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Thread | Pep praises Saints for "defending with the ball"
at 14:10 28 Oct 2024
I see that on Saturday's MOTD, Pep was complimentary about Saints, in particular the way we "defended with the ball". What he means is that we recycled possession instead of risking losing it by attacking. This denied City possession and meant that there were periods when City couldn't score because they didn't have the ball.
Wake up Pep lad. Perhaps, like your team, you're a bit tired after your Champions League week, but if this was an effective strategy then we wouldn't be bottom of the table with the worst goal difference. It might work for City, but we're more likely to turn the ball over in the defensive third resulting in an easy goal for the opposition. We managed to avoid that on Saturday (just) but it will happen again.
Meanwhile "defending with the ball" means that we are not attacking. What Pep describes as "defending with the ball" is mostly, when Saints do it, just pointless possession, where we bore the fans shitless and do nothing to threaten the opposition.
I'm from the old skool that thinks when you have the ball you should try to use it to score a goal instead of defending with it. That means moving the ball forward quickly before the opposition form a defensive block which is difficult to break down. Once again our best chances in this match came when we moved the ball quickly up the pitch instead of defending with it. Once again we will probably fail to learn from that.
Pep's compliments actually just sum up the chasm between City and Saints. They show how a tactic can make perfect sense for a team of world class players but be an exercise in stupidity for mediocre players like our lot. The fact that we didn't get absolutely walloped on Saturday doesn't change that. |
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Manchester City v Southampton prediction logged |
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Thread | Can we get 12 points? Not with this manager.
at 19:45 19 Oct 2024
We need 12 points to avoid Deby's worst ever PL record. At the moment we are on course for a total of 5 points, but that might be a bit optimistic. Of our 8 games, 3 have been among the easiest fixtures of the season, and 1 of the others was against 10 men.
I can understand when people say that the players are not good enough for the PL anyway, so changing the manager won't make any difference. But there is a big difference between fighting against relegation and complete capitulation. We are in danger of complete capitulation.
Relegation is almost certain but we need to go down fighting and avoid the tag of worst ever PL team. The players clearly have no belief or confidence in what they're doing and that is only going to get worse the more we lose. If we carry on as now, everything about the club will become toxic. One of the many implications of that will be that we can't attract the players we will need in the Championship next season.
This season is down the toilet already, but we need to get a new manager appointed quickly to stop everything turning to poison. |
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Southampton v Leicester City prediction logged |
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Thread | Why RM teams concede so many goals
at 19:58 6 Oct 2024
We all learnt this about RM's style a long time ago, but it's clear that he never wants to learn. Just watched last night's MOTD and they had a graphic showing the worst teams for "Possession lost in defensive third". Of course we were the worst of the worst and that is the key reason why RM teams concede so many.
I just think it's so ironic that RM's style of play is supposed to maximise possession, but actually what it ends up doing is losing possession in the most dangerous area of the pitch. Yesterday we gave away 2 goals by losing possession near our goal and we were lucky not to give away more before the game had hardly started.
RM claims this style gets us more goals than it gives away, but I think if you look at goals for and against in the PL you'll see that this is total BS. He just doesn't want to deal with the truth.
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Thread | If you thought the Bosman ruling was bad...
at 11:00 4 Oct 2024
Today the European Court found that FIFA's transfer rules are illegal in the EU. It said that “The rules in question are such as to impede the free movement of professional footballers wishing to develop their activity by going to work for a new club,” which basically means that players who fancy a pay rise by moving to a bigger club should be able to break their contract without compensating their old club. I'm no legal expert but this seems to me to be an even more fundamental change than the Bosman ruling.
This, like Bosman, is an EU ruling but it seems to mean that FIFA will have to change the transfer rules to allow players to move mid-contract without compensation. So, if we had Tyler Dibling, for example, on a 5 year contract but he decided he'd rather play for Man City, he could just leave and start playing for them. He would not have to compensate Saints and Man City wouldn't have to pay a transfer fee.
People aren't yet making a big deal of this and it may take many years for the implications to work through, but at the end of it, I can't see any legal basis for transfer fees existing at all. Ultimately any player could move when they wanted to and claim that any transfer fee was a restriction on their freedom of movement. It may take another test case to make it happen, but that seems to be where we're going. There may also be other implications. For example, transfer windows would now appear to be illegal too as they also impede free movement of workers.
As with everything else in modern football, this ruling would benefit the players and the biggest clubs at the expense of everyone else. The Bosman ruling was a kick in the teeth for small clubs, this may be a death knell.
