With penalties there are several things that can happen, blaze it off target and miss, hit it right but the GK guesses and saves, miss hit it and it goes in, get it right and GK stays where he is and doesn't reach it, GK guesses wrong and goes the wrong way, or you kick it twice and it is disallowed. It is an art form perfected by a few, mostly wearing a Saints Number 7 shirt. It is never a certainty, even Le God had one saved, and Rickie missed a few.
If JWP had taken the penalty it may have taken the same trajectory as his free kick, which threatened lives in the Northam.
Thanks, Vin (and Fats). I thought Boufal looked dangerous and definitely gave more to the team than Jay. Of course, the fact that large swathes of the crowd immediately got on his back as soon as he came on must have helped his confidence no end. How many of you remember the first season Sadio Mane played for us and the way the crowd got on his back? And when he went through that awful spell when he couldn't hit the net however hard he tried? They even gave him a penalty to take and the whole crowd (it seemed) sighed loudly ...... he missed of course. So we should have got rid of him immediately and signed someone else who would please our "fans"? Suggest an Andy Carroll type, then we could just tell the midfield players to hoof it forward as hard as possible in the hope he'd get on the end of it. Maybe the apes shouting "get it forward" to a player facing his own goal and with 2 of their players on him would be happy. I wouldn't ...... I was very critical of Tadic in the first half but he was much better in the second. If he'd given the ball back to Boufal in the right hand corner when Boufal had moved into space, instead of trying too hard, getting the ball through to Pied who then crossed to no one (because Boufal had come across for the ball) perhaps we'd have had another chance. A full pre-season with this squad and a couple of good acquisitions and we could do better than 8th next year, I'm sure of it.
It did cross my mind. It also crossed my eyes that he tried a variation of the "exactly the same substitution" as Boufal played free in the middle. He did well and caused them a few issues in the THIRTEEN minutes he played. I would have left Gabby on, I agree. I'm not saying he got everything right, I'm just sticking up for the bloke because of the 'quick to draw negativity' and the immediate moaning that goes on. The people next to me groaned the first time Boufal lost it. They are now friends of mine having sat next to them for years, but I still told them they were out of order. They were waiting for a mistake and probably moaned a bit louder because he had done well up to the first mistake. Even my Dad's mate said to him that Boufal looked like he might shove his moan back down his throat!
Southampton v Stoke Southampton are guaranteed a top-half finish, which underlines that they have had another very good season. Stoke's form has been heading in a downhill direction for a while now but the nature of the last day of the season always throws up some unexpected results, and I think this game will provide one of them. Lawro's prediction: 1-2
Struggling to understand this one, LTL. I started my first sentence saying I had come back from the match and my point was that my perception was different from those sending in negative texts. There were parts of the performance last night which worked well, especially the defence which looked comfortable with the Utd front line. Odd to read the comments about Boufal as I think he is deserving of criticism in the performances he has put in so far but he will not come good unless he is given an extended run in the team. There have been some salient comments about Puel's substitutions and how they fail to work. This is a fair comment regarding the home performances where I have felt they have often had a negative impact but this is not always the case as the changes on Saturday ushered in the victory at Middlesbrough. I am not convinced by the remarks that this side is a few players short of being a quality team either. I do not believe Claude Puel will be here next season for economic if not footballing reasons but, assuming he is retained, I feel he will discard a number of players like Tadic who have not grasped his system. Merrington was suggestive last night that any change next season would have to be made by Puel whose tactics , he suggested, had largely failed. I am wondering just how much the problems are down to players not understanding or wanting to play his system. There are elements which Puel seems to get right and even our supposed "second string" defence have performed exceptionally well. Sitting on the fence, I think Puel's teams are harder to score against than either Koeman's or Pochettino's. I am not quite sure if the defence can actually be improved. The problems arise with the forward line and the speed at which the ball is brought in to the other team's half. This side of the game has only appeared to function sporadically this season and I would be worried that I have seen insufficient this season to suggest that even with new personnel , Puel will overcome this issue. The addition of Gabbiadini is illustrative of this issue as his goals seemed to have dried up.
