While Long is experiencing a goal drought, last season was probably the aberration, not this year. He has cracked double digits twice in eleven seasons, and one of those was in the Championship. He'll get a handful most seasons, but he's rarely going to be the answer for a team in need of goals.
Long is suited to weaker sides that play on the counter. That's why he did so well last year when Koeman resorted to countering in that bad spell. Not much use for a game like today where he is surrounded by defenders apart from the first minute when he got that header in. We do need more good strikers but they will still not score with the service they get.
Long was unlucky not to score with virtually his first touch today (header at the near post). I'll give you Jay though, albeit reluctantly.
Was that all it was? We both knew the answer before you asked it. I just pointed out he has still been contributing this season in other ways and also pointed out his drought.
People are being too harsh on Long. He's been injured quite a bit. I actually thought he was really good on Wednesday as well.
SemI finals in the league cup and one win away from qualifying from the europa league. Not so bad eh?
He has been below average. But that is form. He won't be incredible all the time, that's normal. If we be patient he will come good.
But it does bring us back to the central problem: we have a lot of players who contribute something, where that something isn't goals. There's only one player in the squad who you can expect to be on the scoresheet with any regularity, and it's Austin. Doesn't mean the grafters are non-contributors, but it's still an untenable situation.
I hope they are actually (not the boring bit, but the retaining possession). I don't want to watch ugly agricultural football of the kick and rush variety.
I apologise. I thought that a clubs fans would know if a striker hadn't scored for them this season. It sounded sarcastic.
There is very much a middle ground between deadening the game through sideways passing and hoofing the ball. Like, for instance, the football we played the past couple years, particularly the stretches where we were getting at backpedaling defenses. Our possession stats weren't nearly as good, but neither were they awful, but we got good chances in open space with regularity, and scored quite a few goals as a result. We also weren't any worse defensively...1.08 goals against per game last year, versus 1.07 this season.
On the passing/possession thing, it's important to remember that football is changing or to me anyway we seem to be on the verge of different evolutions. For example, Liverpool and Chelsea. We played them both recently, both as table toppers or nearly. One came and let us have the ball, the other spend 90 minutes trying to make sure we didn't have the ball. That makes for different approach from us, change management, adaptability and all sorts of problems for a new manager. Teams just don't turn up at Southampton expecting something anymore.
The point is that not one of them can unlock a defence and in the main they aren't the most forward thinking midfielders either. No-one is asking for kick and rush football. Of those 4 Davis is the only one that comes anywhere near unlocking defences and being a threat and that says it all. We had enough of kick and rush the last 2 seasons hoofing it up to Pelle for several stretches of games.
Me too Archers but like my post above was trying to say, Liverpool wouldn't have let us play like that. Arsenal did. The way we play won't always work and especially this season as we are "finding" ourselves a bit.
I disagree. Redmond, Boufal, Hojbjerg, all have instincts to go forward. But let's not give them a chance, eh?
I know he hasn't scored this season, what I asked was , when was his last goal for saints. Anyways it don't matter, moving on.
This. A style needs to work regularly to be a style worth pursuing. Ours doesn't work so well if teams really pressure us, nor does it work too well if teams go the opposite route and maintain a taut defensive shape. Or if they score first. We need to find a combination of players and setup that troubles most teams, not the occasional team. We have scored two goals in our last five league matches; it doesn't look like we're showing more punch as we acclimatize to this approach.
