The possession is deceiving. It was pretty close at half, I think Manchester United might even have been up. It didn't turn in Saints favor until Man U started sitting back a bit in the second half. And even then a lot of it was passing around in the midfield or defense. If they took out all the defense and backpassing to the keeper it would be pretty close to 50/50.
We don't have to try and score a hat-full of goals to balance out the load we concede. Ok, it was interesting to watch, but not a very sustainable model to continue pursuing!
To be fair, based on the highlights Utd did have some really good chances and we were a bit lucky. Utd may have created loads of good chances, but it's going to take a lot to beat Boruc with the form he's in.
Why did they show 2 United passages of play when they were both offside, and given by the linesman? It was a poor highlights clip.
In that picture, those players are all exactly where they should be, in/near the box ready to attack a cross which hopefully Shaw is just about to deliver. If Shaw doesn't cross, then I suppose Osvaldo should toward the near post and whoever that midfielder is cuts across and offers support.
5 of the 14 players who played for Saints today played in the 6-0 win over Oldham Athletic in 2011. 9 of the 18 in the matchday squad were at the club at the time of that game. Those nine are... K. Davis, Chambers, Fonte, Shaw, Schneiderlin, Ward-Prowse, Lallana, Do Prado and Lambert.
It's also interesting how last season after 8 games, we'd conceded 24 goals and this season we've only conceded 3. Everyone, to some extent, has a role in defending but two of our back five (Clyne and Fonte) were part of both starts to the season. It shows what having a brilliant goalie, a proper formidable centre back partnership (Fonte and Yoshida didn't properly jel as quickly as Jose and Dejan have) and Danny Fox not playing and being replaced with a hugely gifted full back does for the team. Wanyama and Schneiderlin are also key to putting pressure on the opposition's midfield and restricting chances.
On the last point, today's game was one of the better games of football that I have watched for a while.
My two favourite moments: 1) Lovren Cruiff turning past Van Persie then hitting a 40 yard shot on target 2) Lallama absolutely dicking Michael Carrick near the end
Personally I'd prefer there to be someone out wide further forward to stretch the defensive line and give Shaw an option for a shorter pass and possibly a one-two. If I remember the passage of play correctly Shaw dribbles forward a little way, stops, tries half-heartedly to get past the full back and then plays the ball inside to a central midfielder who isn't in that shot (Schneiderlin I think). The midfielder takes a touch and by that point Lallana has drifted wider left, the ball is played to him and he gets a cross in which is eventually cleared. There's also the point that most Premier League defences should be able to deal with a cross from where Shaw is without too much difficulty. I agree that "we'll try to score more than you" isn't a great tactic but that's not really relevant to how entertaining a game is. We seem to control possession in games without really creating much and that doesn't make for great entertainment. I'm not just talking about today's game here (my sisters came round today with my 4 month old nephew so I kept getting distracted/disturbed), it's more of a general comment about the season so far.
I refer you to BBC's own stats. The most pertinent ones of which are: Man U Total shots 12 of which 5 were on target. Saints Total shots 18 of which 7 were on target. I think we saw all 5 of ManU's on target shots, plus some off-target. We saw 4 shots from Saints. Saints had 54% possession and MOTD showed it more as 15%. All I ask is a bit of balance. Is it selfish of me that I want to see a bit more of my team..? I don't give a toss about ManU.
I should add that I saw a stream of most of the match earlier today. I saw a totally different match from the one on MOTD. We were easily deserving of the draw, perhaps more. Oh, and Rooney was offside.
I hesitatingly bring this to you. Full 90 minutes of ManU v Saints: http://www.footballorgin.com/2013/10/premier-league-2013-2014-manchester_19.html Please remember that these links are risky. If you see anything which suggests your computer software is out of date, running low on disk space, or anything, it is NOT TRUE. Just watch the match. If you can't, just leave it.
Just watching the first 10 minutes of the above and Saints are worth every plaudit. Lovren has just raced out of defence with the ball and done a stepover past a ManU player. Then he remembered he was a defender and passed the ball before retreating back into his own half
I remember Boruc making one save of note. Yes they cracked the bar twice too, but they're the defending champions, at home, for goodness sake.
Just come up to the ManU goal and the statistic is, and I quote: That's the first goal Southampton FC have conceded in 7 hours and 77 minutes..! No, I haven't misheard. Clearly, someone has invented a new time standard while I had the flu.
Must record this fact. Just got to 30 minutes in the match and the whole stadium, that one can see from the TV view, have risen to their feet and started applauding. And I think it's for Rickie Lambert who has just come off the bench and started running up and down the touchline. In the background one can faintly hear... if you love Rickie Lambert stand up. That is so cute.
Just watched the whole match again [I'm waiting for MotoGP later this morning if you're wondering] and we were brilliant. Watching it again gave me a better perspective as well. One, there's no doubt, Saints played a fair bit of their possession in their own half [hence the 54%], but once Lambert and then JWP and Do Prado came on, the tide began to turn and Saints played much more in ManU's half. Two, ManU have very little to worry about. Theirs wasn't a poor performance. They dashed around with all of the excitement and control of last season. This wasn't the ManU who played WBA. They were much better and they are going to start beating teams sooner rather than later, IMO. The match analyser gave Lovren the MOTM award and that's fair enough, but the whole team played very well indeed. Players of note included Clyne, Shaw, Davis, Wanyama, [Fellaini got zero out of him and badly fouled him later on] Schneiderlin and Lallana. Adam was absolutely superb. That's possibly his best game this season, and it was England squad material. He is so hard working, but he's also starting to show more of those twinkle-toe tricks that one saw in those development squad match videos from years back, and they're all coming off. Tbh, he was my MOTM.
