Match Day Thread Saints vs Stoke City - Saturday, August 23 - 15:00 KO

So we’re not allowed to judge him even just a bit til then? What if we are bottom half in October?

What if we lose at home to the skates?

 

Absolutely not. As someone else (sorry can't remember who) in the thread said earlier they've had the best part of a year to prepare for this. We were told that SR shouldn't be spending money in the Jan transfer window as we were down already, and we'd be spending it in the summer. We were told Spors had a master plan and we had an advantage over the likes of Leicester because we knew who our new manager was. He's had the entire close season to work out tactics, game plan and formations.

If the grand total of the hierarchies achievements in nearly 9 months is to get us playing like a 7 year old on FIFA, spamming the cross button with absolutely no idea what our strongest 11 is, then what the **** have they be doing?

 

Yes, I hope that he is learning because we fans know that 3 CBs and Adarma up top does not work. I hope to see a different line up next league match.

 

I noticed this too. He was constantly moving along the line and trying to make runs to get in behind but we never tried to make a single pass to him. It was all balls lumped into the box.

 

No need to panic. Stoke were good. Still looking a bit disjointed which hopefully will become more cohesive as the squad settles. Main difference was the clinicalness.

But we were asking for trouble not leaving anyone back on corners. Felt sorry for Armstrong first half, his profile against the Stoke defence was a mismatch

 

He made some great runs but Manning never saw him, stopped and passed it sideways

 

Reminded me a bit of Pellegrino, death by a thousand crosses, I hope to see improvement with some more creativity in the team.

 

Bang ****ing on in my opinion. I think it was me who brought that point up and I constantly remember being told there’s no point buying in January because we’re already down. I was already annoyed at that mentality but let it pass because I really thought we were gonna be on the ball in the summer and get things done. In typical SR style, the season is under way and we are all scratching our heads as to the first team and the playing style. It’s ridiculous. I said for months I will not be forgiving at the start of the season if it starts poorly and it has. This club has absolutely no reason to get the “wait and see, give it time” approach anymore, we’ve been ran into the ground and I’m still waiting for just 1 good 90 minute performance.

 

The three relegated teams are 7th, 10th and 18th. That would suggest to me that patience could be quite important…

 

The owners might not, but Still absolutely does. If only we lived in a perfect world where we could buy all our players at the start of pre season, eh?

 

Yeah but football doesn’t work like that I’m afraid, it’s on a game by game basis.

 

I mean you can judge him all you want. But I don't think we will be able to build an informed view of how good he actually is for a little while yet.

 

Remember when we lost 5-0 to Sunderland at the start of last season?

 

Okay but look at the team today. They aren’t a team of strangers. The first team all played together last season, so why did it look like the complete opposite. At the very least you would hope for basic team chemistry but they all looked brand new. Is that not even a little bit concerning?

 

And we're 3 games in out of 46...

 

I honestly don't think it was as bad as many others seem to. I'd actually say it was our best attacking performance of the season so far where we've created the most.

Those two chances in the second half that went over were shocking. Think the header was Downes but not sure who the second one was?

Ultimately I see it as a positive that we're at least creating chances, confident that we'll start putting them away soon.

The big worry for me is defensively tbh, and in particular how wide open we look in the middle of the park considering on paper it's our strongest position. Thought all 3 midfielders were poor today frankly.

Other positives:

- Nobody is paying £50m for Matty based on his performances so far.

- Best atmosphere at St Mary's for ages imo.

- Fraser has started the season pretty well

 

We’ve lost one game ffs!

 

The difference was Stoke got the ball in their half and where immediately crowding our 8 yard box like a swarm of bees, we got the ball back and 5 minutes later we where still passing around the half way line or losing against there press.

 

Yes and I didn’t think it was a good season either. We looked very weak and fragile the entire season and clawed promotion despite us trying our best to squander it and I was banging on this thread every week saying we will get found out at soon as we play a competent team and will get battered in the Prem. Then we became the second worst team in premier league history and I felt pretty vindicated.

I’m very aware it is one loss. But it has been 4 poor performances and that’s what I care about.

 

I will say though that the skates game is absolutely ****ing massive. Unthinkable to lose that one.