Jander looked pretty good in the few moments he was involved. I'd swap him in for Downes against Hull
Difficult to judge too much on one game, and particularly a game like that. But when Azaz was invisible in the first half, he was chasing lost causes forward but wasn't dropping deep to collect the ball and get involved. There was a big disconnect between defence and midfield, Downes and Charles were not making themselves available enough to receive a pass out of the defence. And then a massive gap between them and Azaz and Archer. Fellows and Fraser were trying to stay wide but they too were isolated and just not involved enough. Then obviously there's the issue of how we are trying to attack with a short solo striker which just doesn't make any sense. Just nothing about yesterday worked except for the CB's looking more comfortable being in a 2 rather than a 3. If Azaz isn't the sort of player to drop deeper to get involved and then drive forward, then we need one of our other midfielder to be more forward thinking than Charles and Downes to get it to him higher up the pitch.
We have the second highest expected goals in the league. Creativity is not the issue. It is putting the round thing in the net.
We never looked much like doing it yesterday. One very tame shot on target at home against our local rivals, that's pretty poor. I've never trusted xg much, I prefer my own eyes to analyse.
That’s fine, but everybody accepts derby games are form breakers. Yesterday dropped our xg by 0.5. It wasnt reflective of the season.
And yet everybody has said Downs misses too many chances? How if we aren’t making any? And I can think of at least two sitters missed by Stewart and Robinson.
Wow 2 chances. Any team is going go have chances in games obviously. But if you're trying to tell me we're the 2nd most creative team in the league, I think you need to give your head a wobble.
I am saying we are making chances. I have watched every game this season and we have missed clear chances in most of them. Even yesterday nobody wants to mention that Archer had an open net to pass the ball into. Your recency bias, complaining we don’t make chances based on yesterday, is at odds with the chatter before which was about lacking a good striker.
I'd want to see more of the new faces next game so something like this would do for me: Bazunu Roerslev, Stephens, Wood, Manning Charles, Jander Fellows, Azaz, Scienza Archer Yes Roerslev had a bit of a mare this weekend but he's the best we have there. The impression I get from THB at the moment is that he is annoyed at being in the championship and there's a little bit of "petulance" in his play that bubbles up in stupid / frustrating actions each game so would swap him for wood. I think Downes has just had a crap start to the season and want to see if Jander + Charles gives us more initial outlet from the defence I like fraser's work rate but think Scienza will be a brighter player (when he's not having lumps kicked out of him) I know crossing to archer is never going to work but isn't the role of Azaz etc to find a decent pass through to him and if he gets enough of those he'll start putting them away
It also depends on how you want to define creativity which I think is the argument here. If you want to say it's purely on creating chances in a game, then we have in theory done that just by sheer number of balls pumped into the box. And the chances we have created by doing that we have generally spurned. If you want to talk about carving teams open, having lots of shots, playing between the lines, getting to the by line and whipping in balls then we haven't been creative at all so far. Basically all we've done is pump in crosses from deep or long ball from the centre backs.
I am not trying to argue we have been good. I am just saying we have had enough chances to win every game. And there have been clear chances in each game too.
Yeah, the only decent one I can remember was from Scienza at the end (which hopefully bodes well going forward). But even that was an outswinger. It made it a more difficult header for THB.
I spoke to a Sunderland fan on here pre season who said they'd followed Still's career and thought his teams often struggled for creativity but were really good defensively. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the coming months.
Yeah, at times in the first half it almost felt like we were playing 4-4-2, given how close Azaz was to Archer (and far away from Charles and Downes). That's fine if it's Armstrong or Archer playing close to Stewart (or maybe Downs). But not when it's Azaz playing close to Archer. Second half felt more like the 4-2-3-1 it was presumably meant to be.
Saturday 20th September 2025 Hull City FC v Southampton FC Referee: Anthony Backhouse, Assistant Referee: Paul Hodskinson, Assistant Referee: Mark Russell, Fourth Official: Dean Whitestone,
Yeah that’s what the stats say too. At both French clubs he had one of the meanest defences, but also one of the lowest scoring attacks. I’m beyond being fussy any more. Win 1-0 or 4-3. Passing, long ball, I don’t care. Just win games.
