 | News
Comment | Saints V Crystal Palace The Verdict
at 16:59:27
A poor performance, but nevertheless one that would have ended in a draw but for an extraordinary save from a superb shot.
Shame - especially for Hennessy - that the BBC couldn't find 15 seconds to show it on Saturday night. |
| News
Comment | Elia Becomes Latest World Cup Finalist For Saints
at 13:04:53
Not sure if I missed a previous discussion on the subject, but who was the last person to play for Saints having previously played in a Champions League / European Cup final? i.e. before Ryan Bertrand.
Do we have to go back to the likes of Case and Shilton? |
| News
Comment | Saints At Newcastle United The Verdict
at 12:59:17
Extraordinary result in the circumstances.
My only concern is the supreme confidence (arrogance?) that we seem to have in defending so deep late in the game, and the penalty appeal was a consequence of this. Obviously a home team who is one goal behind will always throw everything they have at you in the last 15 minutes, but our ability to keep and distribute the ball when we have the opportunity to exploit the gaps that they leave seems to drop dramatically in the final stages.
Swansea was perhaps the most obvious example of this (against ten men), but the last two league victories have ended up being more backs-to-the-wall than they've needed to be due to curious decision-making in possession.
I just hope we learn from this before something like that penalty appeal goes against us and we don't get what we deserve from a match.
Obviously it's a minor gripe in the context, and the quality of defending is unprecedented in the club's history. Watching (away matches) from the sofa has never been so comfortable: I'm just greedy!
|
| News
Comment | Luke Shaw Set To Miss Reunion With Saints
at 11:11:09
Selling Shaw is probably the best bit of business the club will ever do. It might be mean to write somebody off when they're so young, but he seems to be pathologically injury-prone, and for a squad like ours, the constant uncertainty would have been really distracting.
I think it's likely that United will run out of patience, too, and cut their losses unless he can stay fit for more than five minutes. |
| News
Comment | Saints V Ipswich The Verdict
at 11:00:14
Credit to Ipswich, who looked much better in defence and attack than most sides we've played in the league this year.
I like to consider myself reasonably objective on these matters* but by my (literal) interpretation of the laws, we could/should have had four second-half penalties. Not sure which Long incident you're referring to. The first (as broadcast on the BBC highlights) was probably a penalty; cracking pass from Tadic but Long was "guilty" of waiting of the contact and so his fall looked rather unnatural.
However, the final occasion was spectacularly embarrassing for Atkinson and co, who having judged correctly that Long was clipped from behind, failed to see it had occurred some distance inside the box, as was very evident from the marks left on the pitch by his fall.
* i.e. I'm not one of those people who shouts "handball" whenever the ball connects with the upper half of an opponent. |
| News
Comment | Saints V Chelsea The Verdict
at 10:14:16
I would say Fonte was the pick of the bunch. The movement from Hazard (and to a lesser extent Costa) with the ball was as good as you will see, but Fonte offered the blueprint as to how to deal with it. He got the right distance from them and shepherded them into cul-de-sacs or bought time for back-up.
He was consistently making the right decision as to whether to attack the ball or shadow. Watching from the Chapel in the second half, it looked like a master class. |
| News
Comment | Saints V Sunderland The Verdict
at 17:27:36
Re.: the "penalty", the whole (non-) issue is rendered irrelevant for me by the fact that Sunderland actually gained possession for that move courtesy of a blatant handball by Cattermole in his own half. Extraordinary that the sport supports so many journalists and broadcasters and yet none of them manage to identify these things. They are as good at their jobs as the Mackem defence.
To be fair to Nick, he may not have seen MOTD2 at the time of writing, but Poyet did make a fuss about the decision after the match (unsurprisingly): it just wasn't broadcast on Saturday night (surprisingly). He was happy to ignore the handball that happened right in front of him, too. |
| News
Comment | Saints Need To Finish With A Flourish
at 15:21:52
Echoing Hosey's first point, I'd like to finish with two wins, but I suspect finishing above 15th would lead a summer of listening to the pro-Cortese lobby claiming this justified the decision to replace Adkins and that we'll all be in the Nou Camp next October.
Not sure it's worth it. |
| News
Comment | Nigel Takes The Biscuit
at 15:07:34
Good luck to him. Aside from his achievements in moving us up through the leagues, it's the style in which we did it that I would thank him for. The football we played at home in the first of our season in The Championship was joyous to watch, and the fact that Nigel kept faith in encouraging flair in the top division when his neck was on the line tells you much about the guy's conviction.
