mrfahaji

True, but I don't think the idea is for them to play as wingers, they're just meant to fulfil that role defensively and play more centrally when we attack. Unfortunately it's a big ask of the strikers - even the likes of Redmond and Long struggled with it, but someone like Austin was never going to be able to do it effectively.

I hate it when Everton are linked to the same players as us. It probably isn't the case, but feels like Koeman's stolen our ideas.

I'd also like to see Austin competing for a spot in the starting line up, and your suggestion of adding a specialist FWD in place of a DM seems sound. Unfortunately where it falls down is that the diamond formation also requires two central midfielders. I'd say they are most likely to be all rounders, or 'shuttle' midfielders. Certainly at least one of them would be. So in actual fact, the non-specialist DM you refer to would end up just being one of the CMs, and Austin would ultimately come in at the expense of Redmond or Tadic. Also, Cartman's assertion that 4-3-3 played throughout the club is the same as the diamond is probably incorrect. I can't vouch for exactly what formation the club plays throughout the academy levels, but when I hear 4-3-3 I assume they mean three central midfielders (usually 1 DM & 2 'shuttlers', but could also be 2 DMs & 1 more attacking player), with a centre forward and 2 wide forwards. It was the way we played with Pochettino, and most of the time under Koeman, it is the formation most teams prefer and if it is interchangeable with any other formation, it would be 4-5-1 (depending on whether you class the wingers as midfielders or forwards). The diamond formation, while very similar is more like a 4-4-2, because the two up front play closer together, the central player is more like a no. 10 rather than a CF, and the width is created by the fullbacks. It's the difference between 4-1-2-1-2 and 4-1-2-2-1. Subtle but significant!

No question he has improved this season and has had a few good games. He has recently established himself ahead of Clasie and Hojbjerg for that midfield spot, but it's only very recent and that's partly due to his role being slightly wider, operating as more of a RM than CM at times. Some people are seeing this improvement as a reason to think he will eventually be a great player, others feel they have waited such a long time to see such a small improvement that he won't hit such heights. Not sure either of those views are absurd, but it does seem a bit of a leap to say he "fully deserves/warrants an England call up" based a handful of decent (not sure they'd be described as 'stellar') performances for a midtable side, especially as a replacement for Henderson who operates in a central role.

JWP & 'quality delivery' would definitely make an appearance on buzzword bingo. The way I see it is that with Ward-Prowse in the team, we're guaranteed to nearly score from a free kick.

What's happened to david in sweden? Not totally convinced JWP is good enough for a starting berth in our team, never mind in England's. Unless of course we are better than England, which is fine with me!

I was so gutted to see Everton winning again I'd completely overlooked that it's a good result for us. A silver lining!

I suppose so. Question is whether not having the games will make me more likely to go. If it does then can't really complain at the theory. It's not practical for me to get to every (or even lots) of home games though as I don't live in/near Southampton, and watching a buffering stream is hardly a worthy substitute for attending live, so on a personal level I'm not sure it'll make much difference. And then obviously you have away games too. What they should really do is charge for a TV subcription to watch your team's games, and lower the prices of attending matches. That way revenue would increase AND attendances would stay high.

The problem is that not every game is available. If having Sky or BT (or heaven forbid, both), meant I could see every game, I'd pay for it and accept that streams were 'undercutting' their product. But they don't, so it's pretty annoying that they can ban people from watching something that wouldn't be available to them anyway. I know that a few years ago it was standard practice to follow online, on radio, or on teletext, but now I've had the live coverage it will be a bitter pill to swallow to have it taken away!

Oh I definitely remember that, yes it was at their place, but at 1-3 I'm not sure it quite counts as a goal 'fest'!

Mane also took stick at the start, some of it not unreasonable too. You're not wrong in what you say about needing application, but for me there are fewer question marks about his in-game attitude (throwing a strop in frustration is better than not being bothered, for example) than about his ability to adapt his game. And there are plenty of reasons to think that a young player can eventually be coached, or learn, to 'do less' - his main problem at the moment is he tries to do too much all the time, plenty of players have exhibited similar traits, with varying results - for every Ronaldo there is also a Nani!

Hmmm you could, but there is normally a noticeable change in those cases other than the sponsor.

Ha! I started to write a reply to his opening comment and then realised the entire post is one big sarcasm-laden fish hook...

I think that's the only kit which would make non-stripes acceptable. I prefer the black piping, I find black (or white on dark colours) trim gives a shirt a sleek and clinical look. In the same vein, it's why I like black shorts on light stripes as we do, but on dark stripes white shorts often look good (e.g. Milan). Although, just a thought... the club currently sell the Air Florida kit in the retro store - I have it - how inclined will people be to buy the new kit if it is virtually the same as one they may well have already purchased?

Welcome back to the board, haven't seen you on here for a while!

I remember a couple of 'goalfests' at WHL, unfortunately neither in our favour! There was the 7-2, have a feeling Tahar opened the scoring or at least made it 1-1! And then there was the "4 goals in 5 minutes" fiasco after we had taken the lead... Even now that's still a remarkable event, and still painful!

Exactly. I'd still like to see him drive at the defenders a bit quicker, but he's definitely a lot better in that regard than earlier in the season. I don't mind him cutting in but would also be nice if he could go outside and whip a cross in with his left.

That's a fair argument, but the counter argument is why write off 3 points entirely? If you then end up dropping points in the other two matches it looks a bit foolish, and we've seen plenty of managers both vindicated and vilified for playing weakened teams ahead of a key fixture. Earlier in the season there were questions - I may even have been one of those asking them - as to why, even allowing for rotation, we had to field a partly-weakened team every game. But then, and I remember this was a key period when the debate was being had, we ended up taking 7pts from 9 against Boro, Stoke & Bournemouth, so better than if we'd 'sacrificed' one of those matches.

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Pretty sure that's what I said...!

Not so much earlier in the season when McQueen filled in and there wasn't a huge drop off in performance. However, recently Bertrand has regularly been one of our best, if not THE best player on the pitch.

I really want to believe that VVD will be here next season, I don't think he'll be angling for a move away. However, if the club receive a whopping offer from one of Europe's top clubs, including the ones from the Premier League, it's hard to see how we would turn it down and equally how van Dijk would choose to stay. Koeman is rumoured to be in the frame for Barcelona and Arsenal jobs. If he ends up at one of those, he'll come in for VVD and that will be that (unless Arsenal refuse to pay the money we'd want).

We have been crossing the ball plenty all season, in fact many people complained that we were crossing too much, except now we have a striker that a) gets on the end of them and b) makes good enough runs to give the crosser an idea where to put the ball.

Have watched it again after reading this, and yes you are right, I thought the ball was much deeper when it came in. The ball is too far out when it arrives in the box and only swings closer to the goal towards the back post. He could have done better with the other two goals - not saying either were his fault, and plenty of other keepers would have failed to save them, but they weren't impossible to stop, and it would be nice to see a few saves in those situations.