switters

I see the point and I was thinking the same thing at times, but we have to bear in mind that on several of those occasions when the ball went into the box and no-one was attacking it, the player putting the ball in was Gabby. Gain in one area might be a loss elsewhere. tough to get the balance right.

Good performance, but we just didn't have the final ball/finishing. Defensively strong & I think the system suits, with Herd as extra defender, but both him and Baker able to bring the ball forward. It's the link between Benteke & Agbonlahor/Bent and the midfield which is missing. Ireland didn't have a great deal of impact filling that hole. Holman was okay first half, but again just didn't quite provide enough link. Probably give MOTM to Baker or Herd. We limited Stoke to almost zero chances & defended set pieces well.

Good first half but shame we couldn't make the breakthrough. Really think this game is there to be won but we might need to take a risk and get the extra attacker around the hour mark. Half-thinking this is where we should re-introduce Bent - fair few times in the first half where the balls come into the box and you could imagine him being in the right place, where we have no-one. But of course, having Bent would mean sacrificing someone elsewhere and we don't want to lose the balance. Weimann would be another option.

I guess the question is if Herd will be in defence like at QPR, or pushed up into midfield. Would hope the latter as it'd free up Holman/Bannan to attack more.

Stoke are in good form but this is winnable. They strike me as the kind of team who start to get comfortable once they're in midtable & lose their edge...which is why they've still never managed to finish top half, despite often spending time there for part of the season. Hope we make a statement and play Westwood, Bannan and Ireland in the middle. Need big players at the back to be able to defend set pieces, but we'll have a lot of the ball and need to have players who can use it. Benteke needs to be up for this one, it'd be great to see him dominating vile thugs like Huth.

Guzan 7 - safe, apart from one ill-advised dribble. don't think he could do much with goal Lichaj 5 - struggled first half & was wasteful in possession Baker 7 - solid, won a lot in the air Clark 7 - also pretty solid Herd 5 - invisible Lowton 6 - okay Bannan 5 - didn't impose himself on game Westwood 6 - okay first half, faded badly Holman 6 - got the goal, didn't do a lot else Agbonlahor 5 - little impact Benteke 6 - good first half, saw very little of the ball in 2nd MOTM probably Baker or Clark, they've done pretty well in absence of Vlaar. First half was reasonable. Horrible second half & it was disappointing that we didn't try to change the attack. Draw is reasonable result but QPR defence had looked poor and might've been vulnerable if we'd gone for it a bit more.

I think formation now is: Guzan Lichaj-Lowton-Clark-Baker Westwood-ElAhmadi-Delph-Williams HUGE GAP Agbonlahor-Benteke

Would help if our players could: a) run without falling over not tackle each other c) keep the ball for more than 5 seconds

Ireland for Herd please. He should be able to find plenty of space, and Herd coming in hasn't appeared to add anything, 'cept maybe some height at set pieces. God knows what Bannan's done to upset people so much on here. Average game, but the ball has being going back and forth high above his head a lot of the time.

Herd and Westwood too, to be fair. Play is bypassing the centre mid from both teams really.

Lichaj needs more help from the player in front (Bannan?). Can't expect him to handle both SWP and Bosingwa by himself.

I think I'd go Ireland for Weimann, with Holman pushed up on the right. Ireland is smarter with the ball in midfield, but Holman's workrate is useful & he can be an asset pressuring QPR high up the pitch.

He was wasteful tonight, but a lot of play goes through him so he's one of our more noticeable players, good or bad. Thought he did well with defensive work - set up 2 good counter attacks winning the ball back in the first half, and he did put in some v.good corners (as well as a couple of duds) so it wasn't all bad. Overall I think he's deserving of his spot in the team at the minute. His workrate is excellent & I think his partnership with Westwood can develop into something v.good. We've looked better with those two in CM than any other combo we've tried this season. Put Ireland in front of them and we've got three proper footballers in midfield.

Yep, was just gonna say same thing. Seems to be the hate figure of the evening in this thread, but hasn't been all bad. Gabby's shown some smart touches. Need to get him in the game more.

Bannan will be very glad that didn't go in. Can't lose it there. Real chance for Reading.

Would've preferred Ireland to Holman, but I'm hopeful. Think Bannan-Westwood has started to develop into a nice balanced base of the midfield and Weimann/Gabby/Benteke can cause problems. Think we were cautious against Arsenal, after the City game, but here we can be a bit more proactive in attack. The worry is the lack of Vlaar - need Clark to have a big game & it's a tough ask for Baker coming back. Reading have Jason Roberts, who is an experienced head at bullying inexperienced defenders.

