3 at the back plus Romeu and Lemina? So not many attacking players. Playing 2 CDM's should allow fullbacks to push on.
We should play ------Yoshida---VVD---Hoedt---------- Cedric-----------------------------Bertrand --------------Romeu--Lemina----------- ---------------------Boufal----------------- --------------Gabbi-------Long----------
I said the other week that I was open to Boufal, Tadic or JWP playing in that position (I am in no way suggesting that I want Sam or Tony in charge, but given we struggle to score, maybe we should be looking towards set-pieces a little more - even more so with Virgil available again - and inevitably that lends itself to JWP). The other ten players, I find impossible to argue against. On the face of it, there is so much sense to it. The other, alternative, formation that I am really attracted to is somewhat of an old school 4-4-2, with JWP wide right and Tadic wide left.
Back from hols but missed the last 3 games. 1 win 2 losses. What's the mood should I stay away until my holiday glow has disappeared?
With your middle paragraph I agree 100% that if we play a 3-5-2 then 10 of the starters are pretty much nailed on. One thing is for certain that the 3rd midfielder has to be a an attacking player rather than a general midfielder, so a Tadic/Boufal rather than a Davis/Pierre otherwise I feel like we'll have the same issues. I'm not too keen on a 4-4-2 tbh as I feel we'll still have too big a gap between the midfield and attack... And I think it's a system made for high crosses which doesn't suit our best striker imo.
Mood not too bad overall, though having been frustrated and pissed off after leaving the ground yesterday I was surprised at how bad the reaction was on here. I understand it's more a build up rather than just based on yesterdays game though.
I've only seen brief reports which sounded like we played not too bad in the games. Still not scoring enough. It sounded like we were going in the right direction. I haven't been brave enough to read the forum.
In isolation we played pretty well, just lacked penetration as per the last year. I know we keep saying it and it's getting kinda boring but we really are 2/3 or 3/4 of a very good side indeed. Unfortunately, the most important part of the game is scoring, and we look like we'd struggle to score walking down Empress Road waving £50 notes and bags of heroin in the air.
We're sixth in the PL in shots taken per match...we're nineteenth in percentage of shots taken that hit the target, a fraction above Palace (we're at 20.5%; they're at 19.7%). Total breakdown of our shot results by raw count: - Missed target (2nd in the PL) - Blocked (4th) - Hit post (tied 8th) - On target (12th) Nathan Redmond, who has one goal from outside the box in his past three PL seasons, is current tied for 4th in number of shots taken from outside the box, one off the leaders. Only Granit Xhaka has attempted more shots from range without scoring.
The biggest reason I feel we should try that formation is it plays to our strengths, ie we are pretty good defensively. Having basically 7 defensive players on the pitch will hopefully mean a few clean sheets and hoping that the 3 attackers can maybe carve out a goal to win the game 1-0. This is what I think Puel was thinking with his team selections most of the time. The best way to get points out of the current squad is to be negative and defensive and hope to nick the odd goal. It cost him his job ultimately, but actually got us some decent results along the way. We haven't addressed the attacking options in the squad at all so I still think we should very much be a defence first team.
Well as I've said before it is becoming more and more obvious we are lacking firepower.........I am not sure why that is as we seem to have enough reasonable quality to achieve more than our present quota of goals. 70% possession against Stoke 63% odd against United and between them only about 8 shots on Target. Ok you can argue that the opposing goalkeepers have also done their job. In 7 games only about a total of 21 shots on target............Bearing in mind two or three of them have been penalties!!! I have a feeling there will be some new personnel coming in January. For sure we need to improve and for sure we need to pronto......... Come on my Saints lets be havin' you...............
It might be firepower. It might be creativity. It might be tempo. I suspect it is a combination of parts of these.
I would agree although having said that we have created quite a few chances that have not been taken, at least on target shots.
Yep, I certainly think it's all three but IMO anf in order of importance; tempo, creativity & firepower being last because we're pretty well stuck with very limited options, especially if MP stays with the 3-1 which he's indicated.
We definitely did but MP1 just took it to a much higher level. Its interesting that quite a few things that I first saw Adkins do are now commonplace. One obvious one is having the central defenders push wide at goal kicks.
