At the end of last season, I thought he would do better in the prem than Jose but to be honest they have both developed into reasonably solid defenders. Jos comes into his own vs the likes of West Ham, Stoke ...... Where he deals with a real physical battle, he appears to love it and he always reacts well to the crowd
In our promotion years, our strength was that everyone helped out in defence. In our first few games this season, when everyone was trying to find their feet, this connection fell apart and confidence was shot. Fans and players alike knew that we would lose a lead. Adkins began to restore confidence and we became tougher to beat...now MP has brought the best out of the whole team. Jos now knows he is going to clear a ball...he has lost his fear and reverted back to the good defender he is.
My left back is giving me gip this morning. I blame Saints for giving me cause to leap suddenly in the air like a salmon whilst trying not to spill a cup of tea.
I seem to be the only one that thought Hoover was pushed by Terry before he scored, have another look at the replays, it may not have been deliberate but had a profound result on the outcome.
He definitely gave him a little push but nothing untoward, I think Jos would have slipped regardless but probably not flopped to such a spectacular degree.
I still think the main reason for the slip was the excellent movement from Terry. I wish we were like that at our corners.
Not that I wanted to much, but using the iPlayer this morning gave me the opportunity to examine Terry's push on Jos. Tbh, it was just a fend off. Jos was going to go down without anyone's help. Blades again..?
Our movement isn't particularly bad but we just seem to both be unable and unwilling to whip it into that danger area around 8-10 yards out dead centre. We either try some kind of near post flick or far post knock down shenanigans, or just plain mis-hit the corner, so wasteful when we have aerial threats like Rickie and Jos in the side. Should just go back to basics and drill it into them for hours one day in training, big men line up around the edge of the box, darting runs, ball whipped in, and attack it - no funny business! We also need a couple of consistent takers, at the moment it seems to be a case of rock, paper, scissors; Davis, Lallana, Puncheon, Ramirez, Guly and Schneiderlin all have a go now and then, I swear there was a game where we had four different takers for four different corners.
All season I have been saying to mates that are movement is not good enough Mikey. There is no real out to in movement; it's always just a yard or two. The most frustrating thing for me, and this is a basic I was taught, is that there is never anyone dropping outwards at the far post to get a ball that misses everyone. Watch any game and there will always be at least one golden chance at the far post. "Goal a game at the far post" is one of the oldest but truest coaching comments in the game.
Yes could be. I'm frequently astonished at the quality of the Saints pitch, whatever the stage of the season. This season, in particular, has been a real sod for the groundsman, yet the pitch is still green and healthy. But green and watered in the penalty area means slippery too.
Haha to be fair it's a combination of both, it doesn't matter what their movement is like if the corners have the accuracy of a Jack Cork 30 yard volley though! Like I said, a day on the training ground would not go amiss. Funnily enough the far post issue is also a huge bug-bear of mine. Few things in football exasperate me more than seeing a ball fly over or through the crowd and then bounce harmlessly out for a throw-in or goal kick. Every team nowadays seems to have players lined up on the edge of the box ready to crash in a rebounding half-volley (Because that always comes off ), but no-one in the much more dangerous area where about a quarter of corners tend to end up.
Earlier in the season it was easy to say that our back five were not good enough for the Prem, like you can probably say about Reading now, and looking at the names they are not. But they have all worked hard and now look like a Premier League defence. If things had continued how they did in the first 10 games (I know we played mostly top teams) then we would have gone down. Also without the emergence of Shaw...we would have gone down.
