Haven't posted here for yonks but just wanted to agree with a lot of posters about Romeu - Barça pedigree, which is a guarantee, and includes a work ethic. How much safer the defence look when being attacked, and how smoothly he moves it out of defence. May he stay free of injuries and may we never have to lament as Juliet did: "Wherefore art thou, Romeu" Gerrit?
Ok, I'll read all the pages later, but no doubt most will be of a similar opinion to me. We were lucky today, really lucky. If they hadn't had a player sent off we'd still be out there now trying to score. Hopeless. Tadic was like he was in a disco, he threw his hip so many times - FFS just cross it. JWP shouldn't put his free kicks where the keeper is stood. Even with ten men they still looked more like scoring than us, until the red gave us a few soft free kicks. That Romeu can't shoot for toffee and Mane only tried because he thought united were watching. He'll be off soon. I can't believe the club gave out inflatable clappers; there's too many happy clappers as it is. We're in trouble, real trouble. . .
Not in the mood for a prolonged bitchfest, but I seem to have been watching a different game to you! Hang on, I see what you did there!
You've got Mane and Tadic all wrong. As for Hooper, I thought he looked about normal for a shorter CF
Someone's bound to have moaned somewhere Don... I just haven't had chance to read much yet. Lovely day today.
On Tadic, I think it's important to appreciate that a winger should be disciplined to not chase a game. By that I mean, leaving your position in search of the ball or trying to have an influence elsewhere on the pitch. For example if we try an attack down the right and it fails and we have to play the ball back and across the back four to Targett then it's important he has the ball down the line. If Tadic has wandered off and left his position then the attack hits a cul-de-sac
Just watched the game on footballorgin. Great performance. My MOM would have to be Tadic or Romeu. I thought Mané was good - but nowhere in the league of those two. Clearly was just a desperate bid to get Mané to have an interview! I would easily put JWP in third place. I thought he was terrific. He played a significant role in nearly all the significant moments and, for once, it wasn't just his set pieces that caught the eye. Back to Romeu. What a bargain! And, whart proof that Sky pundits have no clue. He gets the ball near the death down in by our corner flag, jinks his way out of trouble and plays a great pass up the middle. He's been doing this all game. What do the pundits say? He's been dependable. He was superb - but he didn't fit into their little narrative and so they couldn't think of anything to say about him.
Last week MELTDOWN, we were out of Europe, hadn't won a game in the premiership, just above the relegation zone. This week, we've only lost once in the premiership, 2 successive clean sheets, Tadic is back to his best and we're above Chelsea. 7 days is a long time in football!
The best thing about statistics is that depending on how you look at them you can always find a suitable set to support your point of view!
Fatletiss: of course we were lucky; lucky to be playing a distinctly average team, lucky to have an hour against 10 men, lucky they didn't put away an easy chance. Of course we've got trouble (not "are in trouble", I think) defending and we need to press a lot more urgently and effectively when the opposition come out with the ball - Romeu has already made a difference here. But above all, we're lucky we can look at a devil's advocate load of "boloquios", as the Spanish say and move on to the next post.
This sudden wave of optimism is rather enjoyable, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. As Koeman said, we don' party when we win, we don't **** ourselves when we lose. We played, after all, about 60 minutes of football at home against a 10 man Norwich side. I believe I'm not mistaken when I say that in this league we will hardly have an easier match (with all due respect to Norwich). Every player did well today and I agree with the general sentiment, but it still remains to be seen whether we will step up against stronger opposition.
I have to say that I agree with point 1. Mané really did look like he didn't want to pass it to Pelle at times when Pelle was in exactly the right spot. Might just be a case of having a better view from the stands than the players that gave me that impression but it was noteworthy. People around me were commenting on it. Vin
Having now seen the 90 minutes with it fresh in my memory, there are a few points I would make. Whilst Saints were the better team prior to the sending off, there wasn't a huge gap and Norwich were quite dangerous. After the sending off Norwich still managed to combine a half- decent defence with a slightly bothersome attack, and it wasn't until Pelle scored that Saints began to relax. Once Tadic scored his goals their heads went down, understandably. As with many match-ups, the difference between the teams were the players who could change the game. Norwich didn't have any. Saints had Mane, Pelle and Tadic, and all three made a contribution. Mane, I thought was, as usual, better when he played slightly drifted in centrally, allowing Cedric to overlap with ease. Incidentally, one striking feature about Cedric - jeez, doesn't he get up the pitch.? At times he was our furthest forward player when we didn't have the ball.! Back to Mane, what I didn't like was his tendency to play the odd loose pass. Occasionally he even passed the ball directly to a Norwich player. He needs to let his brain catch up sometimes. At 22, I'll forgive him. Pelle was his usual self. Sometimes his flicks were the work of genius, sometimes he was in a different country. Made a few good passes too, and was always a little bit too much for Norwich. Good goal. Tadic was nearly at his best, I felt. Once again, he showed that he plays with his head up more than anyone else [for me, Mane plays a little head down in comparison] and sees things beginning to develop. Some of the flicks and weighted passes were a delight. Plus he has such quick feet that he can beat a player or take the ball back off one with almost no effort, it seems. Yes, he did wander out of the game for a few minutes here and there, but he played extremely wide and that is often what happens with wide players. However, he came inside at the right time to get involved again. For me, he was the best player on the pitch. Stayed on the left too - yippee.! As for the others, I thought Romeu and JWP both had fair games and were combative and stroked the ball about nicely. Oriol pinged a few long balls that were very nice to see, but got no mention from the commentator because he isn't called Gerard. JWP's whipped free-kicks are a delight to watch but absolutely nothing comes of them. Intriguing that.! The early free-kick that a flying Ruddy tipped around the post was on its way in the top corner. JWP gets no luck.! The back four were fairly solid though they didn't have too much to do. Jose was the stand-out performer once again, and the three around him played their part, but having two non-first choice players side by side [Maya and Matt] did give the impression that if anything was going to give it would be there. Don't get me wrong, both Maya and Matt are fine players to come in and play, but I'd rather have a slightly stronger CB if Matt is playing and Bertrand if Maya is there. But hey, they coped, so I'm not complaining. Steklenburg is an odd one. Undoubtedly he is an excellent keeper, but then why don't I get a huge sense of confidence off him.? Odd feeling. Better him between the sticks than anyone else available though, so once again, I'm not complaining. Just a mention for JayRod. Still way off the cut and thrust of it all and Koeman is giving him plenty of time and patience to get himself sorted. He looks hesitant and that's half the trouble. Here's hoping it really is just a matter of time and confidence. Norwich I thought were a fairly decent unit. I can see why they have such a good record in Away fixtures. They were physical, combative, played the ball around quite confidently without creating too much, and before the sending off I thought were just about good enough for the 0-0. They need some extra quality in attack though if they are really going to trouble the PL, but I wouldn't say they were nailed on relegation fodder. If they don't start scoring goals though I think they'll be flirting with the relegation zone all season. This game obviously wasn't the best one to give them an overall rating for the forthcoming season though.
