Match Day Thread Saints v Watford (FA CUP) Sat 27/1/2018 3pm

Beat me to it!

 

Is that what it was? I thought they'd just gone over to salute the fans; but on reflection that's the first time I've ever heard "we're ****ing ****", except in my own head.

Actually thought the Watford fans were quality today.

 

Don't know but they were chanting "We're ****ing ****" all game as well as "what the ****ing hell was that?" after some particularly atrocious attempts at goal.

 

They were very good in the league game too as well. Also we actually sang "we're ****ing ****" in that match too

 

Big problems there... Starting to get a feeling about them being the ones who save us

 

Yeah, made me laugh. Along with - "how **** must you be, it's only 1-0"

 

Check out @fc_watford’s Tweet:

 

Of course he is desperate. Why would he gamble when he knows every bad result pushes him closer to getting sacked. He did what he thought was the best way of getting us through to the next round and it bloody worked!

 

He said himself afterwards that he was taking a risk by making the change. So he clearly didn't see it as not taking a gamble.

Says a lot that we have a manager who takes his risks by bringing on a CB...

 

Did you watch the same previous 50 odd games as I did? Been lacking for a long time now.

As for holding it up, I should clarify. If the ball is played long into the channel then he often gets there first and waits for back up.
What I meant was that you cant play the ball into his feet when he has his back to goal as he will just lose it. If you play it in the air to him he will often win the header but flick it on to nobody as he cant bring it down.

 

You, and many others, have made your mind up. Pointless debating it as whatever he does is wrong

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42845585

 

Were you actually at the game?

 

I was just pointing out what he himself said post-match, in response to you believing that he wasn't taking a gamble.

I was very pleased to see him continue with Stephens over Yoshida. I was very pleased to see him recall Boufal. I was very pleased to see him give Davis a run-out in this one (on the assumption that it means he won't play against Brighton or WBA). So no, I don't believe that whatever he does is wrong.

 

I can't agree with you - I really didn't feel we were comfortable. Watford had gone for all-out attack and had a forward line of 4 giants, against whom we put up the two shortest full backs in the league (this is a made-up statistic, but it must be close). Bringing on more aerial ability made sense to me. As other people have commented, my original thought was that Yoshida would come on for Cedric, but Cedric was doing a good job, with Hojbjerg, of nullifying Richarlison and Holebas (Richarlison was getting really pissed off) so I can understand wanting to keep him on. I think the problem was not with the substitution, but with the fact that the whole team fell back into a defensive mode and just cleared the ball upfield instead of trying to build through possession. After all, there is no reason why 3-5-2 should be ultra-defensive and that's what we ended up with.

My man of the match: Hojbjerg

Did anyone else think that Carillo looked slow and unfit?

 

They'll have it all in their own hands down the stretch; final seven matches include Bournemouth (H), Burnley (H), Huddersfield (A), Palace (H), Newcastle (H).

 

Personally i saw it as bringing on a CB so the fullbacks could push on and exploit the space on the wings that Watford had given us a lot of. Pied did that well up to the point he had to get a cross in. Almost all of our chances came from crosses from wide largely with help of the fullbacks so helping them push on while also bringing in an extra CB to defend balls into the box seemed a good idea both defensively and offensively to me.

Main reason for me we struggled a bit more is we then only had the tiring Long and Tadic to counter with and we only had one sub left due to Berty going off injured. we broke through their midfield quite a few times on the counter but long was often offside second half so we had nobody to play the ball to or anyone with the pace to really get forward so ended up getting crowded out. the few times we did get the ball in for long he missed some good chances.