You fear to some fans he is already the next Guly. I also agree with OranjeBoom that the crosses and supply to Pelle so far have not been good enough to supply him.
People near me were groaning at Pelle after 5 minutes. Very average today. Unimaginative, slow and terribly boring. £34 I won't get back.
No surprises about Pelle - looked a quationable buy in the first place. We need Jay back and Pelle should become a bench-warmer. Still a striker short - not sure if we have the chance to get one at the right price this late in the transfer market. Going to be tough if we cannot find goals from somewhere... When you total up the cost of Long and Pelle; start to wonder what we could have bought just signing one player for waht we paid for those two...
Well... the confidence that a first goal gives you... I honestly think once hes off the mark and we keep the ball on the floor he'll go on a good run
Pelle at the moment, has the look of an actor playing the part of a footballer. Mind you it didn't help that we kept hitting high, balls at him in nomansland with his back to the goal. He looks like he ought to be good, so I'm not giving up on him yet. Still, a poor game all round. WP was bullied off the ball, Davis looked out of sorts, Wanyama's skills weren't really needed as WBA lacked any real ambition coming forward (he didn't do anything wrong though), and Tadic flattered to deceive after a bright start. Morgan looked solid enough without ever looking threatening. Long apparently came on at half time! I thought we should have bought Cork on earlier as he's not a match winner as such but someone who can influence the shape and balance of the team and also either Taider or Isgrove should have had a cameo at the end. Disappointing game with no real chances created. On the plus side though, Forster looked excellent, Clyne and Fonte solid as ever and Yoshida put in a decent performance. Bertrand is no Shaw!
Very poor game, and a very flat performance from us. No creativity, no tempo, and we unfortunately had a guy up top off his game today. Pelle couldn't hold the ball up, and his touch was very poor. That said, we were just lumping the ball up to him most of the time, and he couldn't do an awful lot with it. We need creativity, and Long should have played down the middle rather than out wide. Disappointing, but at least we didn't lose.
It's not as simple as that though is it?, we pushed the boat out for an Italian International striker last season, who after half a season was so desperate to leave, he headbutted Jose to get a move (allegedly). We can't expect to sign the type of players that the top clubs can mainly because it breaks the wage structure, plus they are likely to move on after they realise that we probably won't offer them CL football Pelle wasn't great today and he seemed to waiting for the ball to come to him instead of taking up intelligent positions and finding space in the box. I hate to make comparisons with Rickie, but I'm sure that he (Rickie) would've made more of the crosses today. It is probably a case of him getting used to the service from the team and he certainly could do without abuse from impatient fans (so f**ing angry with them). Koeman knows his qualities better than any of us and will get the best out of him eventually. All things considered, an encouraging display followed by an average one is not the disasterous start to the season many predicted, it is simply not realistic to expect the team to be as fluent as last season's at this early stage of its' development.
Wasn't as bad as some are making out. Game was about as good as the performance of the home support. Gets worse every season.
Wasn't as bad as some are making out. Performance was probably better than the performance of the home support. Gets worse every season.
St Marys was flat and not helped by a poor game. The ref did not seem to help matters as the game lacked any flow. The encouragements of last week have been tempered by the realities of this week. It will be interesting to hear from Koeman as I think he has been fair in his assessments of recent performances and I hope he highlights the poor tempo with the ball and a lack of movement up top. I don't want to see a midfield four of Wanyama/Schneiderlin/JWP & Davis again at home. They're all far too conservative in possession and we never had enough bodies looking to get in behind the defence. So it was all played in front of them at far too slow a tempo. I think Clyne could have been a little more adventurous too
Good stuff from Koeman and the one major positive from today is his assessment seems to agree with the feelings on this board. Now lets hope he has the ability to do something about it. We can argue about whether any of his signings can perform above what they showed today. When long was introduced we looked a lot more threatening but sadly that seemed to peter out as the game progressed. Plenty of work to do in the training ground
My take on the game if anyone is interested. http://www.thematch.co.uk/thematch-report-southampton-0-0-west-brom-saints-held-dire-draw/
New signing watch from me: Forster - flawless Bertrand - not great. Made to look slow and ordinary by Berahino at times. Tadic - flashes of class, faded badly. Long- looked busy, great spring on him but struggled to really impact. Pelle - nothing stuck, would like to see more desire to rectify situations when he lost the ball. Don't give up on him yet!
Pelle has played two games, and people are already writing him off? Must be the shame ones who said Boruc and Rodriguez were crap as well. Pelle had no service, constantly whacking the ball up to him, against Olsson, who is very tall himself (someone Lambert got no change from the past two meetings last season it has to be said) and then when Pelle did get the ball, there was no support what so ever. The whole tempo of the team was off, midfield and defence were solid, which is very good to see, but hopefully 1-2 more attacking players, and a healthy Ramirez, and I'm hopeful we will start scoring goals.
