Came on and scored 2 against Leicester last year, got a couple of beauties against Villa in the 6-1, and has a few others to his credit. His problem today was the lack of service, apart from the one chance at the end which I agree he should have taken. Mané wasted loads more chances today, so I'm not sure why Long gets your attention.
Long has one goal for every 285 minutes played since joining Saints; Pelle's at one for every 253. Mane's one per 257. We have a fair few regular goalscorers, but no one too awfully prolific. The most prolific? At one for every 238 minutes, it's One-Goal.
I know I'm overreacting a bit but as a striker he is poor, I expect him to miss every chance he gets and 95% of the time he proves me right! Mane creates the vast majority of his own chances soo won't quibble with him missing his shooting boots. Plus mane isn't a striker (scores goals for a job!) by trade
Agreed; worried he might not be the same player. And in the absence of someone prolific, I think that we need to generate more chances with the ball on the deck and the sort of passing and movement we saw last year; we're incredibly reliant on crosses and set pieces right now.
Let's not all turn on each other. What we saw tonight was not that unexpected; been this way most of the season. Do not subscribe to RK must go: but he really needs to get something going because team selection, formation, tactics and building confidence looks shaky at present. Compare/contrast this fixture to the same last season and it tells a story. Yes one or two good moments but the consistency over 90 mins is not there and he as to address the mentally of the players and team overall. Let's hope he can sort this out because we should be doing better than we are, do hope he succeeds, but questions are, within reason, being raised.
Look at Joshua King's goals per game record. Wikipedia him. He's been starting up top for Bournemouth since Wilson got injured. Yes, Jerome is certainly worse and many others.
I've always thought he was pretty good. But certainly has to work on his concentration and decisions at times. I refused to write a keeper off that is that young, that tall and that athletic, with a monster kick. I hope he keeps his place.
Wasn't King a winger at Blackburn though? I don't know there isn't much between jerome and long, other than 12 mil!
King has played on the wing at times, but his main position is striker. Long often plays on the wing for us when he plays anyway , with Pelle up front.
Brilliant I almost thought this might happen. But then I thought it was a really low chance considering his scoring record.
Why, when we beat Plymouth in 2011, did we not sign Bolassie? He does everything, for Palace, that we should be getting from Mane. Fast, direct, good control, beats players inside and outside, gets to the byeline and puts crosses in the right area, to cause the most problems. So many times our back four were facing their own goal, when trying to clear, whereas the Palace defence were happy clearing crosses that were sent in from easier areas to defend. One thing that Bolassie and Zaha showed, was their willingness to gamble. So many times, when the ball was pinging around midfield, they were on their bikes before the ball was played, trying to get in behind the defence. Mane and Long weren't making those runs enough, and were too happy to receive the ball with their backs to goal, rather than running into space/the channels. Long actually did do it twice, and could have scored from both chances. I thought Bertrand was well out of sorts, as a wingback, offering nothing at either end of the pitch, whereas Cedric offered more. Possible reason for this was Mane hanging right, linking with Cedric, whilst Bertrand had no help out left.
I've seen criticism all over the place of Ron for being stubborn or not having enough ideas, no good plan B etc., being found out after last season, I actually feel like our biggest struggles this season have come from moving away from our core philosophies. We went out of the EL putting out teams to combat Midtjylland's set piece threat, playing Maya at RB in the first game and a weird shape with JWP on the left and Pelle and JRod up top and then a 5 at the back with Martina at RB and the same front two and ended up playing down to their level and they outscrapped and grinded out both games to deservedly advance. We've played Maya over Cedric unenforced a few times and Maya I think has done an admirable job in general but there's no denying it's cost us in a couple games (United , especially when playing next to unsettled CB partnerships our defensive shape and marking has come amok. Cedric is not so dissimilar to Clyne and we never felt the need to swap him out for a different kind of player, if we didn't think Cedric could do the job in 95% of games we shouldn't have bought him. Then against Watford we played a 3-5-2 (Without Bertrand, whose presence along with Clyne/Cedric I think has added a lot of legitimacy to us playing 3 at the back) to counter them playing two up top, they ended up playing a 4-4-1-1 and sitting deep and our only three attacking players on the pitch were Pelle, Mane and Davis in a very, very winnable game which we ended up not being able to pose any threat in. Against Everton we went practically 4-2-4 with Vic and Davis in midfield and got cut through like butter. Then today we again went 3-5-2, not automatically a bad idea, it has worked for us in the past and it has advantages in certain areas over our standard shape, but in this case it didn't look like a targeted attack on Palace's tactics - they didn't have two strikers looking to get into the box we needed to handle (Yes you could technically draw up their shape as a 4-4-2, but it really isn't), Zaha and Puncheon tracked our wing backs like shadows and shut down our