Interesting to read this thread and compare it to my take on the match. While I agree we were poor in the first half, we were far, far better than them in the second and I certainly didn't feel the game was utterly one-sided. I know I'm going to be shot down for all sorts of daft reasons* but maybe, just maybe it's worth considering what the expected goals were namely Palace 1:1.36 Southampton. Thiose numbers from Understat. BBC had it as (I think, only saw it for a second or two) 0.75:1.5 from Opta. That puts the lie to "it should have been 4-0 at half time" or "if you consider our misses you also have to consider theirs". xG takes into account that a speculative shot from 35 yards is not the same opportunity to score as Che's chances. It was a suprisingly even match versus the take on here. We were pants in the first half and good in the second. We were creating chances; good ones. Short of Ralph running on and taking the shot instead of Che I do feel that at that point it's a little out of Ralph's hands. Weeping about us not creating anything is nonsense when we clearly did create chances. We just didn't take them. Anyway, just a bit of balance as a counterpoint to the black and white thinking (mostly black) I've been reading. We weren't outstandingly good over 90 minutes and we weren't outstandingly bad over 90 minutes. Vin * Assume in your responses that I'm not brain-damaged and do already know that we don't get points for xG. That point has been made ad nauseam and may be the single most boring thing it's possible to say in response.
I think people are largely pissed off by the way we play, yet again an entire 45 mins of utter tedious sideways and backwards plodding. Not sure ive seen so much of people staying the game was one sided. We absolutely could have drawn, or indeed won this match. But we didnt. Yet again. And it is a habit, that is black and white, we mainly lose.
Have a feeling we'll see Adams (not big, big man) and Mara (nippy and skilful finisher) up top for the next game, and I'm keen to see it.
Good to see that just simply replacing Diallo with AMN made us so much better, shows how small changes can make a big difference and we clearly aren’t as **** as we sometimes look We sooooooo need a goal scorer !!!!! If we’d won we’d have been 10th and 1pt behind Liverpool- very frustrating
If he wasn't injured in the PL2 match, I'd really like to see Edozie get a chance to start, as well. As we don't seem to be much for possession, playing a counterattacking group with real pace and skill (alongside Adams' hold-up play) makes as much sense as anything to me.
We are, personally I've given up on any serious discussion coming from MOTD as, in fairness, they ignore quite a few 'lesser sized' clubs. As long as the media has enough to go on about with the usual suspects, we're not on their radar.
I'm okay with bringing him on more slowly - he suffers a bit from Djenepitis where he wants to beat every man three times. It used to be called Fabricfernadolis but was recently re-named. He'll learn, but I don't know if he's quite starter material at the moment. Could be completely wrong. It feels like one of those seasons where an Edozie or a Mara suddenly catches fire and saves Ralph's job/our campaign. Much like Long bizarrely did for Koeman that year.
I noticed that yesterday for the first time, he seems to be too keen to impress that he needs to beat the same man 2 or 3 times.
Part of the reason I'd like to see him starting actually: I think his talents are probably better suited to open grass rather than packed defenses.
