Redmond, like Ings and the other first team players, need to match practice and fitness, so bringing on Adams reduces that build up. TBH Adams has had enough opportunities to make some positive impac; Smallbone and others coming through deserve their chances now to show what they can do.
It is a different game. It's a mini-tournament played with new rules and yet will apparently satisfy the paymasters. Had we conceded a couple of early goals I might have found the thought of rodding the drains attractive. But we didn't and by the end I was in my usual end of match funk - oh God, we're 3-0 up but there's five minutes to go. It's a sort of PTSD brought on by Tranmere a few years back. I'm pleased we are probably now absolutely safe. I'm happy for Liverpool to win the two games they need to win the title. They certainly were the best team in the league prior to lockdown. But after that the painting of the spare bedroom will probably be more attractive than watching any of this football sham.
Apart from one horrendous game, we are strangely hard to score against. The defence always look dodgier than they actually are...probably designed to finish off a few of their older fans with weak tickers. I can only assume that we defend better as a whole though lacking truly top class defenders. Fine by me if it works. I am being very brave and watching a rerun of the match
Are we difficult to score against? It never feels like that. The clean sheet was nice though. Was watching via updates on my phone, at 2-0 I was fully expecting a third goal; I was just amazed it was us that scored it!
I'd agree with this post-Leicester (or whenever we actually switched to 4 at the back - Arsenal??) As soon as we settled on 4 defenders with Stephens & Bednerak in the centre - we completely changed. We of course need to sign a RB and a CB - It'll be interesting to see whether we sign a CB for depth or to start - and who gets dropped if it is the latter.
Great news in today's Daily Telegraph! In their match report, they've highlighted that Saints have had 23 away victories in the league this season. I had to read it several times to be sure that I wasn't missing something. So, that's 69 points, putting us well clear of Man City in second place. If we include our 14 home points, we're top! I suspect that The Telegraph may need a better proofreader. It should be points, not victories, but hey, it's in The Telegraph! I've booked the open-top bus already. Edit: I wrongly blamed The Times for this. It was in The Daily Telegraph. Damned intellectual papers!
You are quite right...shows it is all down to perception. However, our gd would be pretty good without that one result....which I have nearly erased from my memory.
I think we’ve got CBs for depth, Vesty and Danso; and therein lies the problem, depth generally means not good enough. We need someone good enough to challenge for a starting place, but probably can’t get anyone good enough to be an automatic starter The trick to our improvement is surely getting someone who then improves, so either Jack and Jan improve or end up on the bench Danny sure improves our defence
I am not sure whether the impression was attributable to the poor quality of the opposition or the inferior television coverage yet last night's performance felt like our best of the season. Ings was unlucky in the first half and in the second period I felt we were a bit profligate. If we had won 6-0, Norwich could not have complained. I agree about the comments about the superb Armstrong and Valery been poor last night.
Armstrong’s constant desire to get the ball forward is so important to us MOTM Valerie doesn’t appear to want to be a full back. Would be better in a back 5 which is no good for us
Was occasionally mixing them up which is testament to JWPs performance Now if JWP can start scoring from open play...
But no one transitions defence into attack quicker, more reliably or more often than Stu. When they do there’ll be a contest for places on
I was sure he was going to get one last night, he must have had more shots on target than anyone else!
I really want James to get another goal from a free kick in the remaining games. He is going to over take LeTiss at some stage, and what an amazing bit of history that would create.
I think that one of the key moments, in the second half, was the chance Pukki had to score. Bednarek seems to have that knack of being in the right place, at the right time, to get in the way of shots and if that shot had gone in the rest of the second half could have been a replica of the second half at SMS. Updated stats put his blocks at 23 for the season. https://www.southamptonfc.com/first-team/jan-bednarek
