I thought Hammond was absoloutely outstanding today. Easily my choice for MOTM, and quite possible the best I have ever seen him play in a Saints shirt. If he continues to perform like that then I'm going to have to seriously rethink my belief that our best CM pairing is Morgan and Cork.
Nigel has always had faith in Dean and if anyone can get the best out of a player, it's our Nige. I think our players will up their game this season.
It's such a cliche when you hear managers and players saying "we're in good shape, for the first game" or "we've had a cracking pre-season" but to be fair, we were a class above today in every department. We looked quicker and more controlling on the ball. The only thing i worried about was Richardson leaving a lot of space for there pacy winger, and Conolly getting outmuscled occasionally but that's being very nit picky. Lallana, Cork, Hammond and Fonte were brilliant today.
I think the term you're looking for is 'like a butchers dog' Fran. All 14 who participated looked very well prepared, even RL; pie-makers everywhere must have their heads in their hands
Hammond put in a great performance today & great goal. Looks like he is fighting to keep his starting place on the team & with that performance he should be starting next week.
I have been the first to voice my opinion on dean hammond in the past, but today he looked very good. he will always give 100% and i really do hope he can improve even more. was a great goal and a great personel display from 'el capitano'.
I always said he was a decent player that got stuck in and I always got criticised for it... Excellent goal today an could be very good at this level given his performance today
I must say for me this present set of players are a credit to the shirt in the past its been easy to have favourite players and players you dont like but i truly like this whole bunch.This is a credit to Nigel as he is a good judge of charachter which our team has in abundance and is epitimised by Deano and even more so by probably the hardest working flair player in the divisions Lallana there are no passengers you could see that today.Each and every one of them put in a proper shift and as we know in this div nothing less will do coyr
Well I'm just going to put my smug face on and say I told you so Thank you "history repeating" for resurrecting my thread on Deano. He was awesome today.
I have waited years for us to have a proper team. How many times have we played lesser opposition and struggled because they were well schooled and played as a team. I used to wish we had a manager that could sort us out like that..well we have now. It's all about preparation. Nigel has a plan, prepares for it, but still has flexibility if things go awry. He likes team players and won't stand for nonsense. Sometimes the sum is greater than the individual parts.
My first name means Green valley with a river running through it . I tell people it actually means Dragon Slayer
I was well impressed with the midfield. I thought he would start with De Ridder on the right instead of Guly but Nigel seems to have got that one right aswell. Guly did set up Hammond for the first goal as well...... Although he has a hell of a lot to do when he got the ball. De Ridder when he came on looked determined, although it may take him time to get used to the pace of the Championship, he definately looks like he has something about him. We still have Barney and Chambo coming back which increases competition even further. Not had a mention but was Lambert a man mountain today. I thought he dominated their defence and won everything in the air against what was 2 pretty tall centre backs. He held the ball up and set up Lallana so deserves a mention! The thing that makes me feel as if we would have a good season is that we looked so confident on the ball, even when there was no space. More importantly when we didn't have it we pressed so high up the pitch it never allowed them to get going. Nigel made me laugh on the sky sports interview after the game, the man can not keep still! Can't believe we actually won a first game of the season!!!! Today is a good day to look at the league table!!!!!!
