An unlucky freak result... But I should think he will be starting Lovren-Fonte for the remainder of the season! And as if we didn't all know it already, we need a better sub keeper! Gazza looks scared whem the ball comes in the box - absolutely no prescence at all.
Didn't realise Wanyama came off due to injury, at least it means that Pochettino hasn't lost it. Was blasting him for taking him off. Still don't understand why you change a settled and effective central defensive partnership though, especially with a youngster in goal.
Yoshi watched too much of the player instead of the ball for the first one and the winner was a Worldy but my lord is there some sort of ban from shooting outside the box at st Mary's?
At this rate the U-21 team will be on the pitch. We may find out the hard way if we have some youngsters ready to step up.
You're beginning to look a bit... well... stalky, Trixter. Your obsession with us is very flattering but just a little weird. Vin (I know it upsets you that I sign my name but I was brought up well)
Our long range shooting was wayward, however on the two occasions that we crossed from the right, we scored, if the second one is a fortaste of things to come it may not be so bad after all, with our previous tactics having been sussed and countered, Pochs move to three up could be useful as long as the rest take their responsibilties seriously and snuff out the counter attacking which did for us yesterday, without our brick outhouse, it has to be done differently. With Rickie and Oz on the same wavelength it could be productive.
Freakish game, but seen them before and it always seems to happen that any good fortune we might have had in previous matches is wiped out in quite cruel circumstances in a game where nothing seemed to go our way. Poch has to take some blame for dropping Fonte, which seemed daft to me. Poch also should have noted in his remarks how **** the ref was. I do not believe he could pass a basic "beep test" for fitness, he was miles behind play all game and would explain why he let Villa waste so much time as it gave him time to catch his breath. Surely fitness is the most basic of requirements to be a Prem ref?? One good thing, we will have no more fawning cut & paste articles from the media for a while.
Don't understand after scoring twice in that manner why we didn't put more crosses in as we were winning more headers in the box than villa all game. All this trying to play to feet on the edge of the area looking for cute turns and reverse passes, you only get a goal 1 in 50 times doing that. And what is it this season with Luke Shaw not wanting to get to the byline? He maybe carrying an injury, but he's looked a yard slow in recent games.
CBK - On the money there. Someone above says 2 crosses from the left and we scored????? Hope they get their shoes on the right feet. lol. I have been saying for weeks now that for all the bluster about Clyne playing well and being MOTM or near to he is failing in the attacking third nearly every game because he isn't putting the crosses in. For weeks he has been driving forward then stopping and passing back, maybe a tactic to pass back to JWP??? Who knows but last night he finally crossed and we scored straight away. Even when he went off Fonte crosse from the right. Goal. So for weeks we have been out on one of our main strengths which is our power in the box if we can get earlier balls in there. Too many people calling out Rickie having a bad game when in reality he is being asked to play AMC behind Osvaldo most of the time and then when he does get in the box the service is not there anyway. So in reality many of those on this forum who have been slating Rickie and saying they wish he would stop trying to be a midfielder should actually be laying off Rickie and asking questions of his role within the team and what he is being asked to do. If we had more crosses in like the second half last night then Rickie would have more goals, Jay would have even more than he has at the moment and we wouldn't need to be emptying our own midfield to support the tippy tappy Barca play around the edge of the box. Then we might have a few more chances from outside the box too as we would be faster to the shots and not be giving the opposition masses of time to get their 10 bodies back behind the ball. Last night it was all down to Pochettino and he should hold his hands up: Yoshida in for Fonte was a very bad mistake. Cork should have been in next to Wanyama from the start. Apart from dillying for the goal he came on and took hold of the midfield quite well. Fonte should have been put in defence and not on the right. Yoshida should have been moved to the right (Yes I know Fonte crossed) The timing just before half time of JWP for Osvaldo substitution was silly. Should've waited for half time. Then I assume it would've been Wanyama for Osvaldo. And the full backs should be encouraged to mix things up and cross sometimes. This can only be a directive from Pochettino not to do so and to turn backward and pass around the edge of the box for ages. It's something that Barcelona bore people with and we are not Barcelona nor have the personnel to bore people silly whilst still scoring a hatful of goals. I would bet Poch is in Cortese's office this morning as a sort of 'how are things going' chat which is normally the boss implying 'Get it sorted out'.
