He’s one of our own, and that does count for something. Also, if we’re looking for individuals to take the blame for our current predicament, he would be a long way down the list. But I think he has reached his ceiling, and the ceiling is “utility player” at this level.
Team for next game: McCarthy Valery Bednarek Danso Bertrand Djnepo PEH Armstrong Redmond Ings Long/Adams Might still lose but I think this team and this formation will have a bit of effort and fight to it. PEH to be the holding midfielder. Creativity from Redmond, Djnepo and Armstrong. Can't decide between Adams or Long to partner Ings. Neither score many but they do work hard.
Its not not that he plays it safe, its that he can't beat players by himself. If he doesnt have players making runs around him he can't do anything. He's not like Redmond or Boufal where they work well in tight spaces by themselves. I think thats why prowse looks 100 times better when we are actually playing aggressively, and we have overlapping fullbacks and players he can 1 - 2 with. He's also our second best player this season behind Djenepo according to Whoscored
Yeah, I’d rather spend 90 minutes at the dentists than watching Saints managed by Allerdici. The Evertonians I was talking to on the way back to the car weren’t much more optimistic about the rest of your season than we are about ours btw.
They sounded genuinely depressed. It’s a long way from Soton to Liverpool after watching two awful teams, even if you’ve bagged three points.
If teams are not scared of our defense and they are also not scared of our midfield, what difference does it make whether we play 4-3 or 5-2? Don't forget RH's favored formation is 4-2-2-2. So we could theoretically have all four of Ings, Boufal, Djenepo, and Redmond in at once. He's not using that because we were bad when he tried it. 5 at the back is fine. If you have a good attacking players, but lousy defense, it stand to reason you can spare an extra attacker for a defender and still get by. Or a midfielder if midfield support helps the defense more. Whichever one works better. But on this case, neither formation requires us to play anyone out of position. Both formations involve throwing on an extra **** player instead of a different **** player. We have tried both, and sucked. IMO, it is not the formation.
Agreed. He’s not terrible and I’m not blaming him but he’s a utility midfielder and we need someone in the Schneiderlin wanyama mould who can boss the midfield. He’s a Davis mk2 which would be fine if we had a midfield and defence.
Unfortunately, he is nowhere near as good as Davis was at tracking runs, closing people down and beating a man.
I remember it well He spent most of the game passing the ball back to whoever gave it to him Oriel lost or gave the ball away a number of times following one of these one-twos
Actually I only think it counts for something when you're good enough and he isn't I don't blame him for not being good enough, that's not his fault I can only blame him for occasionally taking a great free kick, corner, penalty or popping up and scoring (damning him with great praise? ) and getting himself a starting place Our midfield is disfunctional and we've got to try something other than JWP PEH & ORV (Vidal) Who would you change? ORV our best defensive midfielder, PEH who is surely better than we're seeing at the moment, or JWP who is great when the ball isn't moving? I think the 3 of them together amount to less of the sum of their parts and the right replacement for one of them will make the other 2 better At least Armstrong is different. Energetic, quickish, attack minded and runs with the ball Where's Arry Reed when you need him???
During Ralph's first few games at St Mary's we were far more expansive and the team appeared to press more often. Yesterday the criticism on Radio Solent was that the attacks were not happening with any pace and I recall this being the same issue with MP2. There were moments last season which strongly suggested that , given a decent defence, the team would do well this season. In fact, the opening matches against Man Utd and Liverpool may not have garnered the expected points tally, but the performances were decent enough. Ralph's attributes last season were not only steadying the ship but also improving the performances of players like Redmond, PEH and JWP. on top of that, the likes of Obafemi and Valery genuinely looked like players who would be significant this season. In fact, under Ralph, JWP looked like achieving his potential at last and he was becoming the player many had predicted. This doesn't appear to have happened since September. JWP and PEH have been poor , Danso looks like a fringe player who will be lucky to get a match and Valery has lost his mojo. The major acquisition of the summer appears to be lacking in confidence and Ralph's ability to muster improved performances has clearly not worked with him. On top of that, attacking players like Djenepo and Obafemi have been injured which has not helped. I don't think this latter problem has helped but whatever was done to improve the players last season has not happened this time although I strongly believe that Ralph should put more confidence in Boufal and he will get the results. For what it is worth, I am still undecided about Armstrong. I think he needs to be picked in the correct position as I am certain we have not seen the best of him by a long stretch. It is almost a case of wondering why we bought him in the first place but I would be very interested to see what he can do, As for Callum Slattery, he seems to have disappeared off the radar although there was a lot of talk pre-season with him being the break through player this year. Maybe we need to mix things up a bit more although I think the options with the defence as a major stumbling block. We a decent back four, I think that the bones of a decent squad are there but it just seems to be that there are too many there who are not playing for Ralph and maybe those who are not fully committed should be moved on in January.
Agree with all of this, as terrible as putting a RB at LB and a CM at RB was, even the players that were in their correct positions have regressed... It has to be lack of confidence, and once you're in a slump like this, its really difficult to turn around. But stranger things have happened.
Neither! If possible, Gerrard and McCallister, or just McCallister, who I think is the driving forcé behind Rangers on the playing and training side. Look at him and there is a burning intelligence inside that head.
Team for next game: IanThumwood SaintRichie - Chilco -Beddytare - ChannonFodder LeTissiersLaces - RAWMOK - Archers - Libby FatLeTiss - ThereIsOnlyOneNo7 Ref: Tom We'll walk it.