2 good, 2 bad

My two horrific results / play was against hull and Sparta. We were embarrassingly bad!

 

You don't have to put with any. No one's forcing you to support this club, I assume it is something you have chosen to do. In which case do yourself a favour and get a grip.

 

Don't agree with all your bad list. Ended it for me.

 

We control lots of matches. Goals win games not control.

Today was embarrassing. Boring pass, pass, pass and no-one prepared to do anything.

This has been a fault for a long time where we are so focused on keeping the ball that we don't score enough and then when we have a mini run of scoring goals everybody gets together again and thinks it has been solved.

The real problem we have had (under Koeman as well) is getting the ball to the strikers. We aren't going to score goals by being scared to lose possession.

I'm also at a loss to see why people love Hojbjerg.

We have been hearing for a couple of years just how many chances we have in games so there is no problem but I always find it very hard to reconcile my memory of the game to the chances stat. Sometimes we read that we had 30 chances in a game yet I can only remember a couple.

We aren't going to get relegated (at least I think not) but we are never going to challenge the top end if we put up our own invisible force field in a semi circle around the opposition's penalty area and continually just keep passing around it to the other side and then back to the other side and then Fonte is the one saying "TAKE A F'ING SHOT."

We absolutely dominated that match. I suppose the stats will say we did too, but for all that domination, Palace were direct and not scared to shoot or get in positions to score where we prefer to have 1 striker in the box, never give him the ball and instead keep passing between midfielders and full backs 30 yards out.

 

How did we lose the midfield battle? Do you mean their midfielders actually pass the ball forward instead of sideways? in which case I will agree.

 

Totally agree. One forward, isolated and the rest of the team prefer to play keep ball with each other than actually try to get the ball to him.

 

This thread is a ****ing joke. Do we really expect our new manager to ****ing destroy the premier league straight away? Jeeeeeezus christ, give him a few games to get used to it.

 

Don't agree with your lists... but we are a definite Jekyll & Hyde team for sure and I don't want to keep banging the same drum but the lack of goals comes back to the poor window in the Summer imo... but that's done with now. We can't do anything but hope it's addressed in the Summer and that we don't lose as many players this year.

Let's just hope we have another good game on Thursday eh? Biggest game of the season so far.

 

We were really poor getting the ball to the striker under Koeman as well???? Blimey Imps. Not sure where to take that. Despite poor patches during the season, Long, Pelle and Mane scored lots and missed lots. Something went right in getting them he ball.

 

Also @SaintsNumber7 out of interest what were your expectations for the league this season? As that may explain why you're disappointed if you thought we were gonna challenge the top 6 again.

Imo that was never going to happen this season.... was always going to be a 'dull' midtable finish this year being realistic. A lot us expected that this year which is probably why we get less upset when results like this happen... it's likely to be the same most of the season.

Which is why some of us want us to focus on the cups

 

We also were much less possession based under Ron... well pretty sure we averaged a lot less.

 

Any team that's playing in Europe is going to struggle at times. If we win Thursday we had all better get used to the occasional poor performance

 

Come on Imps, I assume that you watched the match at the San Siro...In no way can that be described as a BAD performance, which was my point.

I honestly think that Saints fans are getting spoilt, all of my life I have dreamed of the day when we would play in such places as Milan and to actually play as well as we did too.

 

I said we'd finish 14th this year and I'm sticking with it. We really weren't that much better than a lot of teams last year but went on a great run in the second half of the season sealing a top 6 finish. We are a lot closer to the West Hams/Stokes/West Broms than we are to the top 6, and always have been. Throw in Europe and reaching last 4 in league cup and we are bound to have off days

 

The only difference today if Koeman was in charge with last year's squad would have been to concede less.

Yes I watched it. We played OK but still in that game we had the same problem that we had today and against Hull. Outperform the opposition yet fail to score and lose. If it were "occasional" as stated above then it wouldn't be a problem but it is glossed over by narrow victories on the occasions that we do keep a clean sheet.

Last week was great, we won but the same problem. Bossed the opposition yet hardly threatened them.

My comments aren't a moan at management so much because I can understand that we aren't suddenly going to be Barca and expect we would struggle a bit this season with the extra games.

My comments are more in response to "happy clapping" which even though I enjoy being part of and have been pretty guilty of myself, for the last couple of years have not really been able to reconcile the happy clapping to the actual games/performance.

People seem to pass off possession or dominance as a dismissal of criticism. It all gets a bit boring watching this never ending passing from one full back to the other full back via the midfield. It is more like days of old where we are hemming the opposition in hoping to starve them out.

I assume most oppositions have watched us and figured out all they need to do is let us have the ball because we are happy to keep it.

The only shining light I can see at the moment is that finally all our "useless" youngsters are getting games.

Yes I know these are actually the good times for Saints fans and we are back up in the top teams in the country. It just doesn't seem like it to me and most games are pretty boring (from my viewpoint) with a few very entertaining matches here and there.

 

Here are my comments after the game on the match thread, hardly "happy clapping"

 

No I agree with that assessment totally. I mean all the "we played so well" comments, from many, about possession and control. Drives me mad because it means nothing.

There are lots of posts over the past couple of years that seem to ignore how bad we are just because "we were in control" or "we had more possession" or "we had 30 chances in the game."

 

I'm not sure that the matches against Utd, Chelsea or Liverpool can be put down as bad. There's a difference between playing badly, and coming up against better players. You almost need a third category.

And anyway, reason to be cheerful everyone: back-to-back home games up next!

 

I don't put us down as bad because we lose. We are a top half Prem team, we are in Europe and both domestic cups still. We are doing better on the whole than we ever have been bar the very beginning years of my Saints support.

I'm cheerful. blue line. the high flying Imps scoring goals for fun with good free flowing football on Monday night. Something to look forward to and then hopefully Saints can get the result they need on Thursday.

 

I take it you are fairly new to supporting saints, following them since their top 10 finishes over the last 3 seasons.

Take it you weren't supporting saints in the 90's/ 00's when the bad list would have been even longer.

But boy was it fun.

Not saying we shouldn't expect better than today's performance/result. The performances are generally better than the results. Let the team get it right and get behind the team against beer sheva and Boro. I am sure the good list will get longer.