Match Day Thread Southampton VS Huddersfield: 23/12/17 - 15:00 Midtable Teams Doing Midtable Stuff

Without wanting to put words in Ian's mouth, I am guessing he was trying to say that Austin should have scored his chance. It was 1 on 1, guilt edge, and should have hit the back of the net (by the way, for every game that Austin scores in, he has missed at least one other glorious chance...). Whereas Maya, I don't really think had a right to score from where he was - but the power and direction he got on the ball, almost did get it into the bottom corner.

 

I still wonder what might have happened if we hadn't sacked him - he was learning the PL along with the squad, and seemed to be getting to grips with it.

But no, I wouldn't take him back. That time is gone now, sadly. I wouldn't want to risk tarnishing the memories.

 

Agree with that. Allowing Nigel to grow with that group would have represented a far lower risk than asking him to come in a lead players like Virgil, Mario and the like at this stage. Anyway, I never want to tarnish his memory.

 

Yes, yes, yes. Well said CF

 

Haven't read the comments. All I can say is how the f*** is Tadic still starting games? Boufal is a million times better. That is plain as day.

 

I will start with a caveat because I have not yet seen the highlights, but I fully agree with your last paragraph. However, subject to seeing the highlights for confirmation, my memory of that moment is Charlie Austin gesticulating to Redmond to do just that. It could be that Redders was going to do that, so he needs to be given credit for it, but if he needed telling.......

Another poster criticised Redmond’s pass to Chaz, but it was actually a very good pass as he “dinked” it over the foot of the defender who had come across to block him. If there is any fault it was Chaz’s poor first touch, not killing the ball dead.

On their equaliser, I have some sympathy for Yoshida. This is the second time, in recent games (Okazi for Leicester was the other), that he has been caught in that horrible position of needing to fill the space on the edge of the six yard box, whilst having a striker behind his right shoulder, with no one supporting him.
I have seen one or two comments blaming him for the goal, but it is one of the worst situations for a defender to find themselves in and, unfortunately for him, on both occasions the opponents have been on the same wavelength and delivered the perfect cross for the movement made by the striker.
Again, subject to seeing the highlights, I wonder if Stephens could have been more central, as he could see exactly what was happening, and maybe could have given more support to Yoshida, and maybe have been in a position to challenge for the ball when it was obviously clearing Yoshida.

My overall feeling is that the team is very, very disjointed, with occasional flurries of cohesive football. I see our pass success was less than 70%, which adds to the feeling of disjointedness.

 

All I want for Christmas -

Cortese back in the Boardroom
A new hamstring for Charlie
and next time VVD turns up to watch a home game charge him at the bloody gate !!!

Merry Chrismas All

Dohnut.

 

Having watched their goal a few times, it was the classic situation of the striker getting between the two defenders (in this case Yoshida and Stephens, not Hoedt and Yoshida as I originally thought). Neither jumped with Depoitre, so he had a free header. These things happen, and I will fall back on my mantra of “score more goals, then the occasional defensive error won’t matter”.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't give that goal a second thought. And absolutely, if we scored more goals then it wouldn't really matter.

But sadly, Yoshida never seems to be too far away right now when it comes to us conceding. And even more worrying, it's not from him leaving a pass back to the keeper too short etc. The goals are including more elementary, run-of-the-mill types - headers. Vokes, Giroud, Depoitre, Alonso, Mahrez, Okazaki (his second), Sterling. Subject to the other two Leicester goals (I haven't watched any highlights from that game, and never will, so can't comment on who, if anyone, was at fault), that's a very significant number of the goals we've conceded since the start of November.

Given that Virgil is seemingly on his way out of the door (which I am completely fine with, subject to a decent price), that is a big concern for me. I think we'll be needing more than a couple of attackers.

 

That’s the trouble with there only being one defender. He will always get the blame.
An alternative view could be, where the feck are the other defenders when the goals go in?