Andy

Trying not to knee-jerk but he got it massively wrong today again. How Gordon and Elanga can be our starting wingers in such a big game is completely beyond me given how bad they've been this season, if I was Barnes I'd just retire from the sport now. Beyond that, we didn't look motivated, we were incredibly passive, subs took too long to come, we looked scared of the ball, basically everything about our performance was bad. It was the same old story away from home (Everton 2-0 onwards aside). He has a lot of credit in the bank, but sooner or later he has to be judged on the present. This needs to be a major kick up the arse for him and the players.

He'll always look absolutely terrible in a counter attacking setup, but he's also got to do more himself physically, really poor today.

It's not exactly a one off performance this season though. We've been better since the subs, but the first half was genuinely abysmal. Starting with Gordon and Elanga made no sense and set our stall out to play on the back foot.

They hadn't had many shots but had us pushed back, and we were passive and allowed it. That pressure led to the mistake, not that baffling really.

Barnes putting a cross into the box from a wide position, get him hauled off.

He's genuinely worse than Obertan so far.

How the fuck do we still have the same front three on the pitch? It clearly wasn't going to work after 10 minutes.

What a header

The entire front three needs hooking, the wingers have been honking, and Woltemade just isn't suited to this game at all.

Expected this once I saw Gordon and Elanga, our plan is clearly to soke up and counter but with Woltemade up top it just doesn't really work.

We look terrified of them so far, bit of a cliche but we're playing the occasion instead of the game, too many of our players look scared of being on the ball.

In my experience, there is a lot more contempt between our two clubs than most of those listed. I lived in Southampton for five years and their rivalry with Pompey was nowhere near the same intensity. Felt more like us/Boro.

Feels like he's trying to be too clever at times this season. Joelinton at his best either passes it simple or drives into space with the ball, the amount of times he's giving it away needlessly by trying little deft flicks and cute passes around the corner is ridiculous. There's space in our eleven for him at his best, but we just haven't really seen that this season.

Doesn't really explain why he bothered giving him 90 seconds like, but fair enough

Dunno but do they even need to be good to get through ours?

This is their biggest game in years and they're going to come at us flying. Given how fragile we've been this season, it's hard not to be nervous when you look at it analytically. Hopefully we dig out one of those surprisingly dominant and controlled performances that we're occasionally capable of.

Ideally you'd have players running beyond him still, but we just completely stop looking to do that after we take the lead. Our wingers frequently become auxiliary fullbacks and Woltemade ends up isolated. Wissa will too unless we change this mentality.

This is pretty much where I'm at too. I think he and Pope have different strengths and weaknesses, but Pope is probably the lesser of two evils just in that he is a bit more commanding (but still not ideal since he loves a flap too). When he's fit, I'd have Pope back in until January and then make signing a new goalkeeper a priority.

I liked the bit where he ran on to the pitch, looked really dynamic.

Especially when we were just gathering some momentum again, it was like they were time wasting subs to kill the game - and they did. Really odd.

Can we just be 4-0 up with 10 minutes to go please?

Look at our defensive line before and after they scored. We definitely dropped deeper from around 80 minutes, it was noticeable from our own goal kicks. We do it every week.

At the moment he's our second best midfielder on form. He needs a run in the team, that starting trio in midfield today is becoming one of football's greatest myths, they're generally shite together.

Our mentality when we take the lead is a massive problem that he needs to solve, assuming it isn't instructional to drop back. Before our second goal and after their equaliser we were 10-15 yards further up the pitch. We're completely incapable of playing our way out once we sit in and have zero concentration, so if it is instructional, it's suicidal. Don't think he helped himself today with those late subs either as others have said, that was just bizarre.

It happens every week though, it's no coincidence. Immediately after they've scored we're now 10 yards further up the pitch again.