Good day out. I got in for free due to a cock-up with the ticketing system before the game, missed the first 5 mins of the anderlecht game. Kanu looked good for anderlecht. Stephens and Puncheon were arguably our best players. Rodriguez looked classy and more mobile than our current options (excluding Lee). Forecast was a crowd pleaser. Anderlecht were singing in English, and one fan was escorted before the end, unrivalled passion for a pre-season game!
JWP, Stephens and Shaw were impressive, Chambers seemed to be out of position so couldn't make much of an impact. Forecast was just downright hilarious.
Wonder if Puncheon will play much of a part this season. Have to admit I completely forgot about him.
Jack Stephens was #6 against Arsenal played CB with Seaborne. It was his only mistake but it was due to having to cover a mile for Butterfield as he was skinned. It was Gervinho, he's pretty quick. Players that impressed me today were: First Game - Guly who managed a sublime bit of skill which was hard to tell what he had done but he left 2, 3 players for dead. Billy Sharp showed a bit of hunger and put himself about with some success. Second Game - Stephens covered well, put a very well timed tackle in when Arsenal looked like scoring. Seaborne looked very composed and it was great to see him back on the pitch. Fox put some quality balls in including the one for jay-rod and I thought he played much better than Shaw. De Ridder played well from the left as many of us have mentioned he likes it out there rather than the right, nearly scored with a right footed shot that was cleared. Puncheon looked like a man possessed, I was sat in the Kingsland so couldn't see the skills but he won a couple of free kicks and with De Ridder looked dangerous. Chaplow, Hammond & JWP gave it all they had, kept the tempo going and I think enjoyed playing in a 3 and Jay Rod had some nice touches, was always looking to run in behind and scored a great header that was in the moment it left his head.
I didn't think Eastmond was that bad, he just wasn't very good. Not particularly worse than any other players.
Gibbs was as good as you'd expect him to look considering he was up against non-first team competition. Gervinho I'd have expected more from considering the competition. Yennaris was pretty good, Jenkinson didn't have a lot to do but what he did was good, actually, and I'm normally very critical of Jenkinson because I've not seen him play well for Arsenal before. Ignasi Miquel was poor, his distribution was shocking. Rodriguez did look a handful but I thought Ward-Prowse was our best player, I paid special attention to him because I was keen to see how he played and I thought he was ace. Such maturity for a kid of his age... hands off, Arsene.
Mirrored in his post-match interview. Got to see him play at Palace/Coventry away. Very composed and always looking for the ball.
I was very impressed with him after the Palace game too actually but thought he looked a bit nervous at times. No hint of that at all today, but then, it was only a pre-season match.
Been performing at the same exceptional level for us every season. Finishing was slightly erratic at times last year but other than that has kept on being brilliant. I love the guy and so does pretty much everyone else.
what formations were played, there has been alot of talk on here about 433 451 or the tried and trusted 442. Ward-Prowse can surely only play in a 3 man center formation, he does add a goal threat
First game looked to be a 4-4-2 but second game was 4-5-1/4-3-3 with Rodriguez up top alone and SDR and Punch attacking down the wings.
most say that in the second game we played the better football with the 5 man midfield, but it was maybe also to protect the inexperienced center backs
Possibly (and Forecast), also because Arsenal play 4-2-3-1 so it was to match them up and not be outnumbered, it worked very well. If we had enough first team cm players (Cork and Davis) we could have played the same in the first half and might have performed better against Anderlecht but they were very sharp, they should of beaten Arsenal. May I also say the lino up the kingsland/chapel end had an absolute shocker I know he's a retired official but still. I don't think he got 1 decision right all game, couldn't keep up with play and never gave offside when it clearly was. The lino up the itchen/northam end couldn't wait to get his flag up when saints attacked. Anyone get any views of his offside decisions?
I was pretty much in line with him (block 33) and he had a shocker. One of Sharp's was a good few feet onside.
The final picture on the match gallery... are Saints taking the piss too? please log in to view this image
