Don't understand the Wanyama criticisms. To my mind he has played one bad half (the first half of last game), and been good-to-great the rest of the time. The only thing I can see is that Cork is also a good player. But Cork being good doesn't make Wanyama bad. It just means we have two good defensive midfielders for the deeper, more defensive rol, and what's wrong with that? Like Lovelocum, I think they are two different players. Given the current Saints set-up, I prefer Wanyama most of the time but certainly there are games or situations where Cork should be preferred. And we have cover in the event of injury. Between injuries, cup matches, and suspensions, Cork will still have a big role to play. I would not have wanted to go into the season with only two holding midfielders. Davis and JWP can play there, but Wanyama and Cork right now are better. Davis and JWP are more fitting subs for Schneiderlin should he get hurt. I suppose the other thing is it can be argued our midfield isn't quite as effective this year. I'm not entirely sure that's the case but I can see the argument. But to that end it is to me Schneiderlin that has let us down a bit. I don't see why Wanyama should sit because Schneiderlin hasn't been effective. Plus, I think it's just Schneiderlin having to adjust to a little. He is perfectly capable of playing as a deep playmaker and in fact I would argue that is his best role. He's been forced to run more and tackle more because we lacked a defensive presence. That's hopefully been solved with the addition of Lovren, and hopefully with Wanyama as well. I'm very optimistic that situation will work itself out just fine. And in fact, the Wanyama/Schneiderlin pairing was fantastic in the second half against West Ham. Hopefully they are gelling and we will see a lot more of that. I do agree that Cork not even being on the bench was mystifying, though. I like Lovren from what we've seen so far. But in fairness, our defense hasn't been tested as much this year. We've been more effective at pressing, and Wanyama adds an additional defensive presence. I don't know to whom the credit should go between Fonte, Shaw, Clyne, Chambers, Wanyama and Lovren but it doesn't matter. Our defense has been much better and that's all that matters. Osvaldo I am still not sure about. We've seen some brilliant play from him, but we've also seen some of the temperamental side as well. It's always been a matter of can he stay on the field and stay focused enough. We won't know until he's played a bunch more games. Yesterday had to have been a very frustrating game for him but I thought he coped with it well. So I'm reasonably pleased so far.
Can't help but agree. Am sure (hope) victor comes good, but so far not justifying a £12m price tag. Like a few Celtic/Scottish league voices stated just after the move
I think people are overrating our defense, against west ham collins, and diame should have scored and they had a dodgy offside call go against them that had the ball in the back of the net, and this was against a piss poor attack. I would be much more confident going into the liverpool game if clyne-yoshida-lovren-shaw had have had several competitive games together. Pochettino seems to favour keeping a defence together and it will certainly improve that defensive combination but I think fonte isn't as good as yoshida particularly against the better attackers. Whether yoshida-lovren would be a better combination remains to be seen but I would expect it to be a better combination by virtue of yoshida being a better defender. The best striker Lovren has come up against has probably been wolfswinkel, and he has had more than ample protection in every game so far. This is not to discredit his performances which have been excellent in 4 games straight which is outstanding and goes a long way to allay worries about his concentration but I would like to see how he copes with a quality striker and a team with some attacking thrust. I would suggest that we have been good defensively against substandard attacks largely because we have been far too defensive and have not risked placing the defence under any sustained pressure. For the first 10 minutes against west Ham when they applied some pressure there was far too much space between shaw and the goal which diame exploited and should have scored from. Wanyama and Osvaldo have shown a lot of promise but haven't improved the way the whole team functions but when we find an attacking balance they will show their class.
I think those are good points. Saints have had a relatively easy schedule so far so the question of whether Wanyama or Lovren can do the job when tested is still unresolved. The tactics are more an issue for MP. I would say that it's reasonable to question whether they have really improved the side, but it's difficult to say at this point that they've made the side worse and need to be swapped out considering that thus far they have met the challenges thrown at them for the most part. I too believe Wanyama and Lovren will show their class, but we'll have to wait and see. By the same token, I also wonder why we need to care about the transfer fee for the new players. The limiting factor on transfers seems to be whether or not Saints can get the player to sign as we don't like to meet agent fees and/or player wages. There seems to be an obvious tactic that Saints will offer the highest fee in order to entice the other team to let the player go. If the transfer rumors are reliable, Wanayama's fee didn't prevent us from offering deals for Banega, Damiao and Osvaldo that other teams were willing to accept. It's not like it's our money. If the club is spending unwisely, the problem is with the broader spending strategy rather than with the specific players it was spent on. It seems clear we had money, we were willing to spend it on an attacker or whoever helped us, but we couldn't get players to sign and were not constricted by Wanyama's transfer fee. It's not that I think we need to throw spending efficiency out the window, but there is a trade-off between maximum efficiency and Champion's League. You can possibly run a Premier League team on a budget, but a top 6 Premier League team you pay the premium for players that are great to replace players that are good. 12 million pounds to me, isn't a sum to be overly concerned about given NC's ambitions. And it hasn't stopped Saints from tapping into cheaper home-grown players like JWP, so it's not like the other avenues are being ignored. As long as there is no salary cap on teams, prospects are not being blocked, and the team has enough money to pursue the players they need there's not a whole lot to say about pricing. I believe that is the situation with Saints.
