Match Day Thread 17/08/24 - Newcastle United v Southampton -

3-1

 

Toon. 4-0 again, just so i can tell the little un that REALLY, this doesn't happen every week.

 

GG changes sides more often than he changes his socks

 

My comment was tongue in cheek. Clearly I was being facetious.

Anyways I’ve decided I am going to join the cult.

 

I’m indecisive what can I say.

I am also bipolar and I can’t see certain colours.

Life sucks.

 

If you’re not top of the table, on GD, after this game, it will be an opportunity missed.
Saints don’t have a striker, unless Brereton Diaz plays there, but his two runouts in preseason has been on the left.
We have no pace in the team, so are likely to start with 3 CBs and play in a fluid, and often confusing, system ranging from 5-3-2 to 3-5-2 to 4-2-2-2. It’s really chaotic at times and it is going to be “interesting” to see how well/badly it copes with decent teams.
At least one Saints player will be booked for dragging one of your players back, when stranded in midfield, because that has become our go to tactic to stop attacks, but this stems back to our lack of pace.
Our 2 most creative players in preseason are 17 & 18 years old, who I am hoping will at least be on the bench as their first thought is to play forward and not over indulge in the turgid backward and sideways passing we constantly do.
*One of these kids scored an almost identical hat trick at your place in a youth game a couple of years ago, and for those of you who are old enough to remember Matt Le Tissier, he reminds me of him at times.

Edit. *He was 16 playing for the U23s not youth, which made it better than I remembered.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Qmz5ThPx49M?si=ImdPJ9aKFMy_MHVw

 

I remember the opening day of the 2015/16 we scraped a 2-2 home draw with Soton. That was under McClaren and we got relegated.

That ain't happening this time.

 

Armstrong,?

 

I’ve got him on my Virgin fives so that’s him not scoring a goal

 

5-0 Isak Brace, Joelinton, Gordon, Longstaff

 

Referee: Craig Pawson.

Assistants: Marc Perry, Mark Scholes.

Fourth official: Dean Whitestone.

VAR: Chris Kavanagh. Assistant VAR: James Mainwaring

 

Haven’t kicked a ball and we’re already top of the unavailable players list.

 

What's the excuse now ?

 

Last season's injuries, mostly.

 

He’s not good down the middle and although he had a great season in the Championship, he played mainly off the right, running in behind.
His goal record in the Premier League is woeful (4 I think).
In our last friendly against Getafe, we played without a striker, with Armstrong wide right and Brereton Diaz wide left. Your centre backs will have an easy day if we play the same way.
Most Saints fans see this game as a free hit with the home game against Forest being the real start to our season. I just hope we don’t get really spanked, especially as my neighbour across the road is a Toon fan.
I’ve asked him to keep the noise down as the goals go in.

 

So the likely line up is:

Pope; Livramento, Schar, Burn, Hall; Bruno, Longstaff, Joelinton; Murphy, Barnes, Isak.

So it turns out qualifying for the UCL gets you nothing more than a tonne of injuries. Doesn’t get you money to spend or prestige to sign new players.
Still, we got off lightly - Leicester ended up with relegation.

 

That's a **** team by Today's standards! It's baffling that the club and the fans can't seem to see the issue.

 

Gordon?

 

If Schar is fit to start, then defense will more likely be:
Livramento, Schar, Kelly, Burn.

 

Hall will start - He’s payed most of pre-season there and Burn has here and there as cb