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

But all 3x league games very average (half glass full). A fortunate win, a good draw & today tbh was poor. 4x strikers who have no confidence & look all playing as tho they’re out of position & I haven’t even included BBD there. The only bright light has been Robbo. BTW, Wood was awful today, as did Downes. My only positive from that lacklustre performance was, I hoping WS has learned a ****ing lot.

 

Highlight of the game has to be when the Northam, using all their collective witty bantz, did the ‘oooohhh you fat bastard’ thing to the Stoke goalie.

It was clear at that moment, that despite the scoreline, we were the real winners of today.

Pompey, wE’Re cOmInG for YoU!

 

And as Will has only just come in, I think the fans owe him some patience

But that’s just a pipe dream obvs

 

I remained relatively happy clappy last season. This season I refuse. A line has been drawn. Tired of accepting these continued crap decisions. Crap managers. Crap signings. On repeat. They never learn.

 

The issue is last season. Because we were so bad and losing every week then any loss is going to feel like a continuation of that to a lot of fans who are already fed up. Obviously not Stills fault what happened last year but I can see it getting very Nathan Jonesy if say we lose next week then draw/lose to Pompey

 

Oh dear

 

We wanted a manager that is more pragmatic and flexible i.e. playing the current formation because we don't have the right players upfront, and then complain 3 games into the season when he does. I don't get it.

 

Having watched most of pre-season and every game since the season starts… I think maybe our players just aren’t very good. The Brentford RB should make a difference as that has been a hole for a while. Jo Tessem summed us up during commentary- we don’t make good decisions and we don’t offer overlaps out wide. That’s on the players.

 

Interesting you say about the atmosphere. I was block 5 and thought it was piss poor

 

Maybe I'm missing something but I thought the general consensus was that the squad that was getting humped week in week out producing some of the worse football that had ever been played by a Saints team needed a bit of an overhaul? Seems to me that very little has change albeit we are playing in a weaker league? Lot's of business to do in the last week or so of the transfer market if we are really going to be promotion candidates. For me so far the jury is still out.

 

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Spot on, but unfortunately it's stuff we already know; we know 3 CBs doesn't work, we know Armstrong at CF doesn't work.

We don't need 5 at the back and 2 defensive midfielders in front of them in this league. It's resulted in poor performances against Wrexham Northampton and now Stoke. Ipswich, for me, was fair enough.

We are literally giving the opposition control of the game and nullifying any advantage we might and probably should have "on paper".

The tactics have been **** so far - and that isn't me saying I don't rate Still, I think we might have a good one in him, but he has got it wrong in these early games

 

Pragmatic and flexible are not two words I would currently be using to describe our team.

Boring and sh*t, they fit better.

 

But how is that in any way helpful? Thinking like this will just lead to doing a "Watford" and replacing managers 3 times a season for the next 5 years.

 

People complained when we have 70% possession under Russ, complained when we pressed under Ralph, complained when Still gets the ball into the box. It's all a little too familiar.

 

Might piss a few people off if I say I think we missed Quarshie today…

 

It's a weird stadium acoustics wise. Was much better today than Wrexham I thought.

 

Where abouts do you sit?

I was block 1 for Wrexham and thought that was much better atmosphere wise

Still maintain that moving the away fans away from our vocal support is one of the worst things we've done in recent years.

 

No issue with getting balls into the box. Just as long as we player a striker or two over 5”7.