Match Day Thread Saints v West Ham - K.O. 3pm Saturday 19th August

That's my hope, and the reason I was quite delighted to see a CDM come in. Lallana was at his most effective here because, whether playing on the wing or in the middle, he was allowed the freedom to wander. And he had that freedom because our solidity in central midfield meant that we were far less concerned about having to transition back into defense.

That too. I liked Koeman's 3-5-2 quite a bit...had its moments of stagnation, but Mane given free run of the park created all manner of fun.

 

Like that's a feat.

 

I'd suggest it is. Not his best today, but he was still dangerous. He set up the goal and hit the bar, so I'd even question the assertion he was 'kept quiet'.

 

Although it went in, we still desperately need to take Tadic off penalties.

 

I'll give him that, but otherwise quite anonymous throughout the remaining 89 minutes, like in the first match of the season.

 

He'll be thrilled

 

Indeed, he called to say thanks

 

*scratches head* not really from where I was sitting, but I guess we all see it differently. Not saying he had one of his better games, but he wasn't anonymous by any stretch.

 

What I have noticed in particular this game, is that we all see things so, so, differently from different seats. Luckily my seat is behind MoPo2 so I normally see it as he does

Not a criticism BTW, this is what a forum is about - different viewpoints from the same match.

 

well don't know, I don't think it's only me, a lot of people already commented that Zabaleta basically had him in his pocket

 

Haven't been able to watch the match but read the thread. I will take win ugly with 3 goals thanks. At the end of the season this game will be a distant memory but the points on the board won't be. 3 goals at home and 2 penalties given and both scored. I think it was Fran saying our luck is catching up with what we are due so thats got to be good.

 

Win's a win. We needed one and we needed those home goals too. Hopefully that can start something off and we can chip some edges off and refine the rest of our game. No doubt we will.

For what it's worth...

Austin: 25 apps - 11 goals
Gabbiadini: 14 apps - 7 goals

Good records in Saints shirts. (and how many times has Gabbi hit the woodwork with us?! Seems to happen a lot...)

 

After watching our last two matches, I'm beginning to think I was to harsh to Puel. Both he and Pellegrini are being dealt a poor hand. I don't think our players are poor individually, but as a team they are just unbalanced and don't function really well, especially attacking wise. I don't think there's much anyone can do to change our attacking game with players we have at our disposal.

 

Unbalanced is the operative word, I think. We have more half-decent-to-good players now than we did in 2013-14 (by some measure), but we had a roster whose skillsets worked together then. We can get back to that point, but we're going to need to make changes; we have too many players who do many things more or less competently, and not enough that excel at any given thing.

 

Thank god Austin was on the pitch when we were awarded the 2nd.

 

Just watched the highlights. Fraser maybe could have done better for the first goal by having stronger wrists to parry it away further but I'm nitpicking really. He made a couple of good saves and was really unlucky with the save he made from Sakho which came off the bar and fell to Hernandez. Referee got most of the big calls right - Arnautovic really is a dirty ****er. Noble is also a nasty piece of work. Second penalty was a tad soft but it is a foul. Those won't be given every time so we were a bit fortunate with that one.

 

And we all form opinions on certain players, often after one or two games, which form a prism through which we view all future performances.

Hence, for example, Steven Davis can do no wrong in my eyes - and Cedric can't do much right.

 

Tadic should never take a penalty again. That was possibly the worst penalty I've ever seen. And actually, Austin's wasn't much better. I saw JWP take one in the summer and if he is on the pitch no one else should get a look-in. (Tadic just came out as 'Radical' on my autocorrecter by the way. Funny (ish).

 

On the subject of Tadic though, he looked interested the whole game, despite not that much coming off for him. He actually tackled back and gave Cedric some cover.

2nd half of last season he looked like he couldn't be arsed half the time. He needs to step up and put his heart into this season, and on yesterday's showing, he just might.