I don't think we have any of the above. I know NA likes to take the footballing approach but I don't think we have ,yet, the quality of footballing to do this. It strikes me how lightweight we are in the tackle, especially in a dogfight. Do others feel that we tend to get bullied a bit and that more grit and strength is required in our midfield? Cork and Spiderman are fine when we are playing neat passing football and everything is going smoothly but in todays game I really felt we could have been tougher and more physical? Opinions?
It'd be nice to have a big ****off bruiser in midfield, but not if it means sacrificing Morgan and Corky. Neither are hard hitters but both do a very good job of winning the ball back, as the statistics show. However, I'd definitely like to see a tougher defender brought in. That said - we did win today, didn't we?
I'm not. We do have all those things, in spades. The defence worked their butts off today and Boruc was the dog's bollocks.
Yeah, Delph was excellent for them I thought and bossed the midfield in a physical sense, and Benteke's a bit of a battering ram so he was always going to win balls in our box. We seemed to let Benteke win the ball and then go after the knock-downs quite a lot which was effective. Bit lucky he didn't take any of his chances though.
I asked for opinions - We were given a phantom penalty and were lucky to survive. Don't get me wrong I am ecstatic for the win but not blind enough to see our shortcomings!
You're right, we were lucky with the penalty and were under massive pressure from Villa in the second half, but I think it's unfair to take anything away from Villa because they played really well (apart from their finishing). We managed to hold them off at their own ground and we should be happy about it. As for our strength in midfield, Schneiderlin, once again, never put a foot wrong. Yoshida, for me, was our weakness today and that's where we probably need more strength.
I agree we could do with some more of that in places, but was reassuring today to see Boruc claiming everything and commanding his area. That's an area of notable improvement compared to PG and KD.
Hello? Am I not allowed to express my opinion? And what divine right do you have on this board to decide which posts stay and which remain? If you had read the entire post you would have seen that I was trying to start a discussion ie "opinions?" If you cannot manage to write a coherent argument based upon your views why bother replying at all in such a fashion?
No, I thought we had plenty of guts today. What we didn't have [I was only able to see the 2nd half] was pace, but then that's often the case for Saints. I thought we played the ball around fairly well, at times and when Villa inevitably got up a head of steam, in the 2nd half, we were able to control them fairly well. Yes, there is definitely a touch of the twinkle-toes about Saints, with the way we pass the ball around, which makes the Lads appear lightweight, but I would rather the team pass than play physically like Stoke City and some of the struggling sides around us.
"Guts" is probably the wrong word. Saints were challenging the balls today and played very hard. They just weren't winning that many of them. Benteke is kind of a beast, but they need to be better. I actually think we do need to sacrifice one of Cork/Schneiderlin for a more physical DM. I would be willing to forgo Schneiderlin's creativity for a more physical player who wins the ball early and just makes a safe pass to Ramirez and hopefully he can pull the strings. Maybe not in every game, but definitely in some games.
I agree that the wording could have better (a lot better), but I agree with where (I think) you are coming from. As much as I rate Cork and Morgan, I would love a Diame or Mulumbu in the middle of the park. Strong, powerful players who also have some talent (as opposed to Tiote for example, who I would hate to see in our side, as for me he's almost a thug).
Morgan may well be creative and he stays on his feet (as does Cork) but lightweight is totally inaccurate. He's a beast, he simply doesn't rely on that as a style!