Curious to say that "in the long term perhaps Nigel is never going to take a club to sixth in the Premier". It's fairly obvious that there are bigger factors in modern English football than your manager when it comes to league placings (however hard Benitez f**ks up, he won't finish out of the top six). A glass ceiling exists for young British managers (especially if you're so uncool that you're called Nigel, wear glasses and conduct yourself politely). Cortese has followed the pack in reaffirming this attitude and perpetuating the idea that you propose. If you don't get more than six months in a top division despite proving yourself more than capable, then your chances of making it further don't look great.
FAO Slynch
PL goals conceded this season:
First 11 games under Adkins: 29
Last 11 games under Adkins: 10
8 games under Pochettino: 12
Doesn't suggest that Adkins was the defensive joke that suits your agenda, but an improver of average players at this level.
|
| News
Comment | Shaw England Withdrawal Good For Saints
at 15:07:03
The idea that Lallana doesn't pull his weight defensively is one of the most enduring and frustrating myths around. The guy has bags of energy (maybe fractionally diminished by the recent injury) and I can recall many occasions that he's chased back furiously after our attacks have broken down, and filled in for the full-back if they've gone marauding.
One of the curious elements of Saturday's game was that when Guly came on, he actually seemed to be playing behind Shaw for much of his brief spell, i.e. at left-back. It looked odd - and scary - at the time. Maybe this had something to with Shaw having a problem. |
| News
Comment | Saints V Norwich The Preview
at 14:10:20
Not sure even slynch endorses slynch's views to be honest.
The point about the defence that Nick only makes implicitly is that for all of their perceived faults, Adkins had actually been getting the best out of them. We conceded 29 in his first eleven Premier League games, and only ten in the last eleven, before Cortese proceeded to piss all over the club's collective toes.
This probably had something to do with his being a very good manager, and maybe MP will come to the same conclusions and make the same progress, but it's likely to be too late to secure survival.
I will be watching with blind faith rather than the previous expectation. |
| News
Comment | Saints V QPR The Verdict
at 11:55:39
I agree with your analysis entirely, SaintJez, and pointed out that there will be no change and it can serve little purpose now the damage has probably been done. My point is that:
a) when you make a completely unnecessary change like Cortese did, you take out the only option you have to address any problems. Most managerial changes intend to reverse a slide: Cortese's has initiated one and we don't have the realistic option of changing managers.
b) Cortese has set out standards that are unfathomably high. Pochettino is not meeting them, so does NC lower these standards or sack him? Either reveal a lack of judgment on NC's part.
Of course, Pochettino might come good, but the general mood is that the best case scenario now is that we're going to scrape into a second PL season, when six weeks ago, it was looking like we'd do so at a stylish canter. |
| News
Comment | Saints V QPR The Verdict
at 10:30:18
Pochettino out. Cortese out.
That's not an emotive response, it's based on cold hard logic. If Cortese sets the standards and Adkins performances didn't meet them, then presumably Pochettino is nowhere near. Given the bizarre nature of the managerial change, the usual stuff about "needing time to make his mark" don't apply: there was nothing to fix in the first place.
The most probable interpretation of the last six weeks is that Adkins' influence on the team has slowly faded. Saturday was what this bunch of players looks like without spirit, motivation and a sense of common purpose. When we won at Loftus Road, the team and manager - still learning at the higher level - were under enormous pressure and turned in a gutsy performance full of commitment, nerve and flair. At home, with everything seemingly in our favour we were abject throughout. The defence had improved enormously under Adkins; now we're back to square one.
Of course, nobody will lose their jobs at this stage: Cortese has backed the club into a completely avoidable corner from which it has no option than to close its eyes and hope for the best. It should go without saying that if you make a gamble as CEO and it doesn't come off, then you have to hold your hands up and resign. I'm struggling to see where the next point might come from. Cortese will have to pray that more will come from somewhere. |
| News
Comment | Hurry Up Arry !!!
at 15:05:34
A decent analysis, though one of his key aberrations was the failure to bring Matt Oakley back into the team after he'd recovered from injury. Oakley had been a key figure in Strachan's success, but Redknapp preferred to field his knackered and over-rated son and the bull-in-a-china-shop Quashie, rather than somebody who had delivered for the club time and time again as a quality defensive midfielder.
