And our five matches following Swansea are: - West Ham (A) - Leicester (A), three days after returning from Israel. - Burnley (H) - Man City (A), three days after returning from Italy. - Chelsea (H) So he definitely needs a win very soon; fail to beat Swansea and we could well be sitting on 6-7 points come the end of October, which will have his job hanging in the balance.
Exactly I am not calling for his head. I am saying Puel needs to get a win soon or he will be in for a meeting.
I think we'll give him time. And I think we'll be rewarded for doing so. Thursday night could be a welcome distraction. European football, late kick off under floodlights, in front of our own fans, 1-0 Saints (which will still disappoint some I suppose) and everything starts coming up roses.
Person that must be the most pissed off is Redmond. Him playing on the wing would be brilliant. But we have no wings...
Was starting to wonder why I'm watching the Pool / Fox game, but some comedy from Lucas has just reminded me!
I'll give it to 10 games. We have hard games after the Swansea game, so it is huge. If we go into the tenth game without a win he is gone.
For me there is a big difference between a player's mistakes and the referee's. For any player, there are, at the same time, opposition players trying to cause them to fail in whatever way possible. E.g for Long, he has a GK running out at him, a defender chasing back.... A referee should not have any opposition working against them. The counter ot this is players diving, faking injuries etc. in which case I have sympathy for referees. (It's the same for me as a teacher - does this student really need the loo or have they just agreed to try and meet their friends there midway through the lesson....) In today's situation there is no-one trying to cause them to fail. They have to watch and analyse the situations that arise in front of them. To make the wrong decision from that point is therefore indefensible. Yes, every referee is human and will make mistakes, but they can be expected to be critised for them too. Those that make the least will referee the top leagues.
Mark Hughes was also a victim of some dodgy decisions, but lost the plot and was honest enough to say so.
So, from what I gather, we played really well, but was undone by a ****e referee not following the rules of the game? (out of our control) Onwards & Upwards!
I don't know whether people saw a different game ( as watching live and on TV you see it differently). But the formation didn't work again.
Half the teams in the league have only managed a point a game, or worse, since the start of the season. It is a lot tighter this season.
Only now realized that I'll be able to watch the Sparta match, as I'll be off work. Bonus: because I'm having an outpatient procedure done earlier in the day, I'll be coming off a pile of sedatives, so I'll be pretty relaxed no matter what happens.
I was listening to Solent post-match on the way home from work, they seemed to think it worked well today.
Midfield looked a little better, but Davis was nowhere. Redmond isn't a striker and it showed. Bertrand got confused with what to do a lot of the times. I am willing to give it a few more games. But the lack of width is killing us. Rodriguez looked pissed off with how deep he was played as well.