I get that he might take time to get up to speed with his new team, but surely a bloke his size should be working hard, bullying and pressing the defenders and trying to make things happen. He never offered a target.
To me it showed tonight that the energy from the team has to come from the front 3, as Scienza, Armstrong and Archer all ran hard for the team and each other, opening up space for each to run into, then put into the mix that Downes was putting midfielders under pressure it all looked so much better. What is important though in the championship would be going a goal up as would then lead to more space opening up which would play into the team set up based on this evening.
I'll also add that, for once, Manning looked like a LWB tonight, as opposed to a LB being asked to play LWB. He was a contender for my MOTM.
In that situation the ball becomes the line and as long as Ekitike was behind the ball when the pass was made, it doesn’t matter if it was played forward
Just has no presence whatsoever. Which combined with a poor first touch and no hold up play basically makes him a passenger.
For me he was worse than that tonight. Might as well have had a red shirt on the amount of times he gave the ball away.
Biggest takeaway from tonight might be that Jelert looks very good. Well, that and we don’t actually need to rely on THB and Jack.
I would be very disappointed in Still if THB starts on Saturday. Not blaming individual players, but we looked more like a team tonight.
Wouldn't say he was the best performer or anything but really pleased to see Edwards looking more comfortable. We all assumed he'd play a huge part this season and hopefully he still can.
Well that's football for you. If we all had the same opinion it would be boring and this forum wouldn't exist
Yes but surely if he is in front of of the last Saints player when the ball is played to him then that's offside?
Still sounded pretty pissed off in his post-match interview. Basically said we're not playing too badly but keep making stupid mistakes and giving the opposition goals. I'm afraid that's basically been the story of at least the last three or four years.
He had a dodgy first half on his full Saints league debut, crazy to write him off after that I thought.
That doesn’t matter. If 2 players are through like that and both were onside when the original pass came through (which they were) they are both onside and the subsequent pass to Ekitike was good because he was behind the ball (which became the line).
