equal best. oddly we've still got the same wdl record we had at the same stage of the 02-03 season. but we're not going to wemberlee as i had hoped last time i noted that.
Yeah, but our points per game would see us at 52.93...one point ahead of '02/'03 (and '00/'01) and a point behind '94/'95, but that took four extra games. Fairly confident that we can meet or best that; we're four wins and a draw or three wins and four draws away, and we have the games remaining to return those results.
I have learnt to ignore these rumours, even when they come from a supposedly good source. I was told by my bro some months back, that a friend of his, who's son plays for Saints under-11s or something, said that one of our players was out for the rest of the season after getting injured. (Think it was Schneiderlin?) His source for this inaccurate nugget was supposed to be directly from the lips of a member of our senior squad. I was concerned because there was no reason to doubt this ITK, yet the fact remains, he was plain wrong. As some of you love your stats, I wonder which is higher? Pompey's pass completion % or the papers correct guess % when it comes to transfer rumours?
ok i see what you've done there. we're on course to better 02/03 if we have replicate the PPG including the period before we went off the boil... i'm not very hopeful of that happening. I am surprised we've kept pace with 2003 since last time I looked though and will be interested to see if we finish around about the same points total.
But equalling our best ever finish in the Premier League, second season in, playing attractive football and displaying a fantastic ability to bring the best out of a thriving academy isn't enough for you this season? What were you after, just out of interest?
if I was after people who want moan about anything they percieve as negative posting i'd have got exactly what I wanted. but i'd have gone to saintsweb for that.
as i'm none the wiser as to why you've interpreted my post as expecting more than our best points finish, i expect we are on an equal footing. jolly good.
Sorry, have been made to feel slightly tetchy by other posters! I was referring to the fact that you mentioned you weren't convinced by Pochettino - I'm just interested to know what more you expected from him. I agree he makes mistakes and is still in managerial terms, learning his trade. But then what manager doesn't make mistakes? I don't expect perfection, but I think he's made us a hell of a lot better in his time with us, and I really hope he's going nowhere.
I feel he might be a one trick pony at the moment. When the system works it's very good but as pointed out before, it's not a system that has ever yielded many goals for him. I'm also not sure any more if he knows exactly why his system works when he often seems to voluntarily sabotage it. If we are continue to buy three first teamplayers of better quality (particularly ones with pace and/or shooting boots) every season I will feel more positive about the future of the system.
I think there's some truth in that. As I said previously, I think our play is better than our players at the moment. With a world class striker we'd be putting an awful lot more of these chances, and games, away.
I are keep editing my first draft and leaving in ludicrous grammatical errors when i've missed editing out a word. Splendid
Mauricio said that he studied us before accepting the post to see if we had the men to play the pressing game that he loves. He saw we did and the rest is history. The players are still performing, but we lack the lethal finish. We need to score more if we persist in letting in goals. We have a very poor record when the other team scores first. TBF to MP, we also needed an awful lot of chances to win under Nigel....it's just harder in the PL. This is a real test for Mauricio's managerial ability. I would give him more time and would certainly extend his contract to show that support, but I'm not Katharina. An extended contract would also give the players a clear message as well.
Difference between us and Liverpool yesterday was that they put away their chances and we didn't. 3-0 flattered them, 2-1 would have been a more fair reflection of the game.
You're not too far out on that, we've been a bit found out of late. Most teams struggle to go toe to toe with us in a midfield battle. If however you retreat without the ball, retain a compact formation and hit us on the counter, we are extremely fragile. I think that's why our away form has been so good this season. We really do need a plan b for these situations.
And we need the personnel to have a plan b. We saw a bit of the difficulty yesterday: we were finally, finally passing and moving at a high tempo in the first half, and getting into the final third before Liverpool's defense was set. But Rickie cannot play at that pace, and consequently he wasn't in the box when many of those moves reached the bit where you try to score a goal...it was Lallana/Rodriguez, often with one of them on the ball and beyond the width of the box, and not a hell of a lot of support. In time, that will be the plan b against teams that want to sit deep; same pressing game, but attacking at a far greater tempo to generate chances before they have had that opportunity to retreat, and with enough mobility to move defenses when they are stacked in the box.
Can we start a rumour about a huge former footballer being lined up? Zidane? Maldini? - then we could start another 'Cortese is returning' rumour! The Italian Job.
