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As I've been saying for years, Ayoub El-Kaabi would be ideal for us, but, sadly, Sport Republic are never going to buy a striker in his 30s, no matter how many goals he scores. They'll get another unproven youngster for his potential resale value.
Was Ballard ever really given a chance here? He has 10 goals and 3 assists in 15 League One games (including a hat-trick against our cup opponents, Doncaster). He had 33 goals and 7 assists in 39 games for Saints U21. He's scored goals for England at U18, U19 & U20 levels. - the sort of form which, as Pat has pointed out, had it been for German teams would have attracted Sport Republic. He's one of those rare players who averages a goal or assist in nearly every game he plays. They are going to look very silly if he continues scoring at international level.
A group of us, who'd travelled up by coach, went in the North Bank (and sang) because it was too cold to stand in a blizzard on the frozen terracing of the Clock End. It was the most one-sided scoreless draw I've ever witnessed, but somehow we managed to stop that great double-winning Arsenal team scoring.
HOME: 1964 Saints v Plymouth 5-0
It was my first ever Boxing Day game and a memorable one as Saints put on a scintillating display, in front of my visiting relatives, with a goal from the young Martin Chivers and a hat-trick from George O'Brien.
How highly does Pochettino rate him? He's never selected him for any starting lineup in any team he's managed that I'm aware of, and he certainly didn't select him for the USA's latest squad. Haji Wright and Folarin Balogun are his first choice strikers.
Our players don't anticipate or move when crosses and corners come in. You could see Coventry players running towards the ball before it arrived, while our players stood and watched until the ball arrived (on a Coventry player's head).
Taylor Harwood-Bellis is young and worth persevering with as a potential leader in the Jose Fonte mould, but we need a tall centre half, like Dael Fry, to play alongside him and win everything in the air.
We are still suffering from another poor transfer window when we failed to strengthen the spine of the team - goalkeeper - centre half - centre forward - with better players. George Long, Joshua Quarshie and Damion Downs were not improvements.
One bright note, however, was that Wood showed he is improving.
I know but I just feel like venting. Drawing at home against a team reduced to 10 men for the whole of the 2nd half was, to say the least, frustrating, especially when our players ended those 9 minutes added on, passing the ball slowly sideways in our own half.
Their players were stronger and more aggressive than ours, especially Mason-Clark, who's spent years in lower league and non-league football, where a striker has to look after himself.
Also, when crosses and corners came into the box, none of our players moved towards the ball, like theirs did. Ours just remained static and watched. It would have made more sense if we'd put in low crosses and corners instead of feeding high balls to the Coventry players, while Adam Armstrong just looked on.
Lampard is one of the best midfielders England has ever produced and he is proving to be a very fine manager. I'm not sure that chant served any useful purpose, especially after we had been held to a draw by 10 men.
I didn't see the incident because, like most Saints fans there, I headed straight for the exit the moment the final whistle blew. There wasn't much cause to stay and applaud.
Coventry are a very well organised team of decent Championship journeymen, with some big strong players who can outjump and outmuscle the opposition. The Championship is weaker than usual this year because the worst group of teams ever to be relegated from the Premier League joined it.
There is no real Premier League quality in the Coventry squad. Over the last 2 years they just seem to have assembled a very strong Championship team of relative unknowns. They obviously have good scouts. Their best player today and their goalscorer, Ephron Mason-Clark had an unremarkable career at Barnet, Metropolitan Police and Peterborough. Haji Wright, the only Coventry player most people have heard of, came from a small Turkish league club. Their goalkeeper, Rushworth, is on loan from Brighton, where he was third choice, and so on.
Lampard has got them playing the best football of their careers, but there's no way they'll be good enough for the top flight next season. It reminds me of what Kompany did with a limited group of players at Burnley. Even now, Wolves would probably beat them.
We have some quality players, but are weak in the key positions - the spine of the team. In a league where crosses dominate, you can't come out on top without big, strong strikers and central defenders. That's why they're top of the league and we're not. We needed someone like Wood today to be up front for the whole match. Instead we had to resort to bringing on Cameron Archer, who was totally ineffective.
You were right, Pat, and I was wrong, as I often am. Bamford is scoring goals again for Sheffield United, and he was exactly the sort of player we needed today: a big centre forward who can finish.
We needed to buy that type of player in the summer, and it should still be our priority in the January transfer window, if we want to get promoted.
Mind you, with the demographic they're aiming for with that lineup - middle-aged women who motor around the city centre, on mobility scooters, with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths - they might need a bit of extra space.
They won't use the seats - they'll be left empty - the same as at previous away games. There's probably a contractual obligation involved. Whoever signed up to it should have had more common sense.
"I don't know why, but for every away game there is a blocked out number of seats empty."
It will be the same at Fratton Park, even though it's officially sold out. Whatever the ticket office is doing this season is clearly causing a problem. It doesn't seem to be happening at other clubs as you don't see an empty block in the middle of the away fans at St Mary's.
I'm sure there will be photos of the empty block all over the internet after the Pompey game, and, especially if they lose, it will be the major talking point.
Maybe you could write an article about this problem on the homepage and ask the ticket office to release the tickets in that block for the derby game?
I agree. We've already got too many midfielders. We needed a better goalkeeper, centre half and centre forward in the summer and we still need them now.
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