My main disappointment with Sulemana yesterday was that he rarely tried to take players on. I don’t mind if he tries and loses the ball a few times, or it doesn’t come off or he plays the wrong final ball. But running at players and into space is what makes him a dangerous player and he rarely even tried that yesterday, and he did have opportunities to, but mainly chose to stop and pass back.
He’s still in the tricks phase and hopefully will get into the product phase soon as Edozie has. I’d start Edozie next game
Once WBA started to really press our passing out from the back, passing out to KWP was often the only option. I think that is why, when Stewart came on, you could see him signalling to Che to stay central while he went wide, so that we then had a taller player to receive the long ball.
I really enjoyed yesterday's match. It was entertaining knife edge stuff played in a good spirit. Could have been a draw or we could have won by a wider margin but for dodgy offside calls by the linesman who on both occasions raised his flag stimulated by the defenders arm. Reminded me Arsenal when young used to do it all the time. On the other hand they had three very good chances one of which hit the bar and had they gone in they would have won. Pleased with win and all round performance but instinct fully I find this passing back from very forward positions frustrating. The new boy looked promising when he came on. The very lovely Mrs Godders and I went home happy agreeing that we are both liking playing in this league. Much better than the PL where you know that you are going to get stuffed allmost every week.
Strange one - Fraser has been much better/more productive than Sulemana so in theory deserves to start. But the impact sub thing is working so well. I guess Martin will just keep sticking to this for now. Although Fraser crosses into Stewart’s head will be glorious
Yeah isn’t that part of the deal? I guess he could turn down the move but i would have thought the personal terms on the permanent deal should we get promoted was sorted as part of this deal. At least in principle
One of the downsides of playing Bree on the left is that there's no threat of overlap. WBA was doubling up on Sulemana consistently; the ball back to Bree was useful, as he had acres of time and space to play it into the box, but it took away Sulemana's ability to take the WBA fullback on.
Agreed. I thought yesterday was the first time since Bree came in at LB that we really did miss a left-footer, due to that lack of overlap threat.
That's way too simplistic. They are very different in style. Sulemana is playing more like an LM in a 4-4-2. Ryan Fraser plays like an LF in a 4-3-3. The two goals he scored were because he knew where he roughly had to be. I don't see Sulemana getting into those goal-scoring positions as much. Re: Being a team player. Fraser is better defensively. Also, he gets his crosses in much quicker. Sulemana still dallies with it far too long. Don't get me wrong. I'd still have Sulemana on the teamsheet over Fraser. I'm just saying he isn't undroppable.
If nothing else, we needed someone else to recognize that, and pull out to the left to combine with Bree. Players were getting into the box as if Sulemana was going to have a realistic chance to take on two set defenders with no support and play a ball in, and all he could really do was play it back to Bree on the angle. Bree in turn didn't really have much that he could do beyond playing the ball back, or clipping it into the box. Would've been nice to have a CM pulling out toward Bree to create an overload, which is what most teams that play inverted FBs do. We largely just allowed them to take Sulemana out of the game.
I agree. However, Fraser has 2-4 years of Premier League experience. Sulemana has 2-3 months experience with the most woeful Saints team I have seen in over 48 years of supporting us.
True. Or, Fraser is playing like he has one last chance at a big money contract. Sulemana plays like he's trying to put together a nice YouTube highlights video that a scout from a big team might stumble across.
I don`t know why when we have a free kick in a wide left area, with Bree and Stu standing over it, Stu shapes up like he might take it left-footed, but then leaves it for Bree to take. That`s never going to fool the defence, and he`d be better off elsewhere.
Watched the extended highlights again. Charly's initial pass to Stuie for the goal, is a peach. Likewise, the two through-balls for Adarma's 'offside' runs in the first half. Smallbone made the first, which was nice enough, but the second one, by THB, wow. I can just watch that sort of thing on loop a dozen times. So good. Shame the linesman was being a dick. This was my biggest frustration last season and this. Too few attempted through balls. Hopefully yesterday was a sign that we are going to start being bolder in this department.
I thought that showed good maturity from him, in fact. All through the first half WBA had two players up against him, one tight and one loose. If he had tried to beat his man the ball would have been hobbled up by the second man, so his response was to hold the ball and recycle it, which I thought was good play. A consequence of them doubling up on him was that WBA couldn’t press further forward, which contributed to our dominance in that period
