Yeah, I don’t think lack of pace is necessarily a huge problem for CBS (think we’ve covered this before, somehow). Vestergaard looked promising enough in his first couple of appearances. I actually still believe in Hoedt, but have to admit he is becoming increasingly error prone. That happened to Paulo Gazzaniga iirc, but Spurs fans seem to love him. When defenders or keepers make mistakes it’s usually costly; doesn’t mean they can’t learn or improve.
Problem is, in our current predicament we don’t have the luxury of giving Hoedt time to learn on the job. We need a leader in there, not a bottle job.
We absolutely need a leader. We've needed one for quite a while - maybe ever since Fonte left. Bertrand is a mile away from ever being a leader, and consequently is a very poor captain and organiser of the back line. But at the same time, the transfer window is closed. So we're somewhat restricted. I get it, you don't like Hoedt, you don't like Austin, you don't like Long, you probably don't like half the squad (if not more). You make your feelings very clear on that, very often. Unfortunately we can't just decide to pick Virgil, Mane, Bale and Toby instead.
Based on what I saw on Saturday, I think there is still a lot of potential in the team. We have a good keeper. Maya and one other (Stephens or Hoedt in my opinion) are decent CBs. Cedric is a tad small, but is an international RB and Bertrand is ok. Pete (Hoejberg sp?) and Lemina are solid in midfield - I’d like us to have someone with a bit more Jim Steele (pun intended) there, Redmond is finally running at defences and they are terrified. Charlie is a predator and if his goal had stood we would all be very happy and Gabbi has rediscovered his mojo and should definitely start now. Ings is also another good striker but it looks like he may be injured now. I don’t know why we played the Scottish lad upfront with Charlie - I thought he was a midfielder. He is naturally behind the pace as he’s only started a couple of games. I’m of the opinion that if we get a couple of lucky breaks and get the confidence back in the team, we’ll be ok. Oh yes - and a couple of decent refereeing decisions!
Certainly, though Hoedt is bad and mistake-prone with well over 100 starts in top tier competition under his belt, which is somewhat different than Gazzaniga, who came to Saints as a 20 year old with zero experience above League 2 and played sparingly. He can learn and improve, but he's too experienced to chalk it up to novice errors, and there have been persistent suggestions that his attitude doesn't really lend itself to self-improvement.
Maya's a natural leader. He plays his heart out and he was the one rallying the defence on Saturday. Vin
The problem is, we aren’t picking the best team from the squad we have, the transfer window makes no difference at all. Everyone with half a brain has been calling for Yoshida to play. Everyone with the slightest common sense would drop long from the squad. I know we can’t pick mane, bale etc. But we can start picking a team that actually utilises our best players. Austin I actually have never slated as I do like the guy, although that opinion may change based on this season
They have also announced that they’re bringing in VAR... which means that the reason he didn’t get fined is because they agree with him
Premier League clubs voted to bring in VAR. FA have nothing to do with it. Premier League proposed it and PL clubs agreed to bring it in.
Unsurprisingly, I know a lot of Saints fan personally. Not a single one of them, myself included, thinks Long is any good at scoring. And yet not a single one would drop him from the squad. So thanks for letting me know that I and all of them have no common sense. We're picking 18 players, not 5. We suffered in my view of having to bring on Charlie against Watford, for the best part of an hour, as opposed to Long. It's utterly embarrassing that Long should be getting game time for us. But our squad is so weak that I would have him in my 18 every time. Then again though, I have no common sense.
Good, the evidence for his statement was clear for all to be seen. As long as that's it, re outbursts, concentrate on getting some points from the field of play rather than over the airwaves. Move on!
Given the goal scoring form of this squad for the last two years, I'm genuinely curious why you and everyone you know have kept steadfast in your support of a player who has started regularly as a striker but can't score or setup goals. Is it that you enjoy watching him get tangled up and fall over or stop suddenly and pitch forwards onto his face at the slightest touch. I have much admiration for his prodigious leap myself but given that it never leads to a ball in the net or a knockdown for another player I don't see the value of it to the team. That turn of pace and retriever like ability to chase down every ball is valuable with 5 minutes to go when we're hanging onto a 2-1 lead. If we ever get to that point again, I'll be screaming for Shane Long to come on and run down the clock. There is seriously no correlation between Long starting and no goals being scored to you and your crcle? I've done it again. I swore I wouldn't engage. Damnit.
The numbers don't really support the notion that Long contributes to the scoring of goals in ways that don't show up in his goals tally, nor the notion that his work rate leads to fewer goals against. There have been 30 Shlong Starts from 2016-17 on: in those games, we have scored 30 goals while surrendering 44. In 58 non-Shlong Starts, we have scored 56 goals and surrendered 81. The numbers on a per-game basis are almost identical...1 goal for and 1.47 against with him, 0.97 for and 1.40 against without him. Yeah, he doesn't make us noticeably worse either, but there isn't much to choose between our strikers in recent years. They're all bad.
Would 100% have Long in the team before Austin. The fact he is still 3rd choice (so at least in the match day 18) is far more damning of the recruitment team than him.
