If Ramirez is not back in the country by now he will not be in the right mindset for Saturday, especially if his 'family reasons' are serious. I will be sorry not to see him on Saturday, but he hasn't played many games for us so his absence won't upset the balance too much. As for the interest from Italy, the Italian papers are even more gossipy than ours (if that is possible). Unless Gaston is seriously unhappy (which he doesn't seem to be), I'm sure he won't want to abandon the PL stage this early. It would have to be a hell of an offer to prise him from Nicola's hands...a big enough offer that makes NC look like a great business man rather than someone who can't keep a player.
When Gaston does leave, I think we can be sure that NC will make sure that is a hefty sell on clause so we should get ****loads of money.
I just worry about the effect his absence will have pychologically. We struggled when he wasn't on the team sheet.
not the clearest of messages. Morgan,Cork and Davis would form a very tidy if somewhat lacking in flair midfield trio
If Gaston is not back in time, am I the only one who would put JWP in his place and keep the rest the same. JWP has quick feet and can pick out a pass and also gets into the box. I just think we would be too flat if we played Cork, Morgan and Davis and also would lack the presence of Davis to bring off the bench. Thoughts?
Usually stay out of the realm of grammar policing, but liked the way that one completely changed the meaning of what you were getting at.
If we can't beat Reading at home then relegation is a certanty. No disrespect to Reading but there are some games in a season you have to win not just for the points but for confidence and the backing of the fans. Lose to Reading on saturday and the players will be at their lowest the fans will begin to expect the worst and negativity will run through the club, however get a nice convincing win on saturday as many on here are predicting although not to sure why then it will be the platform for a good run up to new year. As must win games go they don't get much bigger than this.
SK why dont you think we can get a convincing win? We are above them in the table, have scored more goals and are at home!
Not quite sure thats how football works but i could be wrong. I believe we can beat anyone in this league, i am always upset when we lose because i go into each game confident of a positive result, I just think that people predicting an easy win are being very naive we were very poor in our last game and Reading know exactly what to expect in our style of play.This match all hinges on the first half hour if we take our chances then yes we will win but if they manage to soak up the pressure then i would not be at all surprised to see us go in a couple down at half time. Alot of pressure on Rickie to take his chances in this one.
JWP, Lee and Mayuka all had a good chance of pushing thier names forward with the U21 game against Utd, they all failed to shine esp JWP and Lee. Agree that JWP would probably be better suited to a no.10 role rather than holding midfielder for a couple of years
Am I the only one who would play Rodriguez instead of Ramirez (if he's not available)? Whether that would mena Lallana playing mroe centrally or Lambert dropping in a bit. I still think they can play together and think that Rodriguez is the best match for this game/situation. Ramirez plays almost as a second striker and we need to replicate this with whoever comes in. My second prefered option would be to bring in Mayuka. Don't like the idea of Davis or JWP starting, would look too much like an orthadox 4-5-1 to me which I don't like at home. I too would bring in Boruc but would definately keep the rest the same.
Like i said before a win is going to be expected by 99% of saints fans i'm just not so confident that its going to be that straight forward, Reading on the whole have in my view done better than us this season why are they all of a sudden going to roll over and let one of their main rivals dominate them
Maybe, but we got torn to shreds on the counter attack. We must be wary of them. I think we'll win, but we must not under estimate them.
Reading may be missing Pavel Pogrebnyak for Saturday's trip to Southampton after the Russian striker sustained an unspecified injury while playing for the reserves in midweek.
Tom I don't think Nigel ever underestimates anyone but I take your point. Think we are better set up to deal with them though. !