Lovren has looked good, even if only against 'weaker' forwards. He has put two or three fantastic last-ditch tackles in, stopping what would be a one-on-one with Boruc. Wanyama is more defensive, and our defence has tightened up since last season. We've conceded fewer goals than the respective games last season, and gained more points from those games this season. Therefore, I would say he's been good for us so far, plus he isn't afraid to shoot from distance, something we have been calling for as fans. The one player who I believe needs to prove himself, but doesn't seem to be getting as much stick as Wanyama, is Osvaldo. He missed a great chance v West Ham, yet to score and doesn't seem to have that understanding with Lambert quite yet. I'm not saying he's a waste of money, I just feel that Wanyama is getting unfair criticism when he's contributed more to the team than Osvaldo. Plus as we seem to be struggling to put away the numerous chances we get, I would suggest this is a striker problem, not the two central midfielder's fault.
To be fair Osvaldo has only had 2 full games........He will come into his own more as the season wears on and certainly against teams who are trying to get into the top six or get out of relegation. In other words when they have little or no choice but to have a go. No disrespect intended but most of the teams we have played up to now, like ourselves I guess, are more intent on survival than really challenging for honours. Allerdyce has just set up a holding pattern at the moment until he gets some key players back from injury. Mind you I can never ever see him setting the premier alight with his particular brand of football. It is so sad to see the present West Ham team play the way they are at the moment. It is no wonder Allerdyce is coming under such criticism from their fans!!
We need to stop thinking of price tags as though the player owes us. None of them asked to be valued at that price, their clubs demanded we pay that to break their contract. Wany is a player we wanted, 12m or so was what we had to give the other club to get him here.
This! West Ham were stubborn and defended well, we all want goals but there's no shame in drawing 0-0 to that team. On another day if their keeper hadn't pulled 3 class saves we would have won comfortably.
Lovren - good. Too early to even discuss Osvaldo. Wanyama, see Cork/Wanyama thread, but basically he's OK (although £12M?) but Cork and Schneiderlin are better together that Wanyama and Schneiderlin.
All 3 new players show promise, Lovren looks a class act already. Wanyama will, in time, release Morgan to be more creative. But there is something missing. Big Sam set up his team to stop Shaw and Clyne getting forward and largely succeeded. So we needed a plan 2. As much as I am a fan of Ward-Prowse the only thing he brought to our efforts in replacing Lallana was better dead ball execution. That was plan 2!! We have no wide man unless Rowe is going get the boat ashore.
Ah, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Cork and Morgan were great at breaking up play last year but we were lacking something defensively and I thought that was widely accepted. Having said that I do wish Cork was at least on the bench so that we had the option to use him. Like others, I thought Wanyama was a tank in the games i've seen him but his passing in the first half left a little to be desired. Or so I thought. For one thing there was a downpour between the players warming up and the game starting. The grass was holding the water on top a bit and making the ball was moving much slower as a result. A lot of players took a few minutes to adjust the pace of their passes. Then I looked at the stats (I know, they only tell half the story but bear with me....). He had a pass completion rate of 81%. That is higher than Lallana or JWP who I considered better passers of the ball. That is slightly down on his 86% pass completion rate in the previous two games but he did get four shots off at goal with one on target. Not something we saw much of from Cork. I then looked at Jack Cork's own performance the last three games of last season. His pass rate was very similar indeed but he did not touch the ball as often and of course he rarely got a shot off at goal. So I think Jack is very unlucky to have lost his place but Wanyama gives us more defensively and he likes having a pop at goal which, given our current scoring record is not something we want to lose. But surely he deserves a place on the bench and some playing time in rotation with Wanyama or even one of the others.
Just unbeleavable that a lot of people on here were very enthousiast about Wanyama and Lovren just after two games. And now a lot are very enthousiast about Osvaldo....perhaps they only want to see the good things of the new boys?? What i saw was: about Lovren: not to much to do in all the 4 games. I saw some nice things (pace, hard working, nice passing) but also saw some bad things (strange headers to nobody but the public or straight up in the air; some bad positioning). For example his tackle in the first game where everybody was excited about started with wrong positioning. The striker should have controlled that ball and it had been a goal. He did not and Lovren had a second chance a did that perfectly. He was glad to have that second chance. about Wanyama: saw a very hard working man which i admire. Saw also taking him a lot of risks in his tackling and in the places where he made those tackles. In the first game we suffered a lot of free kicks caused by him and some on dangerous places. Saw him, also losing a lot of balls and saw a lot of bad passes. Saw him having a lot of energy and being all around the pitch. about Osvaldo: saw him doing nice and debatable things. Should have scored at least one time. Has a good control of ball and game. So about everybody some good and some inferior markings but for all i am glad they are at Southampton. I do think all three players make the selection stronger and gives the manager a lot more tactical opportunities. Good to buy 3 players on the central line in the team!! Shows tactical class of the manager and board. At last: give the whole team and especially these players some more time to gel.
That Lovren has a very capable defensive CB partner in Fonte..? They seem to be gelling quite well, quite quickly. No need to change there, however good the other two are. Always said Fonte could step up, and he has been doing so.
bonabona mate the vast majority in my view have accepted the fact that it is early days. There has been very little criticism of Lovren. How ever there is no doubt again in the majority view that Wanyama had a disastrous first half on Sunday. As for Osvaldo again the vast majority are accepting it is only his second game. However, reading all the threads and posts on the subject there is for me at least a consensus that all the new players have brought something to the club. Some have hit the ground running (Lovren) others are perhaps taking a bit more time to get used to the Premier league. It is easy for us the spectators to criticise a players action at any given time during a match. However the reality is all players make mistakes no matter who they are. What differentiates the average one from the better ones is how quick they recover from their mistake and what they do to fix it. There is rarely that much criticism of someone that perhaps should have score but had their shot saved...compared to someone who perhaps missed a header from which someone scored while defending. Both perhaps would be worthy of quite a lot of criticism, I will guarantee the heaviest will be on the head of the defender.