Scoreline really doesn't reflect game, 1-0 or 2-0 would've been fair. City always dominated possession but we were about equal in chances in the first half. Sloppy defending from corner cost us when we really needed to see out the half goalless. 2nd half was a farce. Two non-penalties gave City an insurmountable cushion & allowed them to play with confidence and build up a very flattering scoreline. Hope our players don't get too dispirited from the result. We've got some reasonable home games coming up and I think the lineup is promising, it's just not up to competing with a fixture like City away yet. Linesman should never get near the Premier League again. Ref wasn't good either, can't exactly blame him for believing linesman but he should've booked both Toure and Barry, and decisions like that do alter the game subtly.

Lots of interceptions, lots of running & closing down of Scholes in particular. First half we really restricted supply to Van Persie and Rooney and alot of that was due to Bannan & Westwood pressuring Utd's midfield.

Hard to feel positive after seeing that happen again. But it was a very good performance. Benteke so impressive at winning the 50-50s and holding up the ball, as well as awareness demonstrate with the assist for first goal. Westwood + Bannan also did well against much more experienced players, breaking up play, though Bannan sometimes slack with passes. Ireland looked good and Weimann should get a lot of confidence from that, was a real threat coming in off the wing. We have the makings of a good team there. Just need to perform like that against everyone. It's just when your opposition has Rooney, Van Persie and Hernandez, they only need one of them to have a good day and you're in trouble. Today it was Hernandez.

It's a good time to be playing Sunderland - they've been almost as miserable as us in the league and just went out of the cup to local rivals at home so confidence is going to be low. Expect a low quality, low scoring game, but we should be treating this as a very winnable fixture.

The real frustrating thing is that after the red card we'd actually stood up well to the pressure, defensively. Guzan had made saves on the (relatively few) occasions they got shots on target. Yes, they had a couple of one-on-ones where they were favourite to score, but generally I think Vlaar and Herd did well with what was thrown at them. And when Holt's chance was saved I thought maybe that was their one big chance, but goal came right after. The goal was essentially 4 mistakes, preventing any one of which could have stopped it: 1) Albrighton gave the ball away cheaply trying to break, when we really needed to hold on and slow it down, they won the corner from this 2) Nobody closed down the short corner. 3) Lichaj (?) failed to beat Turner to the cross 4) Nobody stationed on the back post Overall midfield & possession is the problem, for sure. Hard to see an answer because whatever combo we pick from the players we have seems to be lacking something.

It's a team that will graft, but will it create and will it take chances? Have to wait and see, I guess. Not amazingly confident, but I think we might grind out a win somehow.

I guess Lambert just wants to have more attacking options. Lichaj can cover either FB and he or Lowton would go CB if there was an injury. It'd be rare and unlucky to get 2 defensive injuries so we don't need Baker and Lichaj.

Ah remember this, just 18 months ago: Okay it was a later round, so City probably cared more & we had other concerns at the time, but even still it is nice we now have a manager who is not defeatist about such games. I'm certain even if we were in relegation battle, Lambert would never be so negative about our chances of winning a one-off cup match.

Awful 2nd half, no question. Feel to pieces and got cut open time and time again. I think it shows how brittle our confidence still is: one setback when they equalize and it was like house of cards. Constantly going long was frustrating - not necessarily always hoofing, but floated passes when we could be keeping it on the ground, we never took control of the ball. Every time we got it, it was back to Southampton within a few passes. Very surprised Lambert stuck with Bent-Benteke when nothing was sticking & we were losing midfield battle (esp after Ireland went off). The end was like a 4-2-4 with KEA and Westwood obliterated as the middle 2 and the 4 up front never keeping the ball. Think any defence would struggle if opposition has that much space in front of them (not really excusing how easily some of the defenders let them through, mind). Guzan will be breathing huge sigh of relief..ref gives him red there and he might be back on bench for months. Not so good today from him, although only 1st where you could say he could've done much better. Do think people need to look past names a bit - so many in this thread blithely calling Southampton worst side in the league, when that is something that can't be close to being known after a handful of games. 3 of their 4 losses were Man Utd, Man City & Arsenal so it's hardly a true picture of where they stand compared to the rest of the league. They had a bad loss to Wigan, but otherwise you wouldn't expect any team to be on many points from those fixtures. And they did give both City & Utd big scares. I don't think they're as good as we made them look in 2nd half, but also not as bad a 4 losses in a row suggests..