 | News
Comment | The Solution Is Clear For Russell Martin If He Is To Stay In His Job
at 19:54:08
I get that the idea of tippy-tappy football starting at the back is to suck opposing players into pressing high, to beat the press, and then it's off to the races. But why can't we do this sort of thing in relatively defined vertical zones up the pitch? Tippy-tap all you like on the wings in the middle third (so long as you eventually go forward). |
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Comment | Southampton Nearing Cash Plus Player Transfer Deal
at 18:23:18
No disrespect to Flamengo, but a player of his age and ability should be seeking playing time in Europe. There seemed to have been some interest there, but apparently it dried up. |
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Comment | Southampton Still Have Two Irons In The Fire For A Goalkeeper
at 05:46:49
I have long admired Ramsdale. I was thrilled when i saw that Saints were linked with him. He's a very good shot stopper and distributer of the ball—via his throwing, not so much his kicking. Arsenal evidently feel similarly, as they got a "sweeper/keeper" last year, haven't looked back, and have relegated Ramsdale to the bench. If he isn't good on the ball, we'd be taking a risk establishing him in our system. In which case—lemme see some tape on that Dutchman. |
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Comment | James Ward Prowse To Be Allowed To Leave West Ham United
at 01:17:54
Dunno if i agree with naysayers here. The old JWP wouldn't be the one returning, of course. But we might expect his work-rate, dead-ball efforts, and leadership. For me, however, if he's still got the legs he can put in a shift _off_ the ball. (His rivalry with Wilfred Zaha, how he could mark that guy right out of the game, comes to mind.) So I say that if he can be got on the cheap, he _should_ be got. He won't marshal the midfield again. But he'd be a huge shot in the arm. |
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Comment | Southampton Announce New Shirt Sponsors
at 20:17:08
In a sports world that's flush with cash, it nevertheless feels as if the financial frontiers everywhere are in online gambling. There's an "easy" way to get gambling companies' names off of clubs' shirts: just stop gambling. This approach makes sense of me—but my addictions are other than gambling, so it's an easy call. |
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Comment | Saints May Have To Cash In On Star Defender
at 19:03:56
Ideally we keep him. And/But, to survive in the Prem we need lots more steel in central defense. Sell him or keep him, we need to recruit someone else, preferably a Dean Richards type (Dean being doubly missed, having passed, and at such a young age). |
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Comment | Southampton V West Bromwich Albion The Play Off 2nd Leg Verdict
at 23:31:16
I can only comment on the second half after Smallbone's goal, as that's all I had time to see (was still in Friday meetings out here in California!). It was a bit surreal; from my post-50th-minute perspective it looked as if WBA had never even bothered to show up at all, and we dispatched them accordingly. But it was a playoff semifinal! So I can only surmise that Martin had got our tactics spot on. Credit to him and Saints for carrying out the second half game plan. We'll just have to see if he can, or needs to, pull a rabbit out of the hat against a more dynamic and inventive Leeds side. |
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Comment | Southampton V Stoke City The Verdict
at 16:12:52
Some weird results at the top of the Championship this weekend suggest that the top four have run out of gas and are just drowsily jockeying for position. Automatic promotion is still at stake for Leeds and Ipswich; but they seem as spent as we are. Meanwhile, Leicester won the league without even kicking a ball. I hope I'm right in surmising that the real football has yet to begin, and that we're just taking a power nap for the time being. Time will tell. If the trend continues it's obvious that RM has to go. If we gain promotion—_then_ what do we do with him? |
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Comment | Southampton At Leicester The Debacle
at 01:29:34
allsaint54 is spot on: "Tippy tappy sideways backwards football may work against the lesser sides but as soon as we play someone half decent we get stuffed." And we think we warrant being in the conversation about the Premier League ?! Nowhere close. If we want to go up, RM has to go out. |
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Comment | Southampton Side Announced For Leicester Game
at 21:58:12
This side was sufficiently talented to keep things nip-and-tuck at 5-0, and not let it get to 9-0. Perhaps that's progress. (Of course, I said the same thing the last time we were dismantled by Leicester, 1-4, in September.) |
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Comment | Southampton At Cardiff City The Verdict
at 21:08:28
I'm with clubless; we'd be toast in—definitely not the toast of—the Premier League. In the Championship we can afford to enjoy a few chuckles at Adams's and Brooks's bizarrely wayward finishing—Saturday it was as if someone had cast a spell on them that rendered them unable to see where the goal was!—and still finish near the top of the league. I'd go for Championship wins and laughs over Premier League fear and loathing any day. |
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Comment | Southampton At Blackburn Rovers The Verdict
at 15:27:20
The record unbeaten run up the table has got us where we are. But while the players took it in stride, the manager appears to feel it means he has the Midas Touch. He needs to get his head out of mid-season and sack up for season's end, when a very different kind of football is being played. He ultimately couldn't play that kind of football at Swansea (where he enjoyed a similar mid-season purple patch before Swans whimpered into the last few matches of the year) and he can't play it now at Saints. Will he learn to? Time will tell. |
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Comment | Southampton V Sunderland The Verdict
at 09:51:16
This is pretty spot on, Nick. We can score bags of goals, but we'll run ourselves into the ground if we don't shore up central defense and holding midfield. For a while I thought we were unlucky to concede so many long-range goals. But it's happening for a reason—we're not shutting down attacks high enough up the pitch in our defending third, and we're not clearing lines that lead to second-chance shots. It's nice to see that we can score goals. But there won't be enough gas in the tank for the season's final push if we don't learn to manage the game better and stop the ball well ahead of our 20-yard box. |
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Comment | Southampton Praised For Keeping Faith With Russell Martin
at 16:48:32
I'm glad to see the ship stabilized for the time being, and am enjoying the football. Dunno if i'd want us to be good enough to go back up to the Prem, though, because a gulf has opened up between the top 15 and the bottom 5, and i don't ever see us being good enough to bridge that gap. |
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Comment | How Many Points Do Southampton Need For Promotion
at 17:33:48
It sounds counterintuitive to take this stance, but I'm pleased with where we are in the division we're in. The bottom 5 in the EPL are off to historically poor starts, and we'd be among them were we there. I'd rather be playing flowing football in the Championship than worrying about each and every kick in trying to stay up in the Prem. Because, if we do reascend into the EPL, that's exactly what awaits us. |
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