eelpie

Next year could be interesting, if Borough sign him. We'll see then, perhaps.

Well some of our best players, that are not injured, are seriously playing below their best. Where have you been?

Actually we are not scoring enough goals already. Have you not seen matches last week? We badly need a creative 'luxury' player right now.

Did we not play in European competitions around that time?

The sentence that ends with a question mark.

The 'joke' has to be why Saints are not getting the best out of too many players

You've avoided my question.

Middlesbrough are a good team, and will do well in the Prem. Gaston will play with them and show what Saints failed to achieve with him. What a wasted opportunity. Why is it that Borough can get the best out of talent and Saints cannot?

I'm now anxious about the 34th minute.

But aren't we the Barcelona of the Premier League and does not our incisive possession play and accuracy in front of goal preclude some lack of pace of individual players?

Why not?

Ok, I should have said on the form that they showed against ManCity in the Cup. On that showing they are fast approaching the form of last year, playing with increasing confidence and scoring goals. They are only eight points from 5th place and I doubt if they will drop as many points as they have in the not so distant past. With Hiddink in charge they have only lost to PSG since the beginning of the year I believe, and that has been during a recovery period. I maintain that they are now in very good form, alas, but the Saints game will be revealing. If we beat them, which I hope of course, I will take back what I said. But my comments were in the context that we should not be over-confident. We have not been scoring many goals from chances. Chelsea have the players to do better. We have to be at our best on Saturday.

Probably, but they still have a chance of getting to fourth qualifying place if they keep up their blistering form, so I reckon they'll treat our game as a 'must win'. It will be foolhardy if our players think that Chelsea are more interested in FA Cup and Champions League.

Because they are scoring for fun from all over their team

So it's ok then to f*** supporters arrangements. Why?

I do think that with our strong defence batting out Chelsea' powerful, in-form strikers, speed in counter-attack is going to be an important asset against a suspect visitor's defence. So top-scorer Long and Mane can turn the game to our advantage. And Mane is due a goal or two.

Because despite Long being our top scorer, some people are stupid?

"The impressive James Ward-Prowse found Long with a precise cross from the right wing, and the unmarked Republic of Ireland forward nodded in despite a sprawling attempted save from Fabianski." from todays online BBC report.

But we're playing for a draw, aren't we?

The big plus for me in recent weeks has been the growing influence that Target has been having. Virgil is beginning to equal Toby's defending skills and there have been good performances from Clasie so we may not be missing Schneiderman as much as we were earlier in the season. Against that Mane's shooting accuracy has become wayward, though his runs from midfield into the box have been awesome. And Wanyama's contribution ranges from imposing to average. So it all comes down to form and experience. Cedric and Clasie can't be compared with Clyne and Schneiders yet but are fast improving since Norwich. So are Virgil, JWP, Targett, and Long. Others are on parr imo. And we have added Charlie. Meanwhile we have decent replacements on the bench, better than last year imo. On balance, in 2016 I think our current squad is just better than this time last year - that is until the summer sales when it all starts over again. All credit to Big Ron. Long may he be here.

That's what we all like to hear - a positive post

I had an ST for over ten years, but because so many matches now are moved to late midweek times, sometimes at short notice, and with travel from London becoming more difficult it has sadly become uneconomic to have one any longer.

If only we had a black box equivalent for recruiting the best academy players

... and would we have won without ten men behind the goal?

The same Wanyama who supplied the pass that Yoshida scored from? Without him we would not have won.