Disagree Yes he did well 2nd half against Celta Vigo but against BMG far too often we lost any momentum attacking because he wanted to cut back onto his left foot each time. I'd rather see Valery given a go
I listened to hughes interview. hadn't realised Moi was injured in pre season. i was wondering why he didn't get the gametime.
I thought Stephens was fine at RB. He doesn’t have the same speed or willingness to attack and play crosses from the flag as Cedric, but in a 4-4-2 set up, he didn’t need to. He controlled the ball well, and played some neat passes. He was also admittedly a little sloppy on ocassion and he will need to work on that. OTOH, he got on the end of an Ings cross at the far post and nearly scored. It took a pretty good save from Hart to stop it. Not sure I’d want to see Stephens there every game, but I think there are situations he might be preferable to Cedric. I do wonder what becomes of Stephens in the long term. He does seem to be a bit jack-of-all trades but master of none. Perhaps his role going forward is to fill in at CB or RB depending on the game or if someone gets hurt, and otherwise come off the bench at some sort of defensive midfield-ish role as an extra defender should we nred to hold a lead. I also think we will continue to play 3 at the back for certain games. It all adds up to a decent amount of playing time, and perhaps he can settle into a position. JWP, Sims, Gallagher and Harrison Reed look to be well down the pecking order at the moment. More concerned with their development at the moment.
I liked the description from Hughes of the crowd having a bit of a hangover. I think there might have been a few genuine ones but mainly I thought the crowd were a bit rusty themselves. And with nothing to shout about for the first 45.
JWP was on the bench yesterday, and if we do revert to playing in a 4-4-2, then he could come in very useful on the right this season.
I remember his debit for a ten minute cameo at RB. He looked very good for that short stint that day. I thought he would kick on then, but then we didn’t see him for years.
My ratings for match. Fear: 10+ first half; 4 second half. Enjoyment: -1 initial 15 minutes, rising to 4 until half-time; 7 second half. Overall hope for future matches: 7 Would have hoped for better (but we all know what hope does)….we can't start like that against better sides, but plenty to feel good about once we stepped up the game. New players looked very promising....Ings looked a class above (if you can judge on one game). Hate seeing Austin on his own....if you do that, you have to be sure that other players bomb forward to support him and Burnley put a stop to that initially.
If Saints get complaints, I'm sure they will pay attention and get their own evidence if they need it. Your bit was reporting the guy.
I was trying to fit out best performing players from yesterday into a 4 4 2 but had a hard time fitting Armstrong in there without dropping a DM so went back to my favorite formation with this : -------Ings-------- Ely---Stu----red ----Lemi--Rom-- Bert-vest-yosh-ced With a 4 4 2 maybe : ------------Austin-Ings------------------ Ely Romeu Armstrong Redmond Bertrand Vestergaard Yoshi Cedric.
Is this mad? JWP at RB in a 4 4 2 ? At least it means somebody playing in that position who can actually cross the ball and is obviously our best dead ball kicker.
I'd rather JWP as RWB in 5-3-2 than in a back 4. For me JWP only gets near to be the starting line up in a 4-2-3-1
I think it depends on the opponent. If we're playing with two wingers in a 4-4-2, like we ended up against Burnley (which I think we all agree we liked), then against the trickier teams, where there'll be more emphasis on defence, and our best chances may come from set pieces, I don't mind seeing JWP there ahead of Redmond, and bringing NR on if we need to chase the game late on. Normally though, and on the form he showed second half, NR starts though.
I think your suggested 4-2-3-1 is a really good lineup. Actually, although when the change happened yesterday I immediately said"they've gone 4-4-2", in retrospect it was much more like a 4-2-3-1, with Ings being one of the three. He came deep a lot and swapped places a lot with Ely on the left. In fact it seemed to me that one of the most pleasing things about the change of personnel / formation was that suddenly things were much more fluid (much helped, obviously, by there being an extra man there).
ITK on Saints web ericb "They're not all happy, and they're not all acting in the most professional way behind the scenes. One is even acting in similar ways to Jose Fonte at the moment."
