Match Day Thread Saints vs Stoke City - Saturday, August 23 - 15:00 KO

Yeah that’s fair.

 

From the stuff I watched when he was doing all his tactical masterclass videos on Sky and YouTube he kept talking about overloading the wings and creating 2 on 1s which enable you to get the ball into the box. It’s clearly fundamental to the way he wants to play. Sure he may add another string to his bow and go more centrally if he gets his creative midfielder he is talking about, but Charles, Downes and Fernandes should be a good enough trio to be creating stuff centrally at this level anyway, and I can’t think of a single chance we had that didn’t come from a cross. Robinson had some moments when he ran at them centrally but none of them amounted to anything.

Still early and all that and I’m not panicking, see how the next couple of months pan out before making a proper opinion on him.

One thing I will say is if he is saying this isn’t the system he wants to play, just the one best suited to our current players, why the **** is he playing Armstrong centrally? That is a complete contradiction and makes him sound like he hasn’t got a clue and he’s just saying some buzz phrases he thinks the fans will like.

You cant adapt the system to suit the players and then play the most completely unsuitable player in that system, it makes no sense

 

Even against Wrexham we didn't look that good either.

 

So sign eleven new players for every new manager?

If he can’t get our squad - a top three squad - dominating games, then he’s out of his depth.

 

Exactly, the match performances have been pretty poor, and we were always due a loss like that against a team that's pretty settled. It's going to take a bit of time. And yes, that might mean the end of September before we really start to click (like it was last time we were here). Again, much the same as with Ipswich right now...

 

Getting good players in i.e. Azaz takes time and often don't happen until later in the window because teams don't want to lose good players. We could have signed more by now, but if they're no better than what we have, what's the point?

 

And McKenna? The same? Or is it possibly too early in the season to make those judgements?

 

I personally think we’ve been crap every game so far. Including preseason. We have won games because of legs and better subs which is fine if you’re fighting to stay up.

 

A handful of sliding doors moments which ended up dictating the game..

The frustration we are all feeling is how easy we are to score against still, coupled with the chances we didn’t take - same old story.

Clearly a side devoid of confidence, intuition and flow, hopefully that come as the season progresses.

But my god, some of are better players need to step and sharpish.

 

Plus we did actually sign a striker in the summer...

 

I would agree if we ever signed players better than what we have but we never do so there’s no benefit of the doubt that what they’re waiting for will be worth it.

 

I don’t think many would’ve said striker at all. On paper Archer, Stewart, Armstrong and BBD all have very good records at this level. I still think that combo (replace BBD with Downs as it looks like he’s off) will score a lot of goals, they are all ****ed confidence wise from last season.

 

Completely agree on your point about Armstrong. That is clearly a mistake and that fact Still changed it at half time shows he realised it was as well.

I'm the same as you - no need to panic as the squad will be very different in a month's time. You can't really judge until October/November.

 

Let him build his team and judge him in a couple of months is all im saying.

 

And Archer and Stewart are more than accomplished scorers at this level too.

 

A striker that was quite clearly never going to be what we needed. Our squad is not at a point where we needed a 21 year old newbie to the league who had 12 goals in 39 appearances. We needed someone a bit better than that I’d argue.

 

Why? We don't know how he's going to turn out yet, and the rest of the strikers we have have a ton of goals at this level.

 

It is clear to me that we cannot afford to lose Matty at this stage of the transfer window. He has 4 years left on his contract, we've just cashed in on Dibling. If SR sell Matty they can go **** themselves.

 

Today made you realise that?

 

That’s exactly my point. We don’t know, I would have preferred us go for a player who has played a bit more in the league we are playing in. It was a risk with how much we needed a consistent goalscorer to go for a let’s wait and see. The rest of the strikers do have goals but zero confidence even more reason to not gamble as much. Every transfer is a gamble but you can mitigate the risks.