By the way Tom, I thought Clattenburg did well today, though he'd forgotten where his yellow card had got to when it came to Morgan!
I agree with LTL (will read page 21 & 22 after posting) Pelle was a monster in the first half, scored and then when he missed he faded a bit. Was rubbish 2nd half until he scored. The problem is people saying 'scored 2 against Man U' blah blah. The first was a rebound that even Steven Davis would have scored from. The 2nd we'd already lost. The one chance which admittedly he helped to make for himself that he missed (Did it hit the post??? I'm not sure) he missed with a virtually open goal bar the keeper. That would have put us 2-0 up and shows that we need a much much more clinical striker. Mane was man of the match. Man U couldn't get near him for the whole game. Barring De Gea's save he would have score the goal the Pelle scored from. Every time he had the ball he would take 2 or more of their players out of the match. Bare in mind it took some convincing me in his first month that he was not just some showpony diving around all the time. HE is by far Saint's best player. Pelle has gone the other way. First couple of months he was awesome. Maybe thats because of how far Saints have come. He was awesome to the level we were at the start of last season. HE is not good enough for us now though. Do we have options? No. Did our management team really think Pelle is good enough for consistent Top 6/7/8?? I hope they didn't and just had to concentrate elsewhere for transfers in.
The reason Clattenburg is good as he has the guts to give things as he sees them and doesn't give a **** what anyone else thinks. He's the one referee where if he gets something wrong I at least feel like he's stayed true to himself and trusted his own judgement. Can't really knock him for that.
I only saw the first half as my wife just got back from holiday but I also thought Pelle, JWP and Mane were excellent. Utd were woeful until they scored but all those millions they've spent began to click and we lost some confidence. I am glad people are annoyed we lost, but it sounds like they deserved it on balance where last year they didn't. The LVG vs Koeman tradition of away wins continues - so we'll win at Old Trafford. What all this proves is that clubs cannot cope with yearly upheaval. It isn't possible. Next year we can cope with losing one (Wanyama ) but that needs to be it. We will be a good team this season - but it is going to take longer to push on up the league. Also, if Cedric isn't trusted with games like this then we will need to buy another RB in the window...
Just back from the game. I thought pelle and mane were our best players, by far. In pelle - One of the instances where pelle let smalling take the ball down unchallenged even though he was standing next to him, was because he was miles offside when the ball was played forward - which I don't think anyone saw.
I'm probably branded as one of the most anti-Pelle people here, but that's going much too far. I was strongly against the signing because of what I saw of him the couple times I watched Feyenoord with him up top, but it has since become clear that I saw Bad Pelle, and there's a player of far greater quality beneath that helmet of hair. But getting Good Pelle to be a consistent presence may take a bit of tough love. It may require hauling him off as soon as he head drops. It may require leaving him on the bench after matches in which his effort level wasn't there. Even if it means replacing him with a middling option for a half or a game...not because he's a bad player, but because Good Pelle is a revelation, and we need him.
I agree entirely. Pell on form is awesome however he is not good enough to be the one and only top striker at a top 7/8 club. I would go as far as he would normally be the 'plan B' at a top 7/8 club. He is like an adebayor type. Awesome when he plays well but the rest of the time?
Neither Jay nor Long are terribly appealing options right now, but even if swapping them in potentially makes us less threatening in that moment, if it motivates Pelle to give his all, it might be a significant net positive for the season. This isn't going to be an easy year...we need him, and we need him at full power.
Strange game all round really. Really in control for the first 25 minutes and then we just folded. The wierd thing is that Pelle's second goal was so against the run of play that the celebration was almost muted, as if nobody could believe it would stand. And then after, they went to bits and we were all over them. I kept thinking if only we could have done this at 60 minutes in, we could have got something from the game. Ok, Man U won, but they certainly didn't look convincing at times today. I think that will also have a difficult season ahead.
I'm sorry, but why is it all about Pelle?, the team lost, not just him. The back four had a lot to do with us losing this game, they were far too deep for a lot of the match.
It's not all about Pelle. It's just his performance is the sole thing people on here disagree about, hence discussion.
Given that I'm very anti-Davis and midly anti-Pelle (although he was my Saints MOTM today - yes his level dipped after about 25 mins, but the whole team did), I'd rather not start on a third player, but Fonte this season is making it really difficult for me. His distribution, with foot or head, has been awful this season and today was probably the worst of the lot. As for the game, I'm in total agreement that we lost, as opposed to Utd won it. Although I could accept the argument that De Gea won it.
But it seems strange when most agree that he was one of Saints better players, surely the focus should be more on our defending as a team?
Sure, but as always he's a bit of a bone of contention. How anyone can put him above Mane in that game (as a whole) is a real stretch for me.
