Llorente had to turn down the Spain squad due to his injury Raphinha had to stay too due to covid. Some of ghe kids were called up but Joffy stayed due to back tweak. So on the whole Marsch will have a big % of his squad being coached. I think JM must know the relevance of the Saints match and the fixtures for all the relegation strugglers, so expecting a full on tactical war in this game, but having all your best players available is a huge bonus. Bamford could also be available….
Thanks Doc, was just thinking it will be great for JM to have the majority of the squad there, so they can work more as a unit on tactics,
No idea who else may be in squads, but these are the guys who played over the weekend Full - Stuart Dallas, Dan James Under 23's - Charlie Cresswell, Crysencio Summerville Under 17's - Archie Gray
Marsch probably sacked training off and just doing team building exercises Pass the parcel & a bit of karoke, followed by musical chairs and dunking for apples. Who cares as long as we stay up
Got to say, how Raphinha has acted since being called up for Brazil, his performance on the field and his attitude on and off I’d take £65m for him even if he offered to stay
What I'd like to see for the final 8 games is our best back four and goalkeeper (will Meslier be fit ?) on the pitch. So that's Ayling, Llorente, Cooper & Dallas. We've only had 4 clean sheets all season and Cooper started all of them (Coops has only played 15 games all season). Plenty on here have called for Struijk, Koch & Cresswell but there's little doubt that since Cooper's injury the wheels came off our defence big time. In the 8 games prior to Liam's injury we conceded; 0,0,2,1,1,1,0,0 = 5 In the 8 games following Coop's injury we conceded; 3,7,4,1,2,1,3,3 = 24 That's not including the game he was injured against Brenford...0-0 when he went off and we then conceded 2. No guarantees he'll return after injury on good form but let's hope so.
Cheers for that, Jammy. I've said on here often that I felt our problems at the back spiralled downward when Coops went out. These stats back up my observation. TBF - you could have made it a lot more alarming if you'd averaged the first 8, then averaged EVERY game to date since Coops went out.
When he's partnered by the others mentioned I believe he very much is. Flat back four with Ayling on one side and Coops 'n' Dallas on the other definitely brings out the best in him.
Southampton are one of those teams that can be dogshit one week and brilliant the next. It’s us, what are the odds which team turns up
Just think when Cooper was out, he should have stepped up as the senior CB, but as good as he was last season, he's been pretty poor this.
Agreed and he's not the only one who's suffered by not having the cogs aligned correctly in the machine. For what it's worth he's only played 6 more matches than Cooper with Struijk making more appearances. Obviously he's had his own injury/health issues and it's just been one of those seasons in my opinion. As touched upon many times it's not just having Phillips & Bamford missing but both full back slots have been hugely problematic and then multiple injuries at centre half have just about made it impossible to have the necessary cohesion.
