Match Day Thread - Manchester United v Southampton Thursday 16th January 20:00 pm | Page 17 | Not606 calm down it’s only football. Nobody has died or been injured. Get a life
Didn't watch, listen or read anything until this morning. First thing I did when I woke up was check the score, saw the time of goals scored and thought ahhhh the classic Saints collapse. Having read through the thread it sounds more or less like most of our performances against the 'big' teams. We usually manage to play well, but we pretty much always end up with nothing to show for it. I get that there might be more optimism this time because it's under a different manager, and we are playing a different way that may be more likely to breed results. But ultimately we are not good enough at either end of the pitch and that makes it very very difficult to win games at this level. And much like every other time we up our game against one of the 'big' teams, we never then carry that through to more winnable games...albeit in this scenario away to Man Utd is probably more winnable than away to Forest! I'm not expecting this time to be any different, but fair enough if you want to live in hope that it will be different this time under a new manager. AND absolutely fair enough for people to be showing frustrations and moaning too!! Particularly straight after a game that we've thrown away in the last 10 minutes, but come on, we are on 6 points and the worst ever PL team at this stage of the season, and fully on track to beat Derbys long standing record.
Question for those that watched. Was Bree playing as a third CB? and how did he do? He's been pretty **** whenever I've watched him in the PL, although that has been at RB. But with KWP and Sugawara playing too, I assumed Bree was played as a third CB, but not sure why he'd get in as the third CB over Wood, an actual CB who had been generally decent in his brief stint in the team.
Yes, third CB. He did fine I thought. I think Juric likes his CBs to be very mobile and get involved higher up more. Bree is quicker than Wood, so I'm guessing that's the main reason. Sugawara was ineffective though. Offers nothing going forward these days.
I think most of our defenders are okay players as individuals, but none are good enough to properly organise and lead a defence. I think if we had one player like VVD or Fonte, they would improve the defense as a whole. I really do think TBH and Bednarek could both be PL level defenders if they were alongside someone better.
That’s what I think too. They’re useless as a pairing at the moment because neither of them are leaders. It’s like they’re both looking at each other to take charge. Bedders has been one of those players that has served the club for years but never really looked like the main guy you can rely on. He always looks shaky and nervous to me. And you can see it affecting the entire defence. This is why it’s such a showcase of how poor our squad is that we’ve somehow ended up with him and Jack ****ing Stephen’s as the captains this season. Two players who took part in both 9-0s ffs.
Absolutely It was key that we had some control in midfield but MU we’re starting to dominate and we diminished our midfield with the subs They brought Eriksen who crated the winner with his guile, why didn’t we bring on Lallana I wonder Also Juric seems to rate Cam below Smallbone as a CF???
They remind me a bit of Yoshida. He was a bit of a running joke at Saints until he partnered with VVD and we suddenly realised he was actually a pretty solid defender. Having a leader at the back might also help with the fact this team is probably to most mentally fragile side in sporting history. CB & CM are key areas for the summer.
Last night was Juric waving an enormous red flag about how ****e our attacking recruitment has been. Her brought Armstrong and Paul on then essentially in the post match said they did nothing, which is absolutely accurate. Juric, over the month it has been, has assessed that our attackers are so crap that it’s best not to use any of them.
Don’t disagree with any of that but I do think Archer deserves a bit of a run in the team if only just to find out if there’s a player in there somewhere. He can’t be much worse! Makes me wonder if there’s an issue between him and Jurić.
I definitely saw rumblings that Juric felt he was too individualistic for a systematic team. But I think individualism is desperately needed. If anything it was the individual talents of Dibling and Sulemana that almost got us something last night.
We're painfully short of players that can score goals. Archer appears to be someone who can score goals. It does feel as though we should be finding a way of getting him in the team and playing to his strengths.
The pier at Sandown, Tennyson Down with amazing views, Cowes Week, decent clean buses which run to time with obliging drivers. Love the place, not so keen on plastic dinosaurs, or the ferry‘shall we sail or not bother or it’s broke down again’ culture.
Tennyson Down & The Needles are great Also, Ventnor, the Italian Riviera on our doorstep Steep Hill Cove, lovely fine sand that always got in your Sarnies Always went there as a kid for Summer Hols with the parents (When the ferries were cheap & reliable) Happy Days
I did say most!* Although in fairness, when we loaned Stephens to Bournemouth in our relegation season, he was a regular starter and helped them stay up. So he genuinely could be a decent squad option if the players he got to play with were better. Our squad is just full of average players that lack leadership/confidence. *edited original post as I realise i didn't delete "all".
