Calling for him to be sacked from the Athletic is pretty hostile, and my pointing it out isn’t mud slinging. But if you didn’t mean it I apologise,
I had a knee jerk reaction at the end of a frustrating day which I will hold me hands up to and apologise for. Both to that stupid mirror article and to your reply (I focused on the “continued” part which bothered me and not the “hostility” part) “Replace him” would have meant “replace him as the Saints person” but I am completely aware that is not how it read. They can move around because the last guy did. But I believe it is location dependent largely as I assume he does us because he is from close to here (I do stand by the point on the article being unnecessary) Since my previous post where I brought up him sticking out on TSP I have come to appreciate the balancing factor he adds. Unfortunately for him his predecessor was far more enthusiastic! Said predecessor must be completely up to his eyeball in Man United nonsense of course. Both great for journalism and bad for him as he is a fan.
To be honest I don't see any advantage. If our players are getting energy gels when we have a player down what is stopping the opposition doing the same at that point?
Fair point. It only matters more when your tactics are more energy dependent I guess. Like Klopp and his special inhalers that I’m sure I have seen conspiracy theories about Thinking more on it I would think the FA’s only issue is that these gels are kosher. Which is daft because of course they would be
Just saw the current Dortmund score and noted their Dutch forward which reminded me that their were rumours linking us to an attacker from the Dutch league in the summer - Noni Madueke He signed a contract extension until 2025 last summer. I wonder if he was another player like Cucurella and Broja who we would have liked to sign but didn’t have the funds there and now might be able to stretch above our previous limit for. Obviously not him given his contract extension - but players like him Anjorin might be another as it sounded like our interest was/is long standing Similarly don’t the work permit rules get relaxed if you pay a certain transfer fee? So when we identified Sangare and he couldn’t get a permit (I think for 9m) perhaps a future player in that bracket will allow us to up the offer and circumvent the permit issue. Or was work permits linked to fee an old thing ?
Exactly. Pretty sure every team does this in every game pretty much. Right? Or are professional footballers genuinely as fragile as they appear to be?
Shouldn't there be questions asked why so many of our players are getting injured during this period of the game? How many have not been able to continue or have been unable to play in the next games?
First, I would sell Adams for £2. That would give me £7. Allowing me to pick Lambert and Ings as my perfect striker partnership
I just caught up on this Southampton cheating thing. What a dubious statistic to build an article on. Unless you similar studies of other high press / small squad teams you cannot judge the probability of a niggle in the final third of march. If this was a more than 66% thing I would be interested but if you play a full on pressing game every game then chances are that someone is going to have an issue. And even if that issue is I am bloody knackered and I am going to exaggerate a bit then I can't see that being any different to what every player in every club does. My favourite bit is the newspaper repeating it but then at the end quickly saying no evidence of any cheating from Southampton. A whole article about cheating at Southampton but no evidence of cheating at Southampton. Hilarious.
I’m coming round to @Gregm1988’s opinion that Dan Sheldon had nothing better to write about that day!
I assume he has to do a certain amount of Saints articles per week / month ? Outside of game related ones But you would have thought there was something on the upturn in form and performances For example I remember a piece on masterminding the Christmas schedule around fixture congestion and covid and basically splitting the squad in two and not using the traditional mantra of “we’ll take each game as it comes”. But I think that was HL? But it might have been the Athletic
Gabbiadini's 'peak' with Saints lasted for about 3 or 4 games. His form seriously dipped in his second and third seasons.
Your form would seriously dip if you are not being Played. No manager since Puel played him regularly.
From my admitedly average memory, Gabbiadinis time with us sort of fit into 4 epochs. 1 - He arrived and was immediately in a purple patch of form, playing well and scoring for fun 2 - Still playing well (good movement, good runs), but being let down by the poor team around him and scoring less 3 - He stopped making so many good runs and his form completely dropped off as well as being let down by the poor team around him 4 - He got dropped from the team, and 'that Swansea goal' aside, barely made an impression when in the side again I was still a big fan though and thought he could have come good again if given a run in the team that wasn't so ****. But alas, it wasn't to be. Will always have the memories from Wembley and Swansea. Ohhhhh Gabbiadini
It’s ridiculous chiefly because Sheldon’s original article was looking at a regular occurrence and discussion of the possible reasons. I thought that it was interesting to have a Sports Scientist explain the ways that a tactic like that could be exploited. Then The Mirror made it a clickbait headline which ensnares those with a reactionary, pearl-clutching nature and poor reading comprehension. Nothing to do with Dan. He’s not liable for the way his reporting or analysis gets repurposed.
When Carl Anka was our correspondent for The Athletic I remember him writing a similar article about our ability to rotate tactical fouls and share yellow cards. We’ve been sly in our gamesmanship under Ralph and I’m all for it.
