I agree that Gabbiadini seems to run around and have been unfortunate not to get any service. I much prefer to see Long up front given that he will fight to get procession. Last season Gabbiadini seemed like the answer to our prayers but he looks a fraction of that player so far.
That would be pretty funny tbf. I've always thought that we would continue to sell our players and when one season we get it wrong and go down all the pundits would be LOOK TOLD YOU IT WOULDN'T WORK, completely ignoring the 4 years (so far) that it has worked. Would be hilarious if we went down after keeping our best player.
Was a bit negative earlier but have thought of a few positives. It is still early days, we are at the right end of the season to change things. Was our first defeat. It can't get worse than that haha!
Mind you, it come to something when the likes of Stoke and Watford are playing better, more attractive football (and scoring more goals) than us.
As I said at half time, full of admiration for the way Watford played. I will also reiterate my belief that our formation is wrong. Boufal and Redmond were clearly playing to order, with neither of them moving far from the touch line, which created a massive void in the midfield, that Watford totally overran. The defensive midfielders only had Gabbiadini or JWP, first half, to aim for,and the passes, just like the passes aimed out wide, were picked off with ease. For me, Boufal and Redmond need to play much narrower, creating triangles with the defensive midfielders, the attacking midfielder, striker and fullbacks. All our players were isolated all too often. I also won't read too much into the amount of ball we had second half, because from my viewpoint, Watford played a different style in the second half. They didn't press as high, nor did they launch as many players forward, when they had the ball. They were well drilled, defensively, and were happy to let us bring the ball to them, and then hit us on the break. Watford could very well be this season's "surprise" team, and good luck to them, if they keep playing this style of football.
Just got back. Poor game, no idea why Davis was playing CDM when Lemina was on the bench. Boufal was invisible, JWP brought little to the table. Tadic made an impact when he came on, imo MP2 was too slow to make changes. Cedric was great, had little help going forward though. Hoedt looks assured, pleased with him.
Nope. Still don't get it Ian. He's making all the right runs but not getting the ball. What are you wanting to see from him? Dropping deep? That leaves us with nobody up top (though in frustration he did drop back against Swansea (?) once and came up with a blunderbuss of a shot).
Yep. They were excellent and particularly good at snuffing any semblance of threat out. Majority of our shots were blocked.
Think they had six summer signings in their XI today. Impressive to gel so quickly, and evidence of what a good transfer window can do for a team... (And without at this stage meaning to infer anything, evidence also of what the appointment of a good manager can do for a team)
Stung twice and it hurts. I cannot recall a Saints Manager that ever started a home game with a lone striker, (off form and lacking any kind of service), and an overloaded midfiield that only know how to pass sideways and backwards, a recipe for disaster, we looked more likely to score from the hoof ball, hit and hope tactics that we played late on.
All this lone striker **** ... Koeman & Poch more often than not played with a lone striker It's not a new thing ...
Yeah, this is not new. Calling Gabbiadini 'out of form' is kinda weird too. We could have the original Ronaldo up there and he'd look the same.
