Match Day Thread Southampton v Bournemouth Saturday 28th April 3pm

I watched the whole match on Sky (before watching it again on MOTD ) and I became aware how anxiously I was watching the injury time clock tick down. Old habits die hard....expected the opposition to equalise after the match had finished.

Also pleased that one of the commentators was making a big thing of how Saints have supported Bournemouth in the past and used to cheer at the Dell if B'mouth won. He was having none of this derby nonsense.

The first goal was like the old Saints....the red arrows were back.

McCarthy had a brilliant game...that late save must surely go in on replays.

 

It was nice to see some fire in the players bellies, even Marks assistants were barking orders and communicating all the time.......world away from MP2. The

 

City playing West Ham today....come on Citeh!! West Ham are probably alright, but nothing wrong with making them sweat.

 

well this has all got very interesting.
what a great Southampton team effort!

 

It's now safe to come on the forum....and right after a match as well....no licking the wounds for a day or two.

 

Actually, the player who I thought was most noticeably moving the ball on quicker was Romeu. 3 or 4 times in the first half he received the ball facing our goal and shifted it wide and forward in one swivel. It ties in with the game plan that Shearer identified in MOTD, of getting the ball into space behind their wing-backs.

 

Did you discuss with SIRTP? Strange you call me up & not his post? Don’t worry about it though.

 

We appear to have adopted this silly zonal marking from corners, so no defender actually marks any attacker until they move into your space. The trouble then is you are jumping from a standing start but the attackers have four or five stride run up to get above the defender and has considerable momentum to knock defenders out the way.
Their goal yesterday came from this as King moved passed Romeu on the far post unmarked as he was guarding his zone and didn't follow the attacker who carried on moving

 

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018-04-28/gallery-southampton-afc-bournemouth-premier-league-1718

 

I disagree. We clearly employ zonal marking under Hughes for corners. Which by definition means you don't man-mark the players.

Whether you're in favour of man-marking or zonal-marking is another question (and arguably quite an important one to have, including in relation to whether Hughes stays or not). But given that we implement zonal marking, I don't think you can then have a go at the players for failing to man mark.

 

And then Swansea game is on SKY. And there's a decent enough chance that the City game will also be picked by SKY.

 

I moan about him a lot because he is useless most of the time. He was brilliant yesterday and if we saw that week in week out i would of course praise him. Fact is we have rarely seen that for the past 2 seasons.

 

Romeu switched off at the corner, we did not concede due to the system.

 

With 3 CBs on the pitch, we should be winning the first ball from corners every time, which by and large we did. Someone should have followed King when he peeled off though, agreed; that or we should have had someone on the far post.

 

Here's a thing with supporting Bomo, which I've always done anyway

Because af that pesky point Stoke got at Anfield we now need Bomo to beat Swansea even more so that if we then beat them then either Stoke or Swansea will definitely finish below us whatever happens when they play each other in the last game

Come on Bournemouth

 

That's why I was so annoyed with Liverpool...we now have to fear Stoke as well. That's the difference one point can make. Still, onwards and upwards.

 

I don't think Tadic has been useless at all, far from it; he's been ineffective because he is at his best when, collectively, we are getting numbers forward quickly, which until recently we haven't been doing.

Almost everything we have created this season, Tadic has been involved in. First name on the teamsheet every week for me

 

I don't think we need to fear Stoke. If we finish above either one or two of the teams above us, we'll finish above Stoke - they only have 2 games left. If we don't, we're down anyway.

 

Having only a few games left is good because the odd few points can make all the difference, but it is also bad because we now only have a few games to get those points from. Up to the team to make this work for us...starting with Everton. And that will be tough...and Swansea isn't the secret banker that a few fans seem to think. Let's hope we have the momentum when others fall away. As in many things, timing is everything.