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

But its unprofessional to let King pull away and to be unchallenged

 

If he goes into a zone that's not being marked, he goes into in a zone that's not being marked. For almost every single set piece during that game, Howe and Tindall were making all sorts of hand signals to tell their players exactly where to go. They clearly practice a number of different variations in training, and take into consideration how the opposition defend.

But whether you employ zonal-marking or man-marking, if you concede a goal it is often because someone hasn't done their job. I've only seen one brief highlight, but it looks like Cook beat one of our players to the initial header. If we win that, the ball doesn't get to King.

(I'm not trying to defend zonal-marking here, btw. I'm just highlighting that it's the strategy we employ. It will leave players unmarked.)

 

Just about recovered from the game and post match / evening celebrations, thank god the seasons coming to a close?
One of the best things for me yesterday, apart from the obvious 3 points, was the players reaction at the end of the game, clearly they are a pretty tight bunch and they seem to want to play for Hughes and the management team?
The team that pulls together is the team that's going to get out of this mess and I think we now stand a reasonable chance of pulling it off.

 

Having no player on the post didn't help much either.
I know it's a bit "old school" but having defenders on/by post at corners often play a crucial part in clearing lines...... rather than conceding goals.

 

Let's not get carried away because of one game.

For assists this season, he is joint 63rd in the league (behind Bertrand, level with JWP).

 

Love this, but look at Gabbiadini's reaction....

 

But then you could also put the case that the finishing has been so poor this season (& last!) that that, in turn, makes the conversion rate of (any) potential assists low in the extreme.

 

He’s also level with Austin as our top scorer this season, so he can’t be all that bad!

 

Its just raised another possibility of going down. Now I know this is over-thinking, but it is quite possible

Assuming Huddersfield don't get another point ...
If we beat Swans and lose to Everton & Citeh. Swans beat Bomo and lose to Stoke. Stoke beat Palace

Then Stoke & Swans end up above us by one point and we go down
Previous to their Liverpool game we would have still been above Stoke on GD and safe

I'm going to shut up now and just concentrate on the next game

 

Chances created is, and always will be, a far superior and relevant statistic than assists.

 

Having played almost every game though. Take away pens, before yesterday just 3 goals all season.

Anyway I don't wanna be a complainer today. Just saying his poop is not completely stink-free.

 

Rocky road. People will then start blaming our strikers for making Tadic look bad, which will make others blame Tadic for making strikers look bad.

Let's just agree they've all been well below standard this season.

 

I bet you didn’t discount all those penalties and free kicks Rickie Lambert scored from! Seriously though, all our players have had mood swings this season, and who can blame them really!

 

Haha, when Tadic scores 30+ a season I'll count his pens!

 

Considering our inability to score goals its not easy to be much higher, is it?

More assists than Pedro !!!

 

Absolutely. We know that most of our players were below par. Could all have been different if we had scored a few valuable goals earlier in the season.....once tails went down and confidence was lost, we lacked the leader (player or manager) who could get it back together. Tadic loves supplying a good striker, but we didn't have one who was on-song, so he started to try and think.....always dangerous for a footballer. Let's hope that having found their mojo, they make it work for the last 3 games.

Talent comes first, but you also need confidence and trust in your team mates.

 

And only one behind Hazard!

But also less than half of Gross, Albrighton, Ibe, Cresswell...

 

Spot on, he was playing instictively like he used to do under Koeman.

 

I also think that Dusan's after match comments were revealing, describing the new coach's "power and experience" making a difference.

 

And if your aunty was your uncle......


as the saying goes.