How on earth did he become a professional footballer? He is ****ing woeful. I do not want to see him in a Saints shirt ever again. One of the worst players I have seen play for Saints.
He's really quite poor. Has the application and effort, but not the ability at this level. League One or a return to Belgium/Holland perhaps...
How you've singled out a player is beyond me, no one played well (bar shaw) and if anything de ridder did occasionally do well to relieve pressure and carry the ball.
I was glad we had Boruc in goal. With Gazza or Davis it coulda been worse. Boruc came for the ball and regularly got enough on it to flick it away from CFC.
De Ridder can do nothing but run. He can't shoot and he can't cross. He is **** every time he plays and how some people can't see this is beyond me.
He is absolutely rubbish, and it pains me to see him pull on a Saints shirt. Unfortunately, the fact that he gets any time on the pitch just shows how poor our squad depth is. Hooiveld, De Ridder and Lee are not players that I want to see come on against any PL team, but especially not Chelsea.
Can he even run? In all three of his appearances this season, he seems to start running before stopping, cutting back on himself, and then giving the ball away. He might be fast, but I wouldn't say he can run.
I love all Saints players and want them to do well, but de Ridder is League 1 or lower Championship level only. It is worrying that we ever get into a position that we need to put him on the pitch. I'm sure he does his best, but we shouldn't need him.
The minute that Nigel brought De Ridder on I knew he had given up on us winning the game. The only good thing that came of it was that Morgan got a bit of a rest before next week.
Indeed. It's also why I happy to see Nigel bring Puncheon off. The moment Chelsea got their 3rd, I called for Morgan and Puncheon to be wrapped up in cotton wool asap.
Priority #1 for Saints has to be that De Ridder never makes an appearance for Saints again. Nothing irks me more than seeing a team fail to turn around a three goal deficit in the last twenty minutes. I do not know why we are wasting our time negotiating a transfer for a potentially World Class CB like Astori when we do not have someone better than De Ridder to play on the wing in Cup matches against lower sides or in 2nd half blowouts. Those are the most important matches! They really should have kept Schneiderlin in the game the whole time. If he'd have gotten injured I'm positive no one would have complained about that.
I get the point about wrapping Morgan and Jason up in cotton wool after we went 3-1 down but De Riddder....are you sure we haven't got anything better than that in the U21 squad? I am sure there are some youngsters that could have got some much needed game time like Chambers for instance?
What riles me most about De Ridder though isn't actually his (complete lack of) ability. It's how he's some sort a cult hero with so many people. Every time he receives the ball, I hear people shouting "Go on Steve" and you feel a sense of anticipation and excitment building. And then when he does nothing or gives the ball away, there's not a hint of distain or anger around me. And yet if that was Puncheon or Guly giving the ball away like that, or playing that poorly, I'd be hearing booing and criticism all around me.
Well, I can't say I agree with the fans' hatred of Guly. But the fact is Puncheon *did* give the ball away constantly today. And De Ridder got himself in dangerous positions twice while he was on. The first one was almost a goal. Perhaps he could have done slightly better but it was by no means a sitter nor did he shoot it off target. It was a pretty good save. The other time, he was running towards the goal with space and Guly played an absolutely terrible ball. And yet everyone is complaining about how De Ridder runs around aimlessly or whatnot. I'm not saying De Ridder is awesome, nor pointing a finger at Guly or Puncheon. I'm just saying that the thing about De Ridder trying but just not being good enough was true about every single player on the pitch today. I don't think he looked any worse or any better than anyone else. But it's much less worrisome when your fourth string winger doesn't look good during garbage time than when your starting XI doesn't look good. At least Guly has played some meaningful minutes. I can't relate at all to certain fans' assessment of his play, but I can at least understand why they might feel strongly about it. Starting a thread about how piss-poor a garbage role player looked during garbage time is just odd to me, regardless of whether I agree with the assessment or not.
I appreciate he's not really got much of a future with us but I'm not sure what you expect of him, he was much more effective than Lee and most of the other players as well frankly.
Pointless negative thread.....targeting a fringe player bought on as a sub in a woeful 2nd half performance by the whole team.
People are being too harsh. Each time he has come on as a sub he has made mistakes but has also looked dangerous too, he has put in a couple of great balls, had some good runs and skilled a couple of players in the prem. Still no a great player but better than what some people make him out to be
