Yeah. We've been too busy raving about Saints to shift over, so we just started posting about Pool/Boro on here.
Any thoughts about the Referees performance, I have to question his booking of Targett, struggling with cramp, taking too long to get off the pitch? What is that all about? He also got suckered too often with the diving antics, particularly Rosicky and Wilshere.
Targett was booked for time wasting. He went off the far side injured, Bertrand came on and then Targett ran across the pitch instead of going round it. However he was giving all the Arsenal dives and I thought the award of the free kick that they scored from was very very soft. There was another one in the second half where Wilshere poked the ball one way and then jumped into Davis sideways and it was given again. Then he marched the wall what looked about 12 yards rather than 10. I also think it is s**te that Yoshida got booked for waving an imaginary yellow on Saturday yet when Sanchez does it the referee books Wanyama and ignores the imaginary card waving. Wilsher really gets my goat though. He hacked down our player twice without getting a booking, then several times took our man out to stop us attacking (finally getting booked) then we did it (was it Morgan) late on all the Arsenal players were up in arms about it as was Wenger.
Left side massive over here. Targett + Mane looked like they had played with each other for years, Gardos was class and Davis, although he's shy in front of goal arm, is incredibly composed on the ball.
Just seen goals again on Sky. Noticed that whilst congratulating Tadic after his penalty, Pelle took the opportunity to gee up the players to push on from there...leadership qualities.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/match-reports/arsenal-1-2-southampton-nathaniel-clyne-4311747 .
We saw a Saints supporter turn to his mate after the final whistle and say, WOW..! I think it was fully merited. Really don't quite know what Koeman has done to change them into a team that is so hard working, confident to the point of arrogance, and brilliant passers of the ball.
Posted in The Times: This suggestion is probably too close to the bone for their fans, but perhaps Southampton should sell off the family silver every year? The £92 million raised by the sale of the club’s famous five has been put to remarkably good use, to the extent that it is no longer a surprise to see Ronald Koeman’s side second in the Barclays Premier League
https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/football-wenger-deflated-cup-exit-222426916--sow.html Wenger saying we abused the fouls in the middle of the park. Naughty Saints abusing those poor little Gunners...shame on you! Koeman suggesting that Clyne should get an England call up...overdue I think. Done my rounding up of articles now...nightie, night.
I loved it when we all started singing: "Let's all have a meltdown, let's all have a meltdown la la la" just after Clyne's worldy.
I feel like we use the field better now. MP's high press/possession was geared towards pinning the opposition in their own half. The advantage obviously was that you are playing far away from your own goal and near theirs. But the disadvantage is by condensing the field to 40% of its size everyone is always packed in and it is hard to find space. Especially when on a change of possession attackers must immediately run to the ball, and do their defensive duties instead of maybe letting that guy go by and then drifting into space for an outlet if the midfielder wins it. We seem to consistently yield time of possession now just as we almost always used to win it. But man, do we break fast on counters. I think that is why we are getting more goals from midfielders and they keep saying they feel more freedom to attack. In MP's system they were really like fullbacks in the opposition side, their main duty being to hold the ball in. They may have gotten more touches often due to possession advantage, and higher up on the pitch, but they weren't dangerous touches. They could never really get into a creative attacking mentality because we could never afford to lose shape. It will be interesting to see what happens when teams take away the quick midfield counter, either by keeping all their players back or by having a disciplined back four and/or having good enough attackers or a possession mentality to work the ball deep into our end and pin us there. I felt like West Brom did the former and Swansea did the latter and we struggled a bit with both sides. Especially I think with Swansea where we tried to break too fast while dashing all the way up the pitch and it resulted in some sloppy midfield passing.
Just got back home to rainy Northampton and am still buzzing after that fantastic game...hats off to all the lads. They were all heroes and wouldn't be fair to highlight any one individual as it was a brilliant TEAM performance Roll on Saturday, lets put Saggy Face to the sword
Another favourite was "Where's our players gone?!" and when they sung "That's why we let you go!" when Chambers cocked up.
