Match Day Thread Southampton v QPR,26/08/23,15:00 KO

[Star of David Bardsley]

I actually thought your lot were pretty good today. Very stubborn defence, and some effective turnovers. I mean, it's very 'park-the-bus-and-hoof-it-to-the big-man', but for what it's worth, it was effective (at times). The fact that you created just as many, if not more, clear-cut chances as the fancy passy passy team, speaks volumes.

Like the look of your Armstrong, plus Smyth and Colback. Think you've got enough decent players be a solid mid-table team.

Thanks. The first game at Watford was appalling. Genuinely should have been 10-0. Since then we’ve beaten Cardiff slightly fortuitously and lost narrowly to yourselves and Ipswich when I felt we were good enough for 2-4 points so there is some hope. The squad is woefully thin though and there’s a chance we lose one of the few sellable players in the next few days and then we’re really ****ed.

It is what it is though. In a perverse way it’s shaping up to be a more enjoyable season than most. There’s heart there we’ve not seen much of over the last 5-10 years even if there’s not much ability.

 

[milton archer]

Parkham , near Bideford. Long journey south. Used to be 12 hours in the 70’s, now it’s only 11 hours 45 minutes. Too many selfish tourists getting in my way!

5 or 6 miles from me....decent pub

 

[EasyBreezer]

I felt that he gets pushed off the ball too easily and sometimes looks like he has problems controlling the ball. That said, I felt he was marginally better than SAA who does not strike me as being ready for first team football. The younger players such as Edosie, Charles, SAA and Mara do not strike me as being first time players at the moment. Manning is better than i expected but feel he would be moved on net season if we went up. The team seems to be morphing in to a squad that believes in the manager and has a winning mentality but the technical quality of the squad is now more presentative of the quality of football in this league. I feel the older and wiser players are the ones more likelyto get us promoted that unproven youth.

I don't know if I could disagree anymore with your assessments from yesterday's game... Charles and Edozie have both been excellent and Manning has looked possibly the weakest first team player.

You are so convinced we will come bottom half you seemingly haven't noticed we have completely dominated every game in the league and are unbeaten. All while being picked for parts. When the new guys settle in, we easily have a minimum playoff standard team on at least a par with Leeds, who we are also losing their best players, but are dropping a lot more points.

 

[saintrichie123]

Russell Martin on Jack Stephens’ injury: “It’s a real negative for us. It looks like a bad one. I think we need to fear the worst on that one, unfortunately. If it’s anything better than the worst I’ll be happy.”

 

[Osvaldorama]

Russell Martin on Jack Stephens’ injury: “It’s a real negative for us. It looks like a bad one. I think we need to fear the worst on that one, unfortunately. If it’s anything better than the worst I’ll be happy.”

Gutted for him. He knew it was bad straight away, he looked down at it then shouted “FUCCCKKK”. I could hear it up in row LL. He’s a brave player, for sure. Was more annoyed about not playing than the pain.

 

[Star of David Bardsley]

I don't know if I could disagree anymore with your assessments from yesterday's game... Charles and Edozie have both been excellent and Manning has looked possibly the weakest first team player.

You are so convinced we will come bottom half you seemingly haven't noticed we have completely dominated every game in the league and are unbeaten. All while being picked for parts. When the new guys settle in, we easily have a minimum playoff standard team on at least a par with Leeds, who we are also losing their best players, but are dropping a lot more points.

Not a chance in hell you finish bottom half. Martin is a decent manager but a **** one would have you top six. It’s a pretty dismal league bar three or four teams. I may be biased as I don’t like the bloke but I agree on Manning. I think he often played left of a three at Swansea which covered for his lack of pace. Good player on the ball though undoubtedly and you’ll have the ball most of the time.

 

[Le Saint]

I don't know if I could disagree anymore with your assessments from yesterday's game... Charles and Edozie have both been excellent and Manning has looked possibly the weakest first team player.

You are so convinced we will come bottom half you seemingly haven't noticed we have completely dominated every game in the league and are unbeaten. All while being picked for parts. When the new guys settle in, we easily have a minimum playoff standard team on at least a par with Leeds, who we are also losing their best players, but are dropping a lot more points.

Completely agree - I just couldn’t be bothered responding to that nonsense so thank you for taking the time!

 

[fran-MLs little camera]

I agree that the championship has been poor. My concern is less about us going up as i cn see us sneaking through the play offs but as good as our results have been I feel we would be torn apart playing like this in the prem.