The legal case was brought by Lassana Diarra, an ex skate. |
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AFC Bournemouth v Southampton prediction logged |
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Thread | Moments of class
at 08:56 22 Sep 2024
It was a goal of pure class from Lallana and Dibling yesterday. It's no coincidence that they have both been key to the 2 PL goals that we've scored this season because they are our 2 most technically gifted players, which is what you need if you want to play the passing game in the PL.
One of our biggest problems is that our build up play is generally too slow and we end up having to pass our way through a packed defence. Only top class players can do that with any regularity in the PL. We're fortunate that Lallana and Dibling are top class (even if you still hate AL). Lallana has the technique to play for Man City and Dibling probably does too. Neither has the physicality to last 90 mins at the moment, but the technique is top level.
The problem is that we don't have enough of these top level players to play this way in the PL. But when it works, it's magic. |
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Southampton v Ipswich Town prediction logged |
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Thread | The players are losing belief
at 18:54 14 Sep 2024
The worst thing about today, for me, was that it said that the players are losing belief. We started well and seemed to have improved, but after the penalty (which was taken with no conviction) we just fell away and looked resigned to defeat. The team's confidence couldn't even survive the slightest dent. It's a bit early in the season for a team to be losing hope like that.
I'm sure RM believes in what he's doing, but I don't think the players share that belief. A team that had belief would have been encouraged by winning a penalty and kept going. They showed in the first 30 mins that they could compete if they played positively. The only thing that explains the change in performance after the penalty is a change in mentality (for both sides to be fair).
It will be very difficult to build that belief by playing PL games. If we were a stubborn defensive side, we could grind out some nil-nils and build from there. But any Russell Martin side is going to concede goals. A Russell Martin side has to rely on scoring plenty, but it is difficult to see how those goals will be scored when there is no belief in the side (except for Dibling who was terrific).
Although it is early in the season, the game against Ipswich may be RM's last opportunity to convince the players that we have a chance of surviving under him. He needs a win to change the mentality of the team. If he can't stop the rot quickly, it will just get worse.
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Southampton v Manchester United prediction logged |
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Thread | England
at 18:14 29 Aug 2024
Ramsdale dropped as soon as he's linked with Saints
No left back but Livramento in so maybe he will play there
Gibbs-White in deservedly. I remember us trying to sign him from Wolves. Shame
Carsley picks his U21 squad members including Angel Gomes!
Some interesting selections and some that shouldn't be there (Maguire) |
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Thread | Are we just preparing for the Championship?
at 13:49 28 Aug 2024
I think we probably are. I'm sure SR hope we'll survive, but they are preparing in case we're relegated, unlike last time we were in the PL. So, it could be said that they are learning something(?)
This means that rather than spending say £30m on one player, they want to spend £15 on two, because the £15m players will still be around next year, whereas the £30m player's wages would be too high to carry in the Championship, and they will have a release clause so that if we go down, they can wave goodbye.
At least this strategy should give us a good chance of bouncing back from the Championship again next season. We'll then have another crack at the PL in 2 years time without the burden of previous PSR losses hanging over us as they do now. So you can see some logic in it.
But this gives us lots of problems, primarily a lack of real quality in the side. I think potential relegation will also complicate other transfers we need. For example, Ramsdale we probably want as a loan with option/requirement to buy if we stay up. But Arsenal are probably looking at it and thinking that we'll probably go down, so they'll just get Ramsdale back with 1 year less on his contract, which they won't want. That might mean we won't get him unless we end up paying a serious loan fee. Hopefully we're now their only option, just as he seems to be our only option. |
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Southampton v Nottingham Forest prediction logged |
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Thread | 3 "relegation 6 pointers" coming up?
at 14:50 22 Aug 2024
It might be too early in the season to hear the term "relegation 6 pointer", but that might be what 3 of our next 4 PL fixtures turn out to be.
We'll need about 10 wins to stay up, and about the same number of draws. That's roughly a win and a draw in every 4 games overall, with a number of those fixtures being very difficult to get any points from. Although the likes of Bournemouth or Fulham may stumble, I'd say that these are the clubs we're really competing with and they represent our best chances of getting results:
Wolves
Everton
Brentford
Forest
Leicester
Ipswich
If we're going to survive, we'll probably have to finish above 3 of those, so our fixtures against them are absolutely vital. We need both to win the points and deny those other clubs points.
Although the start to the season might be fairly "easy", that just makes it even more important that we get the points. Forest and Ipswich at home might be as easy as it gets for us.
Although there's a long way to go, the course of our PL season may well be set over the next 4 games. I don't think we're really ready for these key games yet, but I'm just hoping that we get some results and that gives us confidence. |
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Newcastle United v Southampton prediction logged |
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