I'd have thought that the longer we persist with the high line, the less effective our press will become. So a double-whammy. Every team, regardless of whether they like to have the ball or not, will know that they can by-pass our press altogether by just getting the ball forward. Don't try and play your way through us - just hit all that lovely space in behind us. Even a forward with reasonable speed (eg not necessarily someone as quick as Son or Auba etc) would likely win in a foot race with Bednarek, for example. It's not like we have a Kyle Walker in the backline, who can recover back in no time. Or a sweeper-keeper in goal. (Just look at the one time we caught out a Spurs high line: Lloris was out there to just get a head on it.) We've also, on paper, got a very nice start to the season. We can't really afford to waste, say, our first eight matches.
I think we should just get the ball wide and smash it at defenders all game. Should get at least 3 penalties.
True, but to be totally boring, it's a game of two halves or have I missed something? Slightly concerning but it's only game 2 in the PL and maybe we'll play two decent halves next time?
Let’s not kid ourselves, we need both unless the new lad Sally Sue is the real deal. Our CBs weren’t suddenly great during lockdown (despite a couple of games where they threw themselves in-front of everything) and even then looked likely to be done on the break. Clearly we are a CM short.
Wouldn’t he wants to keep us more rigid and compact if that were the case? Not leave wide open spaces behind for the opposition to exploit our slow defensive players. Thing is we are playing with the same players as last season and we ended last season really well. There’s no need to experiment now. Ralph should know what they can and can’t do and stick to the formation and tactics that served us well at the end of last season. When/if the reportedly speedier Salisu comes in (and hopefully a new CDM too) we will have the option of changing it up, but right now we should have been looking to continue with what we know works with the players we have. Ralph got it wrong imo. I just hope he doesn’t stick by it as long as he did with the weird selections at the start of last season.
Good point, i'm not happy that he is changing up things when we already had a system and style that works relatively well but I still think that we were conceding easy goals even on our good run and maybe he's trying ways of cutting them out but unfortunately we don't have the players for a high line as you say.
This is quite a good piece. https://www.prostinternational.com/...eres-no-money-southampton-are-risking-it-all/
I think we just need to win a few games, maybe score more than the opposition each game and we'll be fine. You guys overcomplicate it.
Agreed. Take Burnley for example. I do rate Pope (a lot), but individually I don't rate any of their defenders. If they were exposed to a high line, it would be horrendous (also hilarious). But by staying rigid and compact, they're instead hard to break down. It doesn't mean that they're good defenders, but it does mean that they're a good defence. Michael Keane hasn't looked anything near a £30m defender since he left them for Everton, because he is so much more exposed at Everton. And I would suggest that West Ham might want to stop increasing their offer for Tarkowski, for a very similar reason.
9 days ago we were europa league contenders and cup quarter finalists. Now we are relegation fodder. Well not quite. We may not be top 8 contenders but we will get better. At least the optimism has been qushed now and reality hit so get that cheque book out.
Much to my dismay, my daughter has been dating a Spurs fan! She's recently seen sense and kicked him into touch, but he still messaged her today to crow about the football. I told her to let him know that if he ever speaks to me, I'll cut his face off and use it as a mask. Was that an overreaction?