Can’t say I see a lot of you guys but does Shane long do anything in games to constantly get picked? It seems like his scoring record Is even worse than shola amoebi who manages to fool everyone that he was a striker despite not being able to score goals! I know Ings is injured (there’s a surprise ) but surely Austin is at least a threat and Gabbiadini was surely a better option no? Why loan out a striker when you can’t score goals
Yeah I wasn't exactly being serious mate, and yeah most of us would say we should have bought a striker but Gabbi wasn't the answer. Would have preferred Austin to Long yesterday mind but then I didn't see it so don't know how we played in general.
I gathered I always though Gabiadini looked more of a goal threat. Maybe not great build up play but get the ball in the box and he’ll stick it away more often than anyone else in the side.
I'm sure Ralph is very well aware by now how poor they are. But as I've kept on saying all season, our manager - whether Hughes or Ralph - can only pick from the players available to them!! I made the exact same point to you months ago: it's not like they are choosing to leave out Mane and Bale in favour of Long, Austin, and Ely. He sees Sims and Gallagher every day in training. If he thinks they are even worse options that Long, Ely and Austin, I'm fine with trusting him on that. After all, Sims was barely getting into Reading's team - and they're in the Championship relegation zone! For yet another transfer window, the board have totally and utterly failed. In fact, they've actually made the situation worse! Is there a single Saints fan out there who, given the choice, would have had Long starting over Gabbi yesterday?
By the way, I think we're now up to ten consecutive games of failing to beat a newly promoted PL team. If we don't beat Fulham or Wolves at home, that will take us to two full seasons (under three different managers). Unacceptable.
I just don't think he had the players to beat a "park the bus team" That was evident by whom he brought on.......They played to a plan and came good...simples...... two bad errors in defence cost us. One of which was not too long after we bring the subs on. Says it all me thinks.....
That is quite impressive. Just makes staying up that much harder. Even if we had two draws against Cardiff this season...which y'know, still not ideal but hey, it's not like they dominated us in either game. Two draws against Cardiff this season would have Cardiff on 21 points in 18th and us on 26 points in 16th. That's a big swing in points between us and Cardiff just because we couldn't even grind out draws in games where they've created barely enough to win one game but somehow have beaten us twice.
I wouldn’t have Long starting over my nan I cant see Sims as a worse option than Ely. Sims has been good for us whenever called upon. Ely looks like he’s never played before. Just floats around aimlessly giving it away. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. Without even mentioning Boufal out on loan. It’s **** that we now see the youngsters as our only option. That’s the boards fault. But at least they can be coached and can run. I do know what you’re saying though, and i agree. Good manager, little choice to pick from. But he picked wrong again yesterday for me. Any manager that puts shane long in the squad is picking incorrectly.
What happened to sims? Was a couple years ago he came in and looked very good in that run of games when making his debut.
Manager stopped playing him, had a failed loan spell and hasn’t been given any more chances. Instead we spent 16million on a much worse player.
Having been at the game (sit in Kingsland) the Cardiff fans were loud and proud from the first whistle. Although we tried to match their noise at the start, it was rare to hear all four stands singing at once. It almost seemed that we have given Cardiff a goal start such was their noise. Granted our football yesterday was Puel-esque, i.e. tentative and ponderous but a bit more noise from all of us might have helped encourage the team.
I may be wrong, but I thought that it was Ralph himself who was saying that he was satisfied with what we already had until the Summer. We can't blame it all on Les Reed any longer!
I'd say that it much more a Pellegrino than a Puel one, under Puel we had a bit more attacking purpose and worked the ball around the oppo's area not just sling it in deep after 5 minutes of sideways and backward passing.
Reed may be gone, but the rest (Krueger and Gao in particular) are still there. What Ralph may (or may not) say in public doesn't necessarily equate to what he thinks in private. There will always be an element of needing to say what your employer wants you to say, especially when you've only been in the job 5 minutes. I've got a huge amount of faith in him (which is quite impressive, given the short time he has been here). If it transpired that he really does rate Long - and more than that, was actually thinking - pre-selling Gabbi - that Long, not to mention Austin and Ely, could do with more game time, by virtue of selling Gabbi and not replacing him - then that faith I have would quickly diminish. I've got no doubt that Ralph wanted a smaller squad. But I strongly suspect that he also wanted a better squad.