width when we didn't have usually both Davis and Mane shifting over to the right and then leaving us either looking for Long alone in the box or working it back across for our two out-and-out DMs to try and make something happen, we didn't outnumber them in midfield and apart from the one break in the first half from a corner Mane and Long didn't terrorise them in behind... It looked like we changed either because missing Pelle alone meant our normal approach wouldn't work, or just for the sake of it, to try something different, and Palace adapted to it quite easily and naturally. Going forwards we were frequently disjointed and defensively all the change in shape served to do was to give Palace their dream scenario, allowing their quick, skillful players to drag out our CBs, either because our wing backs were left high up or had to press their fullbacks, and give them ideal 1on1 match-ups and to disrupt our defensive shape. I actually thought for about 5-10 minutes before we made changes that we were finding out best flow, Davis and Romeu were getting on the ball and working quick one-twos with other players and had a couple of driving runs with the ball, we actually seemed to be finding a little bit of shape and a foothold, and then Davis came off and we basically went with 4 up top and barely got any rhythm going for the rest of the game. All our best football this season has come from our standard shape and approach, two agile, attacking fullbacks who are sound defensively in 1on1s, a solid 3 man midfield that can both shield the defence and work the ball simply but effectively to get our attacking players into positions to gain an advantage (Note, this doesn't have to be raking 40 yard balls behind the defence or beautifully weighted throughballs that slice through their whole team, it can be simple and patient), two wide players who can both hold width and come inside to open up space for overlaps, and a striker who can play back to goal, and be both a pivot and the point in our attack. Most of our bad results have been when we've come away from this, though to be fair there has been legitimate reasons for doing that when we've been without key players at times. But again I feel like some of our struggles in that department can be assigned to not staying true to how we try and do things, we've made some stopgap signings that have yielded results you would expect from that kind of buy. And that's not the end of the world, not every player bought is going to work out but it feels like there are players like Martina, Caulker and I hate to say it, Long are players we've brought in outside our usual approach and now either not up to scratch or don't fit our play, which then necessitates us changing it when we play them. And it's not just in terms of buying players but bringing through academy players, take Martina, he really doesn't seem up to much unfortunately but that's not a crime, we're not suddenly so good it's a scandal for us to have players who are a bit crap in our squad, but even if we didn't have a youngster really bursting through at RB, is buying a 'squad filler' player who doesn't really match the legendary 'black box' check list really a better way to go? If we had say McCarthy instead, similarly versatile, different kind of option, but maybe not really oozing talent like some of our other products, even if he was just as poor I feel like it would not have such a negative effect and this is where we've felt the benefits of promoting youth in the past. He'd still have the exuberance of a youth product getting his shot among the big boys, he'd still be at home, it'd be easy for the senior players to take him under their wing and help him, and he'd come with that general excellent mentality we work so hard to breed in our youth players. Whereas Martina probably feels uncomfortable, away from home, having to adapt to the league, may not be easy for him to relate to the other players or for them to help him and not getting games will really hinder his chances. I don't mean to pick Martina specifically out, it's not like he alone has undermined our whole season, but I just feel like that comparison best highlights where we've made moves that have been against the grain to what has gotten us so much success. As usual I've managed to spew out a garbled stream of consciousness rant, but basically I feel like Ron and the club don't need to really try and change things and freshen things up to try and find our way back to success, we need to just get back to our bare basics, no big change in style, panic buys in January who don't fit, I want Ron to just stubbornly back his philosophy, screw anything else, we play our way and we operate out way, 4-2-3-1, Stek/Gazza, Cedric, Fonte, Van Dijk, Bertrand, Wanyama, Romeu/Clasie, Mane, Davis/JWP, Tadic (Always on the left!), Pelle for as many games as we can without injury or lack of fitness, make signings if we think we can get specific players who will add something to the squad, not making signings out of 'need', and then fill the holes in the squad with youth products. I don't care if there's games where it feels like a team is just sitting back and trying to counter our normal style of play, or if there's times where it just feels like if we had that one 'x factor' in the squad, or just a little better back-up at such and such a position, just do what we do for the rest of the season and I believe that will both net us the best end result and I'll be happy. Basically, let's not get scared and get away from what's worked for us, we don't need a change in style, tempo, mentality, motivation - whatever, we don't to buy big or have a major change in personnel... Just do it the Southampton way. (I couldn't bring myself to capitalise the whole phrase, too painfully cheesy!) Kudos to anyone who reads all that.
