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He'll provide them with a new dimension. I've watched him over the past few games and he's developed an awareness that was lacking earlier in his career. He's aware of how the defence is set-up and uses the spaces available on the park to a devastating effect teamwise. He makes even more intelligent runs than he used to and looks as direct and pacy as he ever did. Of course, the only question mark regarding him was his fitness and it remains so, but put him in a quality team (like ours?) and he'd be better than he was in his first term here.

Sad to see. I hope they recover. You'll always remember the clubs you grew up playing against and Southampton were one of them for me, so I hope they make it back to the Premiership.

I'll take a point. Keep our unbeaten streak going and I expect Man Utd will thrash them in a few weeks' time which will put us above them on goal difference.

He's shown an ability to try out some new things and isn't afraid to drop players with reputations (Taylor, for example), so he deserves credit for that. We're also playing with more confidence now and much harder to beat but we need to get some consistency and play well against both the shit teams and the better teams. That will show whether our team's different to Roeder's and to an extent, Souness'.

Whoa, if you didn't see how far they pushed us back or how hopeless we looked at times in the second half then you were watching a very different game. With Martins, we would have thrashed them. Without him, we scraped a win. We need him and it showed today.

If he's holding his ribs how the bollocks did he do his quadriceps!? Is this an assumption or taken from a source somewhere? Also, the abdominal is a group of muscles, not a singular muscle (unless you meant transverse abdominis, which is where he was grabbing at, although it's more likely to be his external oblique) He is doing well though, but I'd be surprised to see him against Spurs unless he gets painkillered up. Haha, who are you trying to impress? I saw him moving his hand from the rib/abdominal area down to the quadricep so it could be either. But obviously it's inconclusive.

There's also an advantage to playing Zog: He's become more aware of his defensive duties because he's been played at LB a few times in his career. He's not as reckless and unaware as he used to be and this means that he's becoming almost as good as Duff defensively. He's tracking back more and his link up play with Enrique is getting better as well. There are many good signs and I hope he keeps it up.

He'll by 31 if we decide we don't want him in two years' time and with what must have happened and his wages, there's no club that would take him without us paying a part of his wages etc.. If there's even a chance that we might not want him in two years' time, then don't sign him to a long-term deal but I'm afraid that's one thing we're going to have to do to convince him to stay because other clubs aren't as desperate as we are.

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I think he'll be wanting a long-term deal, if possible. A 2 year deal takes him to 31 when he's free to sign for another club and he won't get 100k/week from anyone at that age and for any length of time. Sign a 4 year deal now and he's done with the club at 33 after collecting 100k/week for 8 years. Pretty sweet deal if money's a priority for him. There's still a good chance that he'll stay. I think he knows that no other club are as desperate (?) as we are and none are also willing to accommodate him to the extent that we are (the chopper, for example). He's captain here. He's wanted, needed even. He's guaranteed a first-team place, lots of money and the club has potential if we can sort out this mess. Villa play a different style, Everton can't pay his wages, Spurs play one up front and have got two expensive strikers and City seem to have set their sights on a different tier of talent. I just don't know where else he'd go because the top 4 are even less likely to sign him. He's smart so he'll consider what other clubs have to offer and I expect that he won't sign a contract with anyone soon.

CM is a must. If we have to sign a cb and a lb, I'd prefer someone young and in the Bassong mould (unknown and inexpensive), not someone of the Upson mould (expensive, high wages and reputation precedes talent). Other than that, a new winger and a backup rb (in the young, inexpensive mould) would be nice too.

Fell down way too easily.

Looking back, that's probably a one-off because we had loads of players playing out of position and the CM who made things tick going off at HT. In the last 7 halves that we've played our best players in their best positions, we've scored 5 and conceded none.

Down from 3 to 2. We've got a shit manager but our good players will keep us up.

Bellamy!

Individually, I rate our back five but only recently, finally, they're playing together and providing good cover for each other.

Chelsea having all the possession but not creating much with it.

How many points are we 'up' on last season? (our points after playing the same opposition so far, I mean)

He either did his abdominal or quadricep muscle but I'm hoping it's just minor and he'll be fine. We'll beat Spurs if he plays. By the way, Martins has now got 6 goals in 12 matches. 1 in 2 ratio in the league. Keep up the good work, Oba.

The lad's got potential, he's young and he's had some great games. His defending has always been above average, imo, and all that is/was missing was just locating his passes. He was brilliant today and a contender for MoTM. If he's consistently good like this, he's easily a top 6 LB.

Undefeated in 5. 4 clean sheets in 7. Three clean sheets in a row away from home. <--- what a fucking stat First away win of the season. Both strikers scoring, our attack-minded midfield playing up to their potential and moving up above Spurs into 14th.

Guthrie!!! Hahaha.

Well done, Jose. Also a player who's had an excellent second half.

Zoggy's been very, very good in the second half. He's regained that ability to run at players and he's no longer afraid. I'm impressed.

Go for another one.