What I find galling about this article is that it is highly revisionist. At the time of Redknapp's appointment there was at best a highly vocal minority or at worst widespread support for him. Such people (presumably) either thought this was also sticking it to PFC, or couldn't see his mercenary / uninterested / not-my-fault-guv approach from the start. (Or were plain desperate?)
There are interesting parallels with the post-Adkins scenario, i.e. between those who thinks this stinks and want to point it out now, and those who subscribe to the party line or think you should just grin and bear it when the club's integrity takes a nosedive. |
| News
Comment | QPR At The Dell 1974
at 14:54:50
Saturday evening kick-offs in the 70s? Tell me more, Granddad..
I thought it was all "3-day-week" and saving fuel back then? |
| News
Comment | Saints V Manchester City The Verdict
at 14:36:03
Agree largely with schatfield.
Seems to be a rush to identify great tactical masterstrokes from MP (and not just from comedy wind-up merchants like slynch), which I don't think really exist. At times, we do play a higher-tempo pressing game than under Nigel, but MP seems to appreciate that you can't play like that for 90 minutes (it was completely absent in the first half at Old Trafford).
What I can see is a team continuing to improve and be more resolute, exactly as they were under Nigel, albeit with less fluency than earlier in the season without Ramirez and Lallana.
Certainly MP is keeping faith with the confusing habit of replacing Puncheon relatively early when he's playing well. |
| News
Comment | The Enigma That Is Ramirez
at 14:39:58
Contrary to the perceived wisdom, I'd say Ramirez's best performances - the opening hour at QPR, the should-have-won Swansea game and most obviously the second-half demolition of Aston Villa - have all come when playing with Lallana, supporting Lambert up front.
He's certainly gone downhill with Lallana's injury and Rodriguez being back in favour, so it is the system and playing with a like-minded creative spirit in Lallana that brings out the best in him.
I'd suggest playing the two of them isn't a luxury when Cork and Schneiderlin are up to their usual standards, and we look a lot more attractive / less workmanlike with both of them included.
|
| News
Comment | Saints At Wigan The Verdict
at 14:24:39
Not good enough. We played well and deserved more, and if Adkins had been in charge then we could feel good about the fact that we were formidable and creative as a team and moving in the right direction.
Sadly, Cortese's decision - whether you support it or not - demands that we win such games if we are to meet his "standards". His treatment of Adkins makes it clear that results are all that matters, and the timing of the change allows no room for us to go through a (unnecessary) period of transition. So: two points dropped against an insipid team. |
| News
Comment | Lallana Out For Another 5 Games At Least
at 13:56:05
I assume slynch is trying to wind everybody up, in which case he's at least partially succeeded.
Lallana's injury is as big a blow as we could have had. I'd take him playing in every game for the rest of the season over any new signing. Watching us attack without him is hard work and after the early season hammerings he hasn't been given credit for the defensive work he's since put in.
At some stage I'm expecting a comparison of points gained when Adam and Ramirez have both started versus points gained when either has been missing. I suspect that might tell the story of our season, and fear their injuries will be our undoing. |
| News
Comment | Saints V Tottenham Hotspur The Verdict
at 15:01:52
It wasn't a game of two halves - we were as purposeless in the opening 15 minutes of the second half as we'd been in the first half.
Mayuka's introduction on the hour - and the switch to 4-2-3-1 - changed everything. The improvement in movement was incredible and immediate, and made me think that Adkins' principal crime was to lose his nerve and switch away from this too early this season. But it's a tricky one: we obviously look much more fluid and create more opportunities with 4-2-3-1 - see the 2nd half demolition of Villa - especially with Gaston, but then we're far more exposed at the back. Given that Tottenham were rarely better than listless, and thought the job was done, the negative elements of the attacking formation weren't exposed.
On balance, if 4-4-2 doesn't support the defence / make them less error prone - which it didn't yesterday - then we're better off trying to outscore the other team as we were doing against the big boys.
Also... Clyne's susceptibility to crosses from the other wing is clearly a problem, Chaplow would have made more sense than Guly, and did somebody above seriously suggest that Schneiderlin is a weakness in this team??? |
| | trotsky
|
Site Scores| Forum Votes: | 0 | | Comment Votes: | 1 | | Prediction League: | 0 | | TOTAL: | 1 |
|
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.