I'm not a fan of our tactic - whether from KO or a goal kick - of kicking it long over to the left flank, but with Long in the team it did actually work for once. Even led to an opening for us inside 20 seconds. The spring he gets in his leap has always been a useful asset for us. He wasn't just beating Morgan on the ground, he was beating him in the air too. And that's before you consider that he's a 100 times more mobile than Austin. All round, Long was comfortably better than Ings or Austin on Saturday. The guy can't finish for toffee, but that hardly matters when we don't create (m)any chances for him to miss.
I’m sorry, but what good is a striker that can’t shoot? I cannot understand how so many saints fans still rate Long. The guy is absolutely useless. If we want someone to run around a lot and hassle defenders, why not play a central midfielder up front? Strikers are paid to score goals, or at least set them up, which he can not do. It’s not even a small sample size; it’s three seasons now.
Some bloke who scored a couple in the cup final and the goal that kept us up. But still never gets a run in the team despite the utter failure of others to deliver every single week.
He had literally loads of chances in the first half of last season tbf Bill. Last season he could be who you are describing as not delivering. I would play him with Ings, but he has to deliver, and it’s not like he hasn’t had a look in. Shane Long would never see another game if I were in charge. I was at the game Saturday, he played ok, but I would have thought Gabbi would have done as well or better. Btw- you do know what year Gabbi scored in the final
Gunn Stephens Bed Maya Targett JWP Davis Armstrong McQueen Gabbi Gallagher Is McQ fit? Not sure who else we have available for that position who didn’t play Sat
What good is a striker who can shoot, but rarely gets the opportunity to? In an ideal world, Long would get nowhere near our team. But, sadly, we are where we are. Look at the board for that, not Shane. Ings and Gabbi would be my preferred partnership. But given that Hughes' hands are somewhat tied by virtue of the squad he has, I can very much understand the logic of Long getting game time. There is a world of difference between "rating" Long, and looking around our squad and begrudgingly accepting a place on the pitch for him. Maybe the issue is less that some of us rate Long more than you do, and more that you rate our other players more than some of us do? (PS. I don't understand your comment about playing a CM up front, if all we want is someone to run around. Why would a CM be better at that than Long? Since when did Romeu or Davis or JWP come with pace and energy? And even if they did, I'm still not sure I'd understand.)
I think he made a grand total of 11 starts last season although i will stand corrected if wrong. That is considerably less than plenty of others who fail to deliver every week. He is no MLT but is he decent enough to be starting for our lot.
Well that is just it. Gabbiadini might be a very good striker, but he is not if he doesn't get service as he contributes very little. Our team cannot give him service as we aren't creative/good enough so it is kind of a waste of time him playing. That is not his fault, or Hughes' fault. It is the boards fault. But having someone like Long starting ahead of him isn't surprising to me as Long's workrate is more useful in our team as is than a poacher like Gabbi. Would always have him as an option on the bench though.
Tbf, that doesn't mean he is better than others. Austin also played in this defensive dreary team and scored more when fit. I still would play Gabbi and see how he does, but he has had lots of chances to play, has been here 18 months and I'm not sure he is that much better. I still think the way we play needs a Pelle or Lambert player and that's why we struggle as we can't hold the ball up as well to bring the midfield into play. Gabbi is never that type of player.
He’s not, and Austin is better suited to the one up top option (or at least was - this season he hasn’t impressed me at all so far). Gabbi deserves a run alongside Ings. Weirdly I think Gallagher/Ings or Gallagher/Gabbi could be our best option currently, and I don’t particularly rate Gallagher.
I would certainly have given the Ings/Long combo a go, no complaints there from me. It didn't work though, so what's next? Ings and Gabbi either tomorrow or Saturday please Hughesie...
We talk a lot about bringing the midfield into play, but I've never seen that as a particular problem for us. We aren't a team scraping 35% possession; the issue, generally, is that our midfield has far too much play. We are generally successful in advancing the ball into the opposition half, but the midfielders lack the creative and technical nous to create good chances. I don't really see how launching balls at a big lump will aid that; hell, the one time under Koeman that we did do that for a few games it was an abject failure.
Well it’s not working the way we’ve been doing it for a few years. I never said anything about lumping it either. I feel the way we are playing allows teams to put bodies behind the ball and we don’t know what to do with it. If we transition quicker that us likely to have a different result. We have fairly creative process players with Gaston, Boufel and they made zero difference. Who are you thinking could be the creative players we need?
Not much excitement for this one then? I'm looking forward to it, just need to try and leave work early as I'm cutting it ****ing fine at present
