Best defensive record in premiereship after 5 games ,now who would have thought that ? Certainly not Lovren ,us being a club with no ambition lol I know it's early days and reality will possible kick in at some point BUT at present it feels very satisfying
Who needs Lovren when you have Fonte, Yoshida, Toby, Gardos... Apparently Chambers cam play cb, not as well as any of those four imo.
Lol just seen similar comments on other thread by chilco posted earlier so appologise for new thread but maybe worth a separate one ?
Chambers is the only player I feel wistful about...we could have done something with him. The rest no....even selling Lambert means that we don't have to watch his sad decline...we had him for his best years. I think our defensive strength will see us finish high this season...top ten easy, may be as high as 6th, most likely 7-8th.
The quality has always been there, Lamb. He's just been eliminating the errors, over the years. Making him the Captain was just the fillip that he needed to really get the very best out of him. Portugal really should be calling these days.
The defense didn't look that good against Swansea. Routledge should have finished his chance and if Bony hadn't been sent off they might have put 2 or 3 past us. On the other hand, the squad is still getting used to new players and a new manager and we still haven't really seen much of Gardos and Alderweireld yet. Swansea are a good side but I think Koeman got his tactics wrong rather than us having a poor defense in terms of talent. Hopefully that won't happen again. So yeah, overall happy with the defense. I think we will be in the top 10 in both goals scored and goals allowed.
I'm not sure I feel wistful even about Chambers. Players who openly say they don't want to play for my club anymore don't get my approval. All of the key players, save Lambert and Shaw said they wanted away. Lambert's going was fine. I'd like to see him back one day as an ambassador or something, because let's face it, his very best years were with us. In Shaw's case, I don't buy the 'promised move' rumour, what with all the videos and talk of him staying for a few years. He was just bought for an awful lot of money, and he wasn't going to turn the ridiculous salary down either. That I can understand completely. So, I'd have Shaw back, but he'll only return if his potential doesn't become fact. I can live with that totally, because when all the hype dies down, he's still all tremendous potential and he hasn't really begun to deliver on it yet. Whilst he's already a superior defender to Bertrand, that lad has already created more assists in 5 games than Shaw did in 2 seasons. Stats aren't everything I know, but they do suggest that Bertrand is strong enough in the important areas. As things stand, I'd happily buy him at the end of the season, and pocket the difference.
Know what you mean, but I have so much respect for Jose that I couldn't deny him his chance at international recognition. Just a few caps.
Impressed so far. Swansea had a lot of the ball and our midfield which is usually so reliable struggled but Swansea only created one good chance in open play. Reservations would be if anything happened to Forster or Bertrand(Targett untested), but I'm relaxed with any combo of our central defenders. We've not really faced any of the strong attacks yet, but so far so good
The big difference now is that we shouldn't have to field Championship class defenders anymore....Jos and Danny Fox did a job for us in getting promotion but it was clear that they weren't up to it in the Premier League. If we had our current defence last season, I'm sure that we would've finished higher than 8th.
''Southampton's scoring spree fuels success Southampton have now failed to score in only one of their previous 16 Premier League away matches - in the 0-0 draw against Aston Villa in April. They have now won three on the trot and only lost one of their last nine league matches.'' Picked the above off the BBC website. Very encouraging stats demonstrating that we have carried on from last season. Hopefully, if we maintain our strong defence but also carry on scoring, some of our draws will be converted into wins. Had too many draws last season.
