

I liked him at Sheff Utd, would be pleased to get him especially if around the £10mil mark.

I liked him at Sheff Utd, would be pleased to get him especially if around the £10mil mark.

That’s subjective I guess, I wouldn’t say he’s amazing, but we’ve won 4 games from 8 with him in the team, so I wouldn’t say he’s a weakness either. Hazard and Richarlison have both failed to score against him and I don’t think we’ve conceded any headers from players he’s been marking?

Absolutely appalling crossing, never seen a player hit the ball out of play from a cross as often as he does. Lost count of the number of times we’ve lost points because big strikers have pulled off to the back post to beat Cedric in the air. He may not get beaten very often on the ground, but he constantly gives his man acres of space to cross or shoot, so they don’t really have to beat him. He just isn’t good enough. Nothing against him personally, went to that Saints quiz thing last year and he seemed a good character, and I don’t see a lack of effort from him on the pitch, but we absolutely can improve on him and need to if we are going to progress.

Hopefully we’re saying it’s a loan so as to not make Genk aware:uhoh: we’re about to pocket €17mil for the player we are replacing, in order to stop them whacking the price up for their player. Hopefully

€20million!? With 18 months on his contract?! Christ we should snatch that and run.

For the first time ever, I want us to sell more than i want us to buy anyway. We built a squad with strength in depth when we got to Europe, but the problem was that it wasn’t that strong. Now we have multiple senior pro’s not getting in the squad every weekend, or out on loan. For a club of our size that isn’t sustainable at all. We desperately needed to trim the squad, fill the gaps with youngsters and eventually replace some of the first team with genuine quality. We probably won’t ever have a squad of two quality players in each position, but i’d rather we had a great first team instead like we used to.

Someone mentioned to me earlier Arsenal should sign Cedric. Not a bad idea I thought! Won’t be that expensive as his contract runs out next summer. I think he’s crap, but neutrals seem to think he’s not, so who knows!

I really don’t think he can play centre back, and i’m sure Fulham fans will agree, he was hopeless for them until they moved him into midfield where he is now doing fairly well

For me personally, Koeman’s team was better than Poch’s

He kicked the ball underneath Gueye (who was shielding it with his body) and Gueye got up tried to start on him so Redmond held him and shoved him away

I like him. He's marked Hazard, Chilwell and Richarlison in his last three appearances and none of them have got a thing out of him, so much so that Chilwell got him in a chokehold last week because he rattled him so much. He's not amazing, he lacks confidence going forward, but hopefully that will come. When we were 2-0 up he looked a lot more confident with a few flicks and nice passes. Strong in the tackle, bit feisty, good in the air and fairly quick. Has a lot to work with, and a great manager to do it.