I plan to enjoy this season and worry about the EPL when we are there.

 

[Ian Thumwood]

I don't know if I could disagree anymore with your assessments from yesterday's game... Charles and Edozie have both been excellent and Manning has looked possibly the weakest first team player.

You are so convinced we will come bottom half you seemingly haven't noticed we have completely dominated every game in the league and are unbeaten. All while being picked for parts. When the new guys settle in, we easily have a minimum playoff standard team on at least a par with Leeds, who we are also losing their best players, but are dropping a lot more points.

I was predciting that we would be mid-table and outside of the promotion chasing positions. I am surprised by our results and the speed at which RM has turned the team around. It always felt that changing the mentality was going to take a long while. For me, Leicester are a shoo in for promotion and the second automatic promotion place is up for grabs. We will get a better impression of how good this team is when we play Leicester.

 

[fran-MLs little camera]

I thought we would be mid table or just above before season started…and that was me being loyal. Now I can see us in play offs at least (and winning), but this is how they trap you

 

[RedandWhiteManofKent]

I enjoyed the game yesterday and like the way we play and dominate.


But

There are some times we can jest get the ball into the box without it taking 31 passes to get there.

 

[EasyBreezer]

I was predciting that we would be mid-table and outside of the promotion chasing positions. I am surprised by our results and the speed at which RM has turned the team around. It always felt that changing the mentality was going to take a long while. For me, Leicester are a shoo in for promotion and the second automatic promotion place is up for grabs. We will get a better impression of how good this team is when we play Leicester.

I just can't understand why you felt we would struggle.. We have players significantly better than most of this league do and depth across all positions.

Leicester have played 3 of the main relegation candidates and a much weakened Coventry, and despite this have needed a late goal after the 75th minute to win by 1 in each and every game. I agree they will likely go up, but they are hardly setting the world on fire.

 

[SaintsForTheWin]

I just can't understand why you felt we would struggle.. We have players significantly better than most of this league do and depth across all positions.

Leicester have played 3 of the main relegation candidates and a much weakened Coventry, and despite this have needed a late goal after the 75th minute to win by 1 in each and every game. I agree they will likely go up, but they are hardly setting the world on fire.

I also don’t think we can take the result of us against Leicester as anything other than it’s just a game. It will take a couple of months with a fixed team to know where we truly stand

 

[shoot_spiderman]

I enjoyed the game yesterday and like the way we play and dominate.


But

There are some times we can jest get the ball into the box without it taking 31 passes to get there.

This from RM is spot on for me …

"We were too slow in the first half and not enough willingness to run. That's the first time we have played against that shape and we tried to guess. We'll learn a lot from that.

"The mentality when we score is nowhere near good enough, we need to address that. It's ridiculous. We were not happy at all at half-time.

"We started the second half not very well but I enjoyed the last half-hour. We are winning while learning and winning while building.

"If you'd have said 10 points from 12 with all the nonsense going on and all the noise then I'm really pleased with that."

 

[SAINTOSPREY]

My take on Amo yesterday was that he has been programmed to pass the ball back as soon as he receives it, instead of controlling the ball and taking the full back on down the flank, Fandab at least tried to take his full back on, and succeeded several times, the crossing needs to be more accurate. I like Manning, but there are occasions when it looks like his bootlaces have been tied together or he has his boots on the wrong feet! I thought Beddy was much better after JS went off, doing the job of two men! Downes looked fairly steady and adapted well to the possession ball. Fraser brought a bit of oomph to the left side. It was a good result for a team disrupted by so many issues. Adama covered as many blades of grass as is possible. Stu's hair looked a bit of a mess his play was a bit Messi/messy too! KWP was good going forward, but went missing a couple of times defence wise. Baza was just the usual mixture of good and bad, we got away with it this time. Charly was a less effective than usual and gave the ball away too often.
I was quite impressed with Sinclair Armstrong for QPR, put in a lot of effort up front and was their only real outlet. Just my opinion though!
PS Charles was very good.

 

[shoot_spiderman]

Good to get the win.

Mixed feelings about the game, we dominated possession and went ahead but after that we were horrific for the remainder of the first half and started the second poorly. Martins changes were excellent though and turned it around. I think QPR set up well against us initially and it took a change of strategy to get around them.

Positives

+ Good for Edozie to get on the scoresheet.

+ Martin getting his subs bang on again, so refreshing after Selles who actively sabotaged the team with his.

+ Charles and Downes look like very good business in midfield.

