I had zero expectations for this season, and so far Saints have failed to live up to them. I still think there’s something there though, trying to come out. If we can beat Everton and Wolves (and Stoke in the League Cup) I might even have fun.
Ah. Perfect strategy from this genius football club. From the masterminds that brought you: - Suicidal crab football - Nathan Jones - Not signing a good striker for 5 years - Relegation - Signing permanently injured players They now give us: - Sign players for half way through the season when we are already relegated.
I was ‘sadly’ busy and missed yesterday’s game. But just stumbled upon a clip of a brilliant tackle by Downes on Silva. It’s about the cleanest tackle you can possibly get, and looked as though we would also have been on for a counter as a result. Unbelievably the referee blows his whistle and books Downes!? Apparently RM also got a yellow for complaining about it. As if we don’t have enough to contend with this season, it also appears we are getting shafted by **** refereeing performances week in, week out. It was just such a clear, fairly won tackle…I have no idea how a professional referee supposedly at the top of the game even gives it as a free kick, let alone a ****ing yellow. Not suggesting it would have had any impact on the outcome of the game just FYI, but it’s ****ing tiring having this **** go against us every game.
I agree - didn't expect such negativity. Haaland's finish for the goal was freakish, as was his failure to put away easier chances, but all I'd ask of us in any game is to still be in the game in those late stages, let alone in this fixture. A goal would have got us a draw away to City in this case. Some ridiculous claims on here - Wolves lost last week with the last kick of the game, and were widely celebrated. For me the main positive is what it does to pick up our confidence going into our next games - so those saying they'd rather have gone for it and ended up losing by 2-0 (likely more) would be in favour of damaging the team confidence in the medium term. For me, that game was a bit like the games following our 9-0 defeats, and we just need to reset our psychology again, which I would say this achieved. And for me, I take that Guardiola praise. It's a myth that he says that to all teams who lose against them - he says it to all teams whose managers have an approach and belief system he admires (and who also lose to them), and I will take the praise as an additional confidence boost and way to install belief amongst the squad. We are in a steep learning arc in this league - one of three teams who have that handicap - so we are unfortunately at school atm, so just have to take all these things as lessons, and I believe the win is on its way. I'm also as frustrated as anyone with our start, and Martin's seeming lack of willingness to adapt his approach, but yesterday was positive for me.
And it was about 20 seconds after Downes was blatently fouled and robbed of the ball when we were on a promising attack. The ref gave us very little again yesterday.
And actually Pep didn’t say the thing people on here are quoting, what he actually said was more nuanced and interesting. He said one reason they only scored one was because they didn’t have much of the ball (less than 60% in fact which is remarkably low for City at home). He then went on to say Saints are a team who can “defend with the ball”, one of the best in the league at it in fact. Obviously the corollary of that is that we get very few shots on goal (2). However they were both quality chances: one-on-ones with the keeper. So Pep was just agreeing with most people on this forum: if we had a decent striker his team might have been a lot less comfortable.
Developing Talent and selling for profit is probably the best way to survive whether we like it or not mate. Football is a business now unfortunately.
I think the negativity is not just about taking this one game in isolation but because it is another game lost out of 9 without a win. A plucky loss is no compensation, to many it's just another loss. On top of that, from what I can gather from those who watched the game, was the lack of urgency in the last quarter hour at only 1-0. Regardless of the pleasant surprise at not getting hammered, I think I share their negativity in that respect.
And that is why I think the ref gave a foul as initially he thought it was payback or frustration by Downes. The booking was for the reaction (not in reasonable IMO) not the non foul
To be fair Wolves lost 2-1 and were leading 1-0 and then holding out like billy-ho at 1-1 and conceded in the very last seconds of the game. So they were a tad unlucky. Another team down the bottom did this on that weekend too - but they were less deserving of praise. Yesterday Saints went 1-0 down after five minutes, so straightaway against Man City that is a mountain to climb and then showed almost no urgency in the last quarter when they had weathered the storm. The most important stat to some folk seems to be the possession we had. Some seem to see nothing wrong in Propaganda Football. So pointless posting from here on in. Personally I believe we are relegated, we are down. I suppose we might as well break another record to make it the fun Mr Martin is alluding to. The most goals conceded in a Premier League season was 104 or 2.74 a game, we are currently on 2.11, seeing as we were over 1.5 goals a game conceded in a successful promotion season I think this is the one we stand a real chance of beating.
I know that but not on this scale and consistently getting it this wrong. Christ it was annoying when we lost half our squad to Liverpool but Sports Republic just uncover **** and expect them to be diamonds all the while completely ****ing us long term. With PSR we now have absolutely 0 hope of ever being an established PL team again due to their rank incompetence Where's a rogue oil state when you need one?
