He scored twice in the cup. And no I don't think he's worth £6m based on 10 games for us, I think he is worth that much based on the last two seasons at Burnley when, given the striker role pretty much full-time, he has been very impressive. If he doesn't score a premier league goal all season, then I might start questioning his value. But to write him off based on one mediocre game is, er, ludicrous.
A couple of other points, I am sure JRod turned an ankle first half and was still limping at times in the second so should have been subbed vice Ricky in my opinion. Why, oh, why do they insist on watering the pitch before each half? Several players were victims of the pitch being slippery and it may have contributed to Richardsons injury and nearly caused Spider to pick up a reccurence of his previous injury, it makes no sense to me at all. Someone said Puncheon deliberately injured Riise, not so, he tried to hurdle him to avoid it. Did anyone else think the pitch looks narrower than ever? Study the replays and look at the grass fringe and the red hardstanding areas on the Kingsland side, they look much wider.
By Nigel's interview, it seems he has finally realised just how serious our bad defending is. However the excuse of us "still learning" is a bit of a joke. Our players must be a right set of divs if it takes them this long to realise what their doing wrong. Every fan and outsider can see it.
Didn't he get a goal or two from set pieces last year? Always worth a punt, and how often has a player who has scored an OG gone up and got one at the other end?
Don't know, but would make sense, considering we are weak in wide areas and good at picking passes through a crowded midfield.
Harsh on Yoshida, not only was he playing out of position he was also carrying some sort of a knock, hope it won't mess his International matches up
It's possible that our players are playing as best they can. They may not be good enough. Therefore, the only thing is to strengthen in January. However, look at it another way. Frazer went off injured, so the defence had to re-shuffle. Yoshida went to RB and Hooiveld came on at left CB. Clearly, Jos is not comfortable [and I feel he'll only ever be back-up, at this level], and Maya isn't Frazer Richardson. That's quite a lot to take in, as the guys who were to be doing their jobs suddenly had to do another player's. Besides, own goal and deflected goal..?
I agree it was difficult having to play Yoshida at full back. But to say that this is maybe as good as our defenders can be ? im not so sure. The defence dont even do basic things right. im 18, and help out as a goalkeeper/defender coach for my local under 16's team and even they keep a better shape to the defence than saints do. We are far to open each time the opponent attacks, being compact and staying tight to a man really is basic defending.
I didn't think Guly was too bad. Was enthusiastic and tried to make things happen. Thought he was useful. Rickie was poor. Jay worked hard but didn't do much else. Maya did what he could, not easy. Jose has been getting better and better. Jos, really poor.
I'm not stating it as my opinion, just putting out the suggestion. Obviously, Saints could do better with better defenders, and personally I think what we have may well be good enough to survive the season. However, Nicola and Nigel may well agree that its better not to have the uncertainty though. Nigel said in his post-match interview that Saints were far too open in the 2nd half, and said they needed to be tight and compact. In fact, almost exactly what you have written yourself.
If anyone should be hacked off, that would be any Fulham supporter, they must have thought that their team had done the classic Premier smash and grab, our equaliser must have been a real piss off to them.
I think i meantioned earlier on here, by the sounds of Nigel's interview, he seems to have finally realised the damage our kamikaze defending is causing. What he can do to put it right im not quite sure, but making sure Hooiveld is on the bench when we play quick strikers is a good start i'd say.
Jos Hooiveld on Twitter: "Low as a snakes belly.. nothing to do with luck just poor from me. (Again). Bad place at the moment."
He was on the bench today in fairness! Anyone seen his tweet just now? Nobody is more critical than he is it seems.
Didn't say he was good or bad there did I? I was just pointing out that a right full back he isn't, just stating the obvious, but at least he still gave his all for the team, you could at least give him that.
