Match Day Thread Saturday 30th April 2022. Southampton v Crystal Palace. 3 p.m. KO. St. Marys Stadium.

I pointed out at half time that Palace were quick and incisive with their attacking play, just lacking the final ball.
What makes a difference is having quick players breaking forward to support the front players and Palace did that well.
We must have one of the slowest midfield groups in the league, when you consider that our main players are Lucy, Prowsey, Romeu and Stuart.
Lucy has done well this season, but I would swap him for a quicker player who would run the ball forward at pace, similar to an in form Stuart. Redders should be doing that, on the left, but all too often he slows the game down and allows defences to regroup, instead of drawing fouls in JWP territory.
If only we could uncover someone like Gallagher. Quality player who should be playing for his proper team next season.

 

Hi Badger, he's a bit of a diver and a moaner, however. Talented bit not sure l like his attitude.

 

Granted, but then so is Broja at times. It must be in the Chelsea playbook.

 

We were sort of ok first half and went in one up of course
I thought if we could add some attacking threat we’d be ok, but we just got slower and worseo downthe pu
We shouldn’t we’re can crumble v good teams this shows we can just be utterly meh against mediocre ones

No one to lift us on the pitch when it’s not working

Perraud and FF did ok

It will be better next season

We’ll be watching us lose to Liverpool down the pub. Last home game in the evening doesn’t work for us and seems to just be a case of many will we lose by

 

He’ll fit in well at Chelsea next year before another loan year the next.

 

Palace have better attacking players than us. Olise, Eze, Zaha, Mateta and Gallagher would all be an upgrade for us. One moment of quality from Zaha was the difference. Sure we were pretty **** for 75%, they weren’t much better, 2 on the beach sides separated by a moment of quality

 

Yep, that's how I would sum it up.

 

That’s what I thought - then the ref gave them the drop ball! Which ref got it wrong then or is there a complexity to the rule?!

 

Down to 15th, probably where we belong. That's it for me, I am not going to post a match thread again this season! Pity as I expected to have a little run of results.

 

Any idea much those three newbies cost Palace?

 

Pants. That's what you get when you send out a team to avoid defeat rather than to win. Palace were always the better team. We had just 3 shots on target all game. At home!!

The score could have been worse but for FF (again). That said, is it just me that thinks he can't save shots that stay on the ground?

Defensively we looked marginally better but in their half of the pitch we offered little to no threat. Redders and Tella both worked hard to little end result (Tella consistently let down by his second touch).

I don't think we need wholesale player changes in the summer. We have a decent squad. But Ralph needs help to get the best out of them. Failure to do that will inevitably mean he'll carry the can and be dismissed which would be a real shame for the club because he is a very good coach.

 

After such a **** day this has cheered me up no end. I'm actually looking forward to next season knowing that Lincoln's comments will be influenced by him paying to watch it.

 

I know it’s only hearsay but with the talk of FF being a poor influence, wanting out, why is he playing in front of McCarthy? I’ve probably answered already saying it’s just rumours but I’d be interested to hear other comments.

 

He looks pretty committed over over the last matches, were does your poor influence want out hearsay come from?

 

Surely the wizened presence of Theo should balance this out?

Sorry.

 

Are you sure you weren’t getting Redmond and Tella mixed up? Because you perfectly described Tella there, whereas pretty much all of Redmond’s final passes found one of our players.

 

Eze, Olise and Mateta?

Eze £17m, Olise £8.5m and Mateta £18m

So in other words unlikely to have gone for/gotten Eze or Mateta but Olise would’ve been a potential option.

I think I wanted Olise last summer but whether or not we went in for him and he chose Palace or we just didn’t go in for him is another matter

 

Really disappointed by Che today. I know he has his limitations any way, but today was very poor for him. I thought Shane was comfortably the better of the two, which is saying a lot.

I'd be tearing my hair out if I was Adam Armstrong. I'm not far off doing that myself anyway. He was essentially relegated down to 5th choice striker today, due to Ralph moving Redmond central in the second half. Given that none of those four ever really looked like scoring today (Shane didn't even want to shoot), and given our lack of goals by any of them in recent weeks, and given that it was a pressure-free match, to be left on the bench today must have been galling.

 

Slightly confused by the criticism or Redmond today, would be interested in seeing his stats as usually I am critical of him but he seemed to make attacking runs and made good passes.
My main issue today is two parts. Every single time Che got the ball passed to him as we looked to break his touch knocked it back our end or he tried to pass it back to a cm or defender. This was before they had even scored. Not once did he take the ball and try and turn and run which slows every damn counter attack. Please can someone spend a whole training session with him on turning and facing the oppositions goal as we had plenty of players making attacking runs.
Secondly I want to keep Ralph but he need to make the subs quicker. The whole stadium could see that the pendulam had swung in their favour 5-10 mins before they scored the first yet we waited for the goal before changing it. At that point the heads had dropped and it was to late.

 

I don't like to slate individuals much but Tella really was awful. Definitely doesn't seem upto it at this level in my view, is probably one to go on loan this Summer.