Match Day Thread Norwich (A) Friday 19th June 6pm

Poor opening 10 mins, but that was always to be expected. We increasingly got better thereafter. Other than how poor Valery was (yet again), the only disappointment was that we didn't score 5 or 6. And that's hardly a disappointment at all.

Armstrong was my MOTM, ahead of Ings and PEH. (Thought PEH was pretty anonymous in the first half, but in the second half when the game became much more opened and stretched, he was regularly winning the ball back for us and putting out potential fires - and in such a comfortable, assured manner.)

Saints are football. Yipee.

 

Agree with all of the above.

With Valery I see last year's Jack Stephens. There is a player in there somewhere, but his head doesn't seem quite right yet.

 

Very difficult to separate Danny & Stu. Both were immense. And sometimes where our productive forward thinking Stu goes unnoticed, Danny launches from the traps and chases back 40 yards right near the end. Again, very hard to separate them for MOTM.

 

I came home a bit late after the wife insisting I take her down town! First thing I did was switch telly on....... it was 0-0, went for a jimmy widdle came back and it was 1.0. I missed the goal a few minutes later wife made a coffee so went into the kitchen to collect, came back in just as Saints scored 2nd. I actually saw a goal for once!!!!!

Then a flashback struck me. I thought of what they did last time we played them, so as I'm usually a jinx. I stopped watching.............watched the replay though.

Well done the Saints.......Played much better second half.............

 

I came home a bit late after the wife insisting I take her down town!

I hope that isn’t a euphemism, Beddy.

 

Nah...........

 

To say footy fans and some players are superstitious is a massive understatement. I'm in the same match kit, red underwear, black shorts or jeans and a saints polo shirt also red, every match. Mrs jab similar.

 

Good on you.......It seems that every time I actually watch them on the box they either loose or Draw........Last game I watched on the tele was a home game which they should have won but actually lost although I forget who it was against.

 

I was impressed mostly with the team's energy and hunger, they looked like they wanted to completely bury Norwich and it appears that everybody including Pierre is onboard and Ralph signing an extension can only help the sense of togetherness and foster team spirit.

 

2020 has sure been a strange year. Various news items has affected many people. We are only halfway through the year and who knows how these stories end.

Football has quite rightly been on hold, and may should still be. But wow, so glad it's back. Missing the stadium experience like hell but the feeling I got at the final whistle was well worth the 102 day wait.

Football may not be the most important thing in our lives at the moment but a performance like that has to be good for one's well being.

As for the game looked very assured and looked like we had another gear in our pockets.
Must give us confidence to beat arsenal.

 

Speaking of which, we're playing on Thursday, then next Sunday, so Libby will have to work overtime to produce match day threads!

 

Well he posted this one on the 11th March, which must be a record, but sadly doesn't have quite so long for the Arsenal one!

@Libby are you on the case?

 

Libby, give us a thread.
Libby, libby give us a thread.
(He hates Pompey)

 

It could just be me, but i feel having no fans at the games could really help us for the rest of the season. We have a terrible home record compared to our away and you do get the feeling our home fans turning on the players when we don't immediately play like Barcelona does not help. I know Norwich was an away game but after playing poorly in the first 20 minutes we then get into our stride playing very good exciting attacking football. Even our defence look far more assured then the nervy wreck we seem to become in the last 15 minutes of games.

 

A million psychologists are waiting to find out. How can we be so good away, and bottom of the home form table. This match may well have an answer, if not the solution.

 

It was a fairly awful and odd thing to watch the game without the fans but the win was worth it. My sound was delayed I think because everything was a couple of seconds behind the actual event. Didn’t know if the goals had gone in or not till the sound guy pushed the button.

Kept thinking about he crowd noises and wondering if the guy running it has a midi keyboard with keys labelled ‘boo’ ‘cheer’ ‘goal’. Must be very odd for them too.

 

how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

 

Good point, sadly crossed my mind as well, sad insofar that home fans should inspire the home team and I'm beginning to think that may not happen at St. Mary's. Our team may perform better fanless at home.

 

On BT Sport yesterday, in the build-up to the Brighton game, Jake Humphreys was talking about the negative impact on home teams of not having home support (he was mentioning it every two minutes, as if the audience had no idea that matches were behind closed doors). Once Peter Crouch joined as a pundit, one of his first points to Jake was that not all home sides would find the lack of a crowd as a negative. Some teams would perform better, eg because of no negative fan reaction or because of certain players flourishing without the pressure of an audience.

(For what it's worth, I wouldn't be surprised if we did experience an upturn in home form, but not necessarily just due to the removal of any home fan negativity. Our style of play is best suited to not having the ball, and as such is usually best suited to playing away. Indeed, it's been superb for us away. It's difficult to play like the at home, where the other side often aren't too interested in having the ball either. But if away sides are going to play with more freedom, then implementing an away style of play at home becomes easier.)

 

Yep, playing Arsenal and City as our next 2 home games isn't a bad thing.