In response to a range of unfair criticism I have had the displeasure of hearing, from people sitting near me at the game, texters on Radio Solent, and Not606ers: -'The subs were terrible. They lost us the game' I disagree. Firstly, it is simply wrong to say that they lost us the game, what lost us the game was 2 goals that we conceded, and substitutions involving our 3 attackers have a neglible impact on conceding late goals. Secondly on that point, Adkins validly justified his substituitions, firstly, they were made because Lambert, Lallana and Puncheon worked their socks off all game and were knackered. It's all very well saying they should have stayed on as they were playing so well, but nobody, not even Lambert, is a great deal of use if they have no energy, and the 3 players that came on were the perfect players to come on - all pacy, to take advantage of United's increasingly high line and slow centre backs. -'We shouldn't have sat back and let them come at us, the outcome was inevitable.' - We really brought the game straight to United for the first 80 minutes or so and played some brilliant attacking football, and even in the last 10 minutes we had an attack or 2. But to say we should have persistently sought for a 3rd goal in the last 10 minutes when United were pouring everything forward, making the game ultra attacking, is ridiculous, it then becomes a contest of whose strike force is better, and the outcome in that scenario is even more inevitable. -'Why put Rodriguez out on the wing and put shorty Mayuka up front, when Rodriguez is more likely to win balls in the air as the main striker, and that is his main position, whereas Mayuka is better to deputise on the wing?' I thought this myself admittedly, but post-match, Adkins justified this, saying he put Rodriguez out wide to give him the chance to find space and cut inside when Rafael kept attacking down our left, and Mayuka was put up front to use his pace against United's slow defenders. -'Ward-Prowse is too young'. 1) He had a good game anyway, so why criticise? 2) The Ox was first team at 17, and that worked wonders. Also, you need to bring the youngsters through at some point. -'Our defence is useless.' We have just played 2 of the best teams in the world. Need I say any more? All in all, we may have 0 points so far, but it is not out of the realms of reality to suggest we could have had 9, we were unlucky not to win each of our 3 games this season. If the season lasted 10 games I would be panicking, but we still have another 35 games left, and if our performances so far have taught us anything, it is that we can be confident for each and every one of those games, as we have shown that whoever we play, even if it is the champions away, we can put up a good fight and make a good case to get at least something out of the game. Saint Birdsnest
Good points SB It's not all doom and gloom at all I think the trouble is most fans knew the defence should have been the first part of the team to strengthen. Patience is very important
Excellent post, spot on with everything you say. They are a 'world class' club and we made them look very ordinary for 80+ minutes. I am very happy with the performance, its just a bloody shame we couldn't have got at least a point from the game.
Also, for anyone who is feeling cynical and does not agree with what I just said, I would urge you to read through this. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19455573 It's the informal live text commentary on the BBC website, and tweets, from this afternoons football. Neutrals are often the realists in football, as they have no allegiance to either side, and you can see here that they are all saying that we should comfortably be safe this season, the way we are playing. Reading these tweets is quite moving, we seem to have become the popular club of the Premiership And in response to Beef_Dripping, I would argue that in the Wigan game we still could have quite easily come out with 3 points, in that game it was just a case of finishing, we had similar amounts of chances, but on the day they could put it in the back of the net and we couldn't. I remember their 1st goal being very much against the run of play, and their 2nd is hardly something to judge our season by.
When you consider that in your first three games you gave the teams that finished 1st and 2nd in the Premier League last season a run for their money and both times were beaten by late goals, and that you matched Wigan for possession and shot on and off target then I think, on ballance, its too early in the season to start having a go at the manager or the players, and I would venture to say that some of you fans need to lower their expectations if they think its a disaster to lose to Utd and City.
In fairness we had more shots on and off target than them and hit the bar twice. Granted they had slightly more possession, but the stats, and my own gut feeling while watching the match, suggest that a win was not a totally ridiculous probability. But anyway, my main points were in relation to this game and that not all is doom and gloom for us, we have a lot to be optimistic about.
