Oh dear - smash and grab by the Israel team.

Southampton have played this situation dreadfully. Only themselves to blame.

Could they surely not poor show that the ground has half emptied

I don't like the fan style commentary that the co commentator tends to provide on bt games in Europe

The kind of Johnny Foreigner must be rubbish from the likes of Hargreaves

At home to an Israeli side and they produce such a negative display. The Saints got exactly what they deserved.

I guess goal difference counted for nought as southampton had the better goal difference. Guess it was down to results

Yes hapoel won on away goals on the head to head

Jenas was co-commentating on the Southampton game. Hargreaves was co-commentating on the United game, where they were playing a 'Johnny Foreigner' side who were indeed 'rubbish'.

Van Dijk needs to leave Southampton for his own health, thats a few times this season he's been trying to play centre-back, defensive midfielder, attacking midfielder and striker at the same time. Trying to carry a team who are just lacking in several areas. Must be seething inside that he's not playing for a team with players his own quality.

True but jenas with his Southampton should be beating sides like this, why Southampton have no European pedigree whatsoever

It drives me crazy the amount of pure bias in the commentary, it is as if the non English sides must all be rubbish, and any English side now winning is seen as a huge upset, when it is far from the case.

Well Southampton played a good side tonight as they beat Inter Milan home and away. So thise commentators are idiots

Yup. It would surely have only taken the most briefest moments of research to find that out, but as usual, it is far easier to just go with the line that non English sides, especially in the Europa League, must be pushovers, which is a huge error to make.

English pundits and commentators still think they are in the era of like 2005-2009 when English football was really strong, both Chelsea and Man Utd had teams similar to that of Bayern just now, with quality and experience in every position. Where now most English teams, the best ones have teams with weaknesses and poor areas in them. Chelsea are probably the strongest from back to front but even they aren't quite an Atletico or Juventus, certainly not a Dortmund, Bayern, Barcelona or Real Madrid. They're more similar to PSG where they will have to play really well to beat the top 4/6 teams where as they could still beat Chelsea or PSG while not at their bests.

Man City are weird in that they have the tools and had a great start but the wheels have come off. They really need a new defence. Zabaleta is a steady player but the rest are poor except Kompany who must be near finished he's been injury prone for years that you forget all about him.

This makes literally no sense.

I presumed it was a typo and now should have been not.

I would hope that you're right.

Yup, it was supposed to be "not", I don't quite know how it got changed otherwise!

Zabaleta is a good player, but a centre back he is most definitely not, so by playing him there they are automatically weakening themselves.

Also how can someone who a team cannot rely upon your be fit for more than five minutes, not be in the poor category??

Innit

Batdude, you do seem to be coming across as anti-city in this neutrals thread somewhat.

Kompany is not in the poor category because he's a million miles from being a poor player, just a very unlucky one.

Not anti-City, I just don't think that from the available teams that they can face, that they will get through to the next round, why does that make me anti-City in that respect?
The teams that they can face are probably the best still left in the tournament.


Someone that you cannot rely upon for any length of time is not someone that should be in a positive selection of players, no matter their possible talents.

We had this with Hargreaves, he was not someone that we could rely upon when his injuries kicked in, so he just became a reliability issue, same now for Kompany, so this is not me being biased or anti-City, or anything like that.

You are anti-City. They beat Barcelona at home, yet you can't see them beating anyone left in the draw. It's nonsense.


Ronaldo was rubbish wasn't he? Marco Van Basten? Marco Boogers more like! Arjen Robben's lucky to not be in Sunday league, he's so far from being in a positive selection of players (what a term)

Being injury-prone can make a player unreliable, but it doesn't make him poor or put him in the poor category. Aguero and Daniel Sturridge are injury-prone, they aren't poor players because of it. Van Persie had his injury problems, it never made him a poor player. Same for Michael Owen and so many other talented injury-prone players. It CAN make them poor if the injuries take their toll on the player, but simply being injury-prone doesn't make them poor players, just unreliable.

Presumably you are speaking about the Brazilian Ronaldo, as opposed to the Portuguese, and if so, then even towards the end of his career, I would say he was more reliable than Kompany is currently, but I get your point.

Don't get me wrong, it is a crying shame that these players have suffered such injury problems and troubles, as it can't be easy for them, their respective clubs or their families
Kompany was a supremely talented player, as we're the players that you mention, but very, very unfortunately for them, their injuries took their toll on them far more quickly than anyone would have liked or wished for, as who wouldn't have loved to see Marco playing for a lot longer at the top level than he did? I know that I certainly would have!