Tried to figure out why his arm moved in that way, it didn't seem to be a natural movement, was he nudged?
Well, I haven't enjoyed stealing a point this much since........err........when we played L'pool at home!
I suppose I'm less critical of Cortese than most, so I'll say my bit from the happy-clapper end. I think Cortese did his homework and knew what Poch was capable of. I think he also knew that Poch was just another stepping stone, for Saints and for the man alone. What Cortese badly misjudged was Katharina's commitment after her father died. He didn't allow for the fact that she might want to take the reins away from him. A couple of seasons previously he'd stated that if he didn't see enough commitment he'd look for investment elsewhere. I believe this is where the divide might have started. You could say that with Cortese running the show, Saints may have already been well into alternative ownership and fighting for Top 4-6 placings. I think we've all felt that the momentum of improvement has slowed a bit, but we'll never know what might have happened. At the moment, we're still very much upwardly mobile. Let's keep it that way. Bring on the very large amounts of money.!
Yeah, odd movement, invited the penalty. Has been immense for us though since coming into the team. Looks a natural at this level, exceeded my expectations and another season of learning under vvd, would not do him any harm.
I suspect Poch was a Les Reed/Black Box find....I doubt Cortese knows enough about football to select managers on his own. I also think that Nicola had got a bit delusional at the end and was taking too much on himself....easy to spend someone else's money. Kat stepped in and sorted the money issue out by getting us a more favourable loan and putting some more money in. How could he get investors in....the club didn't belong to him. He couldn't force KL to sell. If I was Katharina, I would be getting a bit pissed with him talking and behaving as if Saints was his....and she got involved once her attention wasn't needed elsewhere.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but our players made it very easy for the Mignolet handball not to be given, becuase they barely appealed for it. Rightly or wrongly, I'd suggest a '50-50' decision like this where you know as a referee you'll get so much stick if you give it, you'll always favour not giving it if you can.....
Yes, I appreciate that there are several ways of looking at that situation. I just stated how it appeared to me at the time, from the perspective of Cortese. I understand that Poch was definitely someone that Cortese admired, but that opinion was based on perhaps misguided media articles. We all know how off-target they often have been and still are constantly. For example, only earlier today the BBC stated that Gabbiadini came into Saints and scored at an incredible rate, but has since gone off the boil. That's the problem I have with the sporting media. I don't mind errors where knowledge isn't obtainable. It's the lack of research into causes that bugs me. Knowledge that is freely available to you or me, but doesn't fit their pattern, so they don't mention it. And this infects the BBC almost as much as elsewhere, and I find that reprehensible. Sorry, went off on a little rant there.
If Ian really didn't watch the game then his anti-Puel antics have hit rock bottom. Time for the ignore button to be hit again.
Just caught up with this thread, as I was out all day I didn't want to come on here until I'd seen the outcome and highlights on MOTD. I'm actually quite glad I didn't watch that live, not because of any dullness in the play, but because the tension seemed very high for a match that wouldn't have been the end of the world if we'd lost. To me at first sight it looked like Stephens hit the ball with his shoulder, so I can't see how Madley could see otherwise from the angle he was viewing it. Likewise, to be fair, Mignolet should have been off, but I can't see how the assistant or Marley could see it. Both incidents good support for VAR's. Anyway, another great result to add to our ever-growing collection against Liverpool, and hastening Klopp's demise from the Premier League solely because of his abysmal record against Southampton. Finally, Fraser Forster.
what is Cortese up to nowadays? After he was booted he gave an interview to the BBC a few months later and stated he would be be looking to get back involved in football. That's nearly three years ago now. Has he been learning mandarin?
Not taking issue but I disagree that we are a stronger squad. We are still at least one striker down on last year as we had CA last year plus Mane and Pelle. Fonte is now gone and on top of that we have had VVD and CA and Target and Pied on the bench for much of the season. Puel has had less to work with than any of our previous PL managers. For all that he's not doing much worse in the league, better than either of them in the cups and better than Koeman did in Europe. We are still playing some pretty boring negative football though.
For me he was lookking at the ball when he moved his arm therefore he knew what he was doing. Probably tried to shoulder it but the ball was further away than he realised and ended p on his upper arm. Penalty.
Well I think we are talking angels on heads of pins here. As far as boring football is concerned, if you agree that we are weaker, then I would suggest that a tighter, less expansive game is saving us from losing a few games. I'd rather have the positive results, rather than have great performances and losing. It's a sport, after all, not the London Palladium. Of course, I'd rather have both. If people could inform the various richer clubs to NOT take our best strikers/players each season I'm sure Saints could come up with both, [even] with Puel at the helm.
Do you really expect players to be as good as Le Tiss and Lambert, though? And even if you do, then Liverpool would have to get rid of all their potential penalty takers because none of them are up to that standard. And we would have to do the same as well.
