Match Day Thread Saints V Stoke City Sunday 21st May 3pm

Thank you . Was it an entertaining 0-0?

 

I hate, hate, HATE our fanbase. Disgusting today, and it's really making me embarrased to be associated with Saints right now.

 

Subbing Charlie Austin = Boos. There was no way he was playing 90 minutes, he's been out for 6 months for christ sake.
Bringing on Boufal = Boos. Tadic was inneffective, next best thing was Boufal - why not give him a try?
Bringing on Pied -= Boos. A former winger, slightly more attacking than JWP made sense?

Just **** off, please.

 

That depends. Do you find watching paint dry entertaining?

On a more serious note, it wasn't the most entertaining match, but I was gripped for the most part. For about 15 minute in the second half we really had them on ropes, but Butland was monstrous.

 

"You don't know what your doing"?

Well, this prick who doesn't know what he's doing, has got us to 8th place and a cup final, without a proper goalscorer this season, having no VVD for 6 months, losing the captain halfway through, all the while playing every 2 or 3 days most weeks.

Christ ****ing alive.

 

Was only joking... we lost 1-0

 

Thanks for clearing up the Pied one for me....I was expecting him to push Cedric further and have Pied at right back. Should learn a bit more about our players I guess!

 

I couldn't really make out most of the songs as I sit down the Chapel end, but god there was a very annoying woman near me, screeching for most of the second half at how rubbish we are bla bla bla. I did turn round to say that "obviously you haven't been watching saints for many a year, as there has been a lot worse " , to which her reply was "I pay my money, if I want to boo etc, I will ". Unfortunately this is the new breed of football fan nowadays.
I felt a bit for Puel today. We got in many good positions, but final ball etc was poor. Players really lacking confidence as was shown when Gabbiadini was through on goal, Butland slipped, and he still messsed it up.
Oh well, onto next season COYR

 

Agree on the Austin point. Pretty laughable that people didn't seem to understand that he was just back from injury.

But personally, I'd have had another forward/attacker on the bench (Clasie and PEH? Why?! When are you ever going to bring both of them on? Hell, not even one of them came on today). I thought that was obviously from 2pm onwards, so no hindsight there.

And then, given what he had, I'd have put Caceres on and put Yoshida up front (long before the 92nd minute or whatever it was).

Call it lack of tools, or whatever. But ultimately his changes were again ineffective (and I had zero faith in Boufal doing anything), and I didn't get the impression that we was even trying to save his job. It's a shame, but I am absolutely at the stage now where I would be happy to read that he's gone.

 

Was begining to wonder if I'd dreamt Crouch's goal

 

First point - are you? I'm desperate to see them together, but based on what we've seen this season, I'm not sure why you would be surprised at not seeing us play two up front.

Second point - as per my post above, I too agree with this. Very strange make-up of the bench. Even more so when you consider that Charlie was always only ever going to last circa 60 mins.

 

I'm not a big fan of Radio Solent (Blackmore consistently bottles on the difficult questions) but he got it spot on in his analysis this evening. He said that it's been a good season. European football, a major cup final and a fourth consecutive top half finish for the first time in the clubs history. Claude has to take a bit of credit for that. But, as Blackmore said, it's about style not substance. When we narrowly lost in the cup final and we went on to beat Watford 4-0 everyone was happy. But the last five home games have been dire. 450 minutes at home without scoring. Including two missed penalties that cost us 4 points.

We may have finished eighth but 15 points away from 7th. Actually, we were closer on points to Hull who got relegated.

Players lack confidence because they are not enjoying their football and, like us, wonder where the next goal is coming from. Everyone I spoke to at half time seemed happier than me with the quality of football and the effort. Austin looked very good and I think we were all hoping (after we went behind) that Austin and Gabbiadini playing together would bring us back into the game. So Claude did not help himself making 'energy' subs as opposed to tactical ones. We continued to lack pace. Were predictable in our play and apart from one or two frantic goalmouth incidents, we played too deep leaving the striker isolated up front.

In the Solent interview, Puel seems to be labouring on the long season and the number of games which, given his penchant for rotation should not have mattered at all given the size of our squad. He also dodged the criticism or playing only one up front (which Blackmore predictably let him off with) but this is at the heart of our problems. I wouldn't mind if we had players like Redmond and Tadic buzzing around like spitfires but they consistently isolate themselves on the wings so it really doesn't work.

So yes, I feel for Claude and wholeheartedly condemn the barracking he got but that's football. It's the same all around the grounds to be fair. At the end of the day, unless he can dish up entertaining football, he should step aside and let someone else have a go.

 

Koeman always played 1 up front ... no-one complained about it then.

 

Pursuant to this: we outscored out opponents 19-18 in first halves this season. We were outscored 22-30 in second halves. Our adjustments consistently did not work as well as the adjustments made by our opposition.

 

I keep going back to the League Table and thinking how did that happen, we lost and stayed eighth, did we really deserve to be there, best of the rest, just how bad were the rest? Anyway can anyone explain to me why we are playing a lone striker at home in the Premier League, it is asking for trouble. Sorry Claude, I can't defend your tactics any more, I wanted you to be given a chance to improve things, you haven't taken it. Time for a change, and we need everything in place ready for the next Pre Season, whether that will be new owners and / or a new manager time will tell, I couldn't be happy with a repeat of the latter part of this Season, it has been truly depressing.

 

Oh, and those who kept jeering Forster today, you too can **** off.

 

Not always, no.

He was happy enough to switch to 3-5-2 (or 5-3-2, whatever you call it).

And actually, if I recall correctly, ending the season with Mane and Long up front together (with Pelle finally sidelined - and yes, sometimes there were complaints when it was him up top alone) coincided with a great end to the season for us, and Long's "purple patch". Shock horror, Long performs better when played through the middle with a partner.

 

You really that sad?

 

Problem wasn't a lack of tools, problem was that all the tools were in the stands.

The booing, and 'don't know what you're doing' chants were unbearably pathetic. And in no way going to help persuade players they'd rather stay here at this nice family friendly club than go to a big club where they get paid more to sit on the bench. And prospective new managers - it's hardly going to entice them either?!

Every sub made sense.

Gabbi for Austin we could all have known before the match. I predicted 60 mins rather than 65 here.

Boufal for Tadic - something had to be tried. Boufal was only ever going to come on for JWP, Tadic or Redmond....I was happy enough for it to be Tadic.

And Pied for JWP - why not give something a go at the end. Bit of pace and crossing, might have worked.



I will not be disappointed if Puel goes, I have found myself so frustrated by some of the football I've watched over the past months. However I will not celebrate his leaving either, I loved the Cup Final day and the Europa League nights. Let's not forget we played at Wembley this season, we beat Inter Milan this season.

If this is the last game, then thanks Claude for your efforts. You had an incredibly hard job, did a reasonably good job of it with some fantastic moments, and hopefully you are aware of the quiet but grateful majority rather than the loud, abusive and ignorant minority.

 

I didn't know you were joking until read on and saw the other posts...eek