if you spend the little money you have to follow saints then you can say what you want the fans that pay and are in the stadium are beyond reproach end of
In the absence of anything else to go on, that’ll do In truth I’d take a draw. In which case Cardiff then becomes a must-win.
I didn't expect much from Leicester and Everton, so ahead of the game as far as I'm concerned. Would have hoped to beat Palace, but once they went ahead the important thing was not allowing them to get 3 points. Tick...achieved. I doubt we will get 3 points off Arsenal again, so really want something from Burnley and Cardiff….at least 4 points would be fantastic. Always best to start with a win, so I choose beating Burnley.
This always seems to be the party line, and I accept it. What I don't understand is just why? Do the hecklers actually believe it is going to snap the players into some kind of improvement? Even given the evidence in front of us of home form just sinking lower and lower? Do they know it will make it worse but they think of it as a kind of protest to bring about change even if it's by us sliding downwards? Or (for my final leading question!) is just short-sightedness and a failure to control their emotions? If someone follows football and they don't see that consistent support gives energy and confidence to the players on the pitch then I just don't know how they could have possibly come to any other conclusion. We've seen it once the crowd got up and behind the boys once Ralph injected some life, the players looked completely transformed. That wasn't just Ralph having a magic touch. And some would probably argue 'but if we hadn't made it so clear how unhappy we are, we wouldn't have had change and gotten Ralph'... But again, we have the evidence in front of us that change does indeed sometimes get you to luck into an out-of-work highly rated young manager who fits the bill exactly and buys into the project we have... It also gets you the desperation of Mark Hughes. Or Pellegrino, though I don't think he was terrible. Is it worth the blind risk? So yeah, if you pay to go and watch then it's totally your right to act as you please (as long as it's not like the dickhead to just got the 3 year ban). And I've had that exact justification given to me a million times and never disagreed. And yeah, you can rightly and happily (or grumpily) call yourself a Saints fan. But can you call yourself a supporter? And is that not the only thing we can *actually do* to affect things on the pitch? We can talk on here all day, turn up at games and fill seats, buy Saints tat, shout from the hills about being a die-hard Saints fan to the core... But we have no real control and make no real difference as to what happens, and that's all part of the unbearable agony. The *only* thing we can do, is support. Whether it's singing, clapping, cheering, celebrating... That's all we have. Or at the very least... Just not shouting at, criticising, abusing or impatiently heckling players. I'm not one for the kind of lines you see on small motivational posters, or spiel you'd hear from an overly 'look on the brightside' therapist... But one thing I strongly believe aids to a healthy and happy mind, even if takes effort to put it into practice, is *control what you can control, don't stress or agonise over what you can't*. It doesn't automatically stop what you can't control from often being ****ing ****, but focusing on things that are negatively affecting us from out of our control is one of our brains favourite things to do, and what's the point? So even when what we're looking at is miserable energy-sapping football, the one thing we can control is ourselves. And we might not be able to get ourselves giddy enough to sing and cheer the shower of **** we're watching, but we can control not throwing more **** into said shower.
I think that we finally shook off the rust in the last 20 minutes last night and think that we will be more on it in this one. It was a very un-Ralph performance, slow and ponderous with no movement and hardly any high energy pressing, let's hope that it was just an off day for the team. 2-1 Saints
I agree with that and thanks for giving a full and well considered comment. I certainly didnt mean that you can shout any old abuse just coss your in the stadium. I despise that nonsense. I dont condone any form of hatred fueled nonsense that comes from some idiots mouths
To be fair, Hodgson deserves a lot of credit for our performance. Palace were more than happy to stop us playing through the middle, forcing us to hit long diagonal passes to the wingbacks, then close them down very quickly,forcing them to go back to the CBs. Hopefully Burnley won’t do the same.
When you play three cbs you are a man short in attack, and with your three cms coming short to collect the ball you’ve got 6 players basically out of the game, all looking for a pass forward to 4 players (reds/ings/targ/Valery) who are comfortably marked. So when your movement and link up play (one-twos/triangles/third-man runs/off-the-ball runs) are not on it the guys on the halfway line go sideways and out wide and back. When it is on it - you are able to overload each section of the pitch compared to the opposition. It’s why so much emphasis is on attackers movement in between the lines and cms/cbs who can pass in between the lines.
And to stir it up even more, if we are awarded one penalty, it’s a single pen. If we get three penalties, I assume that is a hatrick pen. What would be two pens awarded be? I think I’d be in dream land if we get the third pen awarded on 92nd min to go 1-3 up.
I didn’t sound right being a brace and I could think of the right word. I was going to use double but that sounded rude.
He’s a good manager and was not totally surprised by the way he set them up to stop our recent way of playing, especially for the first 20 mins or so. Sometimes we just have to accept we ‘lose’ to others tactics and ideas. Difficult but true.
If there was a system that won every time, all teams would play like that and games would end in a stalemate. There are other variables.
I applaud Roy & Palace. How many times have we stopped teams from playing, but they are having an off day. Credit where credit is due, they played well and stopped us from our new normal game.
Burnley play the same game as Pulis and Big Sam It’s no good trying to close them down up front as the go direct to their big front men with a packed defence. Their front men, if nothing on, will try and draw a foul (dive) to get a free kick then up come the big lads and then toss the bass in and hope. Repeat
