Meslier - 4. A return to his poor form of the last two seasons. Another case of the dropsies again first half and the ball just seems to find a way past him even from the tightest of angles. Distribution fell apart too. Shackleton - 3. Sulemana had him on toast from the first minute and his reluctance to meet that challenge with aggression cost us the 2nd goal when Sulemana just walked in to the box with the ball and was given time and space to pick out the goalscorer. Had a better 2nd half when we had more of the ball. Cooper - 3. A full on league 1 Liam performance. He had a couple of wobbles the last couple of games but was still selected and duly offered the first goal on a plate. Continuously made panicky decisions throughout. Has to be dropped for Rodon. Struijk - 7. Had a very solid game and looked dangerous on set pieces. Not making the positional errors he is prone to and has continued to be aggressive. The lack of pace in the partnership with Cooper was evident far too often today. Needs pace alongside him. Byram - 5. Wasn't terrible but was beaten twice for the third goal and can't use his left foot which unbalances us. Buy a ****ing left footed ****ing left back! Ampadu - 6. Did OK but lacked options in front of him as the forwards had an off day. Battled well but probably his quietest performance since he arrived. Needs to step it back up mid week. Kamara - 5. Very slow in possession and stopped our momentum. His passes often went sideways or backwards as he too suffered from the lack of options in front of him. Summerville - 5. A couple of glimpses of his quality but for the most part he looked a little disinterested and didn't track back to help Byram out at all. Needs a kick up the arse. Piroe - 4. Got in to some nice positions and was the only one getting us up the pitch during that first half. His touch today was unusually sloppy and he seemed a yard off the pace. Needs a kick up the arse. James - 6. All effort and no end product. Couldn't use his pace to beat the full back which rendered him useless as an attacking option. Battled well though. Georginio - 6. One of those games ehere he wanted to throw himself to the ground too often and then looking for sympathy. Grew in to the game and did provide the odd spark but largely ineffectual throughout. Subs. Gray - 7. Instant upgrade on Kamara and got us on the front foot. Anthony - 7. Instant upgrade on Summerville. Particularly on the set pieces and his willingness to do the dirty work helping his full back. Needs to start Wednesday. Bamford - n/a. Depressingly the guy we went to in a last gasp effort to grab anything from the game.
Pretty much agree, apart from Anthony imo. But that's opinion for you! You giving Struijk a 7 shocked me, given your previous assessments over time. Must be listening to you. Btw, if you've got the time, do you fancy doing ratings for each half. That might be enlightening. Read somewhere that Coops stepped up for the 1st goal, but it was Byram who didn't & played Armstrong onside. Thoughts?
On Struijk, I'm harsh but fair. He still goes walkabout too much for me and he ball watches. He's obviously found some confidence and when he's confident I actually don't mind him at all. He's fallen apart twice now when things go south. Once under Bielsa in our 2nd season in the prem and once last season. Credit where its due though, he's been good for three games now and yes he has been more aggressive. He's a big lump of a lad and should be using his strength. Hopefully he continues. For the first goal I don't quite understand Coopers positioning. It wasn’t a perfect line with Byram sitting half a yard deeper than the rest but Cooper was a good two or three yards in front of the other three! Concentration shouldn't be an issue after 2 minutes. Might be harsh but I feel Meslier can be bigger too. He sits down too early and makes the goal bigger from that angle.
Despite that being the first and last goals conceded this month, it’s more down to the defence than Meslier. For me, he looks shaky when receiving it to his feet, he dropped a simple high ball and we were lucky it never cost us, the first goal, you’d expect it to be saved at such a tight angle, his positioning is always questionable. If he was in the opposition goal every game we’d have a minimum of 5 more points on the board
Starting to feel a bit better already. Partick Thistle won 3-0; Preston got cuffed, Ipswich & Dull drew; Everton & Boremouth got cuffed. Top result though, was scum getting cuffed, taking them down to 10th. We were the only result that didn't go my way. Only blot on the landscape was QPR losing 3-0. No doubt they'll turn it around & go on a run after beating us on Wednesday.
Biggest failure today was Farke he did not pick his best side. Then he sent out the same players for the second half hoping for better. Well guess what danny boy it failed. Ayling/Rodon/Gray on at half time for me. On 60 on comes Anthony and dan james goes back to also ran. His shooting is abysmal wtf was he doing?. Farke needs to be more ruthless because autos are slipping away. The thing is our bench looked strong at the start.
Defence was clunky in possession last week against Watford and that's why all week most of us have been saying that Farke had to make the big call and decide whether to leave Cooper or Struijk on the sidelines. Bottled it and left Rodon out which cost us any chance of winning this match. 100% down to Farke as Saints knew Struijk would come back inside onto his left foot and all they had to do was block the square pass to Cooper which Armstrong was designated to do. Pissed off big time because if we play Rodon it's a totally different game.
Well I can't do my usual and blame Ayling. I expected we'd have a few games like this, the team just didn't put in the effort that we've seen in recent games. Everything was flat and Dan James needs to stop shooting. What boils my piss is the amount of yellow cards opposition teams are getting for cynical fouls. Summerville must be the most fouled player in the division, every time he passes someone they just pull his jersey or kick him. Southampton were particularly cynical today. As for Farke, he didn't make any substitutions at half time because he didn't want to upset anyone. That's horseshit. And I totally disagree with telling Rutter to stop showboating, we're in the entertainment business ffs. All he's doing is cramping Rutter's style, now the guy has to stop and think before he does anything. Stupid.
No. Everyone makes mistakes and that's fine as long as they learn from it. No manager gets it right 100% of the time. Its not anywhere near Farke having to leave. That will happen when he picks Firpo at left back.
Even you can see we really need Firpo back asap Farke is doing a great job but today he was too much of a people pleaser, yes it's harsh to drop someone after a good win but that was what was required to get Rodon back in team. The counter argument is that by rewarding good collective performances he keeps everyone onside, that only holds water though if the team goes on to be successful. Now he can use the 3 games in a week excuse to make changes but if we don't win on Wednesday the pressure will be back on the whole squad which was avoidable in my opinion. The fact is it's not that we lost a game today but how we lost it.
I didn’t see the game so probably shouldn’t comment fully but for me you play your best players whenever possible and Rodon is by far our best centre back. Not sure which one of Cooper or Struijk shifted to the right but that further unsettles the defence. But it’s a long season so you will get the odd strange result, look at Preston. We are however dropping miles behind Leicester.
