I was just having my usual daily laugh and joke at my bosses expense (Brighton Fan) when he turned to me and said something that I found maybe of note however as I am using my phone I cant easily check out the stats. He said in his own words " Just wait until your fair weather pansies start getting injured and your awful winter form kicks in". Was our form worse in the winter than the summer? Does the form of Lambert, Lallana and Guly go even just slightly? Just has me thinking and wanted to know if he is talking sh**e as normal! Cheers!
Was it Alan Pardew who said "Southampton are a racehorse that doesn't like mud"? Whoever it was had a point, certainly the free-flowing passing style of football we play now is best suited to a nice even grassy pitch. BUT, and it is a big but, we can also play direct, aerial football as well, as we did for Guly's first goal on Saturday. Personally I'm not bothered, Nigel will come up with a game plan that will see us through.
Thanks to the bad weather, an FA Cup run, and a dodgy late cancellation from Andy D'Uro, we didn't have a huge number of games last winter. Four league games in November: 4-0 win at home to Dag & Red; 3-2 loss away to Carlise; 4-1 win at home to Posh; 0-0 draw at home to Brighton Two league games in December: 2-0 loss at home to Brentford; 4-1 win at home to Huddersfield Five league games in January: 4-0 win at home to Exeter; 3-1 win away to Dag & Red; 6-0 win away to Oldham; 0-0 draw at home to Notts County, 2-0 loss away to Tranmere Five league games in February: 2-1 win away to Exeter; 4-4 draw away to Posh; 1-0 win at home to Carlisle; 0-0 draw away to Hartlepool, 4-1 win at home to Swindon So a total of just three defeats in those four months.
In fact, if you include the 3rd round game vs Blackpool, we actually won five straight games from 28th December to 11th January - scoring 19 goals and conceding just 2.
Stadiums and pitches are of a much better quality in the Championship compared to League 1 - therefore, I have no concerns.
I actually think this is when Rickie is most important for us. In some away games where the pitch is awful, we won't be able to rely so much on rolling the ball around quickly, and the highly technical players like Lallana and Schniederlin might struggle to play to their full ability. However, physical players like Rickie and Hammond will be useful when the football inevitably gets a bit ugly. Also, I can't see many away fixtures during the winter months where conditions would be that bad, the game at Donny on December 3rd being the most notable exception. And I presume there will be no "winter form" on our lovely pitch, so our ridiculous record at St Mary's can hopefully continue.
Thanks for the stats chap! I will put the gobsh**e in his place in a minute! Did we have many of our main players injured during that time? Or just Oxo.
Why Doncaster? The Keepmoat stadium has a well kept all weather pitch - similar to ours. It's Fratton Park and Ashton Gate that could be cause for concern, that's all in my opinion.
That's a really good point about Lambert and our more physical players we will need them to be fully focused and pumped up for a cold winters night away from home against a scrappy team. Don't see a problem at home games.
I was thinking about the upcoming winter period and away pitches this morning. Looking at the fixtures I would have thought that the majority of pitches would be okay. Last season our winter away matches included Carlisle, Tranmere and Hartlepool where we dropped points. This season our away fixtures Nov-Feb are as follows: Coventry City Bristol City Doncaster Portsmouth Brighton Nottm Forest Birmingham West Ham Utd Watford I guess Bristol City and Poopey are the only potentially bad pitches there, you would hope the others should hold up quite well.
Doncaster have a brilliant pitch, clearly ignorant and stereotyping them for being an unfashionable club. Bristol city's pitch will be fine as well.
Depends how bad the weather gets, but up in Yorkshire it could get pretty bad. Yeah I agree about Fratton Park and Ashton Gate actually.
Exactly what I was going to say. There are no bad pitches in the Championship (well, maybe the one down the M27! ) so the pitches should be good enough to play our passing game.
Who actually has the worst pitch in the Championship? Let's not be biased against a certain team here unless it actually is!
Peterborough or Pompey i'd say. Middlesbrough's Riverside get's quite bad in the thick of winter aswell.
