Match Day Thread Southampton v Arsenal FA Cup 4th Round Saturday 23/1/21 12:15 BT Sport

Vestergaard is an easy one. He was so good for us pre-injury - probably our best player this season - that I don't even see any debate there. We continue to miss his passing.

Romeu also comes back in for me, but it's a very tight one. Diallo has done nothing wrong - he's been excellent in fact - but the same applies to Romeu. And it's applied to Romeu over a greater span of matches. There's no doubt though that of all our missing players, he's the one who we have missed the least. And that's because of Diallo.

 

I wouldn't, the guys you mentioned have performed very well when called upon. It's the attacking areas where we need a sharpen up. We waste so many good opportunities to put games to bed.

 

Bearing in mind they could bring on Partey Sako & Lacazette which changed the game

 

Ralph could choose between Oriel and Diallo according to the opponents. They do the job differently. Oriels a Wall, Diallos a Duracell bunny. I’d still pick Oriel first unless there was a good reason not to. But that will change given their ages

 

Likewise

 

There's also the fact that we've still got a minimum of five midweek matches to come - probably more, when you factor in postponements for FA Cup and/or Covid. So rotating between the two of them just to keep things fresh will no doubt have value.

 

I like the fact that we play so we’ll AS A TEAM

Everyone played their part today. Some were excellent and some were merely good

Only shame was that so many ‘almost moments’ only resulted in one goal

But when your defence gets another clean sheet that’s enough, and the whole team defended well later on when needed

 

McCarthy definitely goes back in goal, but Fraser keeps his place in the next Cup tie.

We’ve been missing Vestergaard imo, sorry Jack.

We’ve also missed Romeu at times, but Diallo had a good game today, so tough choice there for Ralph.

 

Gabriel does not like playing us does he? Sent off at the Emirates, own goal today. Will probably concede a penalty on Tuesday.

 

Spot on; on all 3 counts.

 

We'll get beaten in the Final and get relegated. Good enough?

 

He was my MOTM

 

He was my MOTM

 

Twice he was that good

 

you know I like to hammer home my point

 

So I just realised we played in the cup today. And won! Against arse!

Has some stressful stuff going on atm so not really paying attention to much.

 

For us saints he's like some kind of Angel.

 

So you could also say that Diallo is the player a lot of our fans think Reed is

 

With all due respect LL, paying attention to Saints stuff hasn’t always been top of your attributes

Hope the stressful stuff gets sorted though

 

I think the choice between Diallo and Romeu is made harder because we are lucky enough to have JWP to partner either of them. James plays more like Romeu when Diallo is playing, and more like Diallo when he has Oriol doing the dirty work. Today he was full-on nasty little ****house, and quite a lot of the more creative, forward-thinking stuff was left to Diallo. When Oriol plays it’s quite often the other way round. Obviously not all the time, because Diallo does some brilliant last ditch tackles, and Oriol gets forward a lot, but in terms of the overall game plan.