+ Fraser made a massive difference when he came on.

+ Adam Armstrong looks excellent when he is played a bit further back, he isn’t suited to being the solo man at the top though.

- Alcaraz had a bit of a mare, giving him the benefit of the doubt I’m not sure he is suited to what he is being asked to do and if played to his strengths is a much better player.

- I am not really seeing it yet with Manning, looks shaky defensively and appears to have poor pass selection going forward, odd as I assume he was brought in because this was a particular strength.

- Stephens injury looked bad.

I think the difficult bit however is that although we won, in the back of my mind I am thinking ‘was that good enough for promotion?’ We will have a better idea after Leicester, but my feeling at the moment is that we have lost a lot of quality going forward since Norwich.

We win AND We learn

 

[Le Saint]

My take on Amo yesterday was that he has been programmed to pass the ball back as soon as he receives it, instead of controlling the ball and taking the full back on down the flank, Fandab at least tried to take his full back on, and succeeded several times, the crossing needs to be more accurate. I like Manning, but there are occasions when it looks like his bootlaces have been tied together or he has his boots on the wrong feet! I thought Beddy was much better after JS went off, doing the job of two men! Downes looked fairly steady and adapted well to the possession ball. Fraser brought a bit of oomph to the left side. It was a good result for a team disrupted by so many issues. Adama covered as many blades of grass as is possible. Stu's hair looked a bit of a mess his play was a bit Messi/messy too! KWP was good going forward, but went missing a couple of times defence wise. Baza was just the usual mixture of good and bad, we got away with it this time. Charly was a less effective than usual and gave the ball away too often.
I was quite impressed with Sinclair Armstrong for QPR, put in a lot of effort up front and was their only real outlet. Just my opinion though!

Bednarek was generally decent yesterday but I’m amazed at the lack of plaudits for Charles. From where I was sat (peak view in the actual stadium) he was the one dealing with Armstrong most of the second half and was immensely strong in putting up with him. This after having to move from centre mid to centre back. My man of the match by a long way yesterday.

 

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My take on Amo yesterday was that he has been programmed to pass the ball back as soon as he receives it, instead of controlling the ball and taking the full back on down the flank, Fandab at least tried to take his full back on, and succeeded several times, the crossing needs to be more accurate. I like Manning, but there are occasions when it looks like his bootlaces have been tied together or he has his boots on the wrong feet! I thought Beddy was much better after JS went off, doing the job of two men! Downes looked fairly steady and adapted well to the possession ball. Fraser brought a bit of oomph to the left side. It was a good result for a team disrupted by so many issues. Adama covered as many blades of grass as is possible. Stu's hair looked a bit of a mess his play was a bit Messi/messy too! KWP was good going forward, but went missing a couple of times defence wise. Baza was just the usual mixture of good and bad, we got away with it this time. Charly was a less effective than usual and gave the ball away too often.
I was quite impressed with Sinclair Armstrong for QPR, put in a lot of effort up front and was their only real outlet. Just my opinion though!

What did you think Bazunu did wrong? The shot was off the post and he saved a couple of close range efforts. His biggest issue is most shots he faces seem to be pinged right into a corner. Very unlucky. He is one of the best keepers I have seen at coming for crosses.

On Sam Amo-Ameyaw, he didn’t start like that. He put in an excellent cross at the start if both halves. Then he got starved of the ball and ended up losing confidence. Also, as I have said, their left back was really hard to get past. Tackled Edozie three times second half where he had been skinning the right back for fun.

 

[......loading......]

Bednarek was generally decent yesterday but I’m amazed at the lack of plaudits for Charles. From where I was sat (peak view in the actual stadium) he was the one dealing with Armstrong most of the second half and was immensely strong in putting up with him. This after having to move from centre mid to centre back. My man of the match by a long way yesterday.

I think Bednarek had him at least 50% of the time but I agree. Charles was superb in midfield and again in defence.

 

[shoot_spiderman]

Special mention to Charles. Very good in midfield and then excellent at CB. What a useful player he is going to be. Can already see he'll be ready to make the step up by the end of season. Had an absolute battle with their forward today.

On Charly, give him time ffs. Had to transition to English football, and now he has to transition to an even more bruising version of it. He'll come good.

Edozie's best 45 of the season in first half. Sat his opponent on his a*se at one point. He could get double figures this season. Much more effective on the left cutting in.

Adarma's double tackle at the end. Go on son!! He knows exactly what the Championship is about.

THIS ^