My position on the whole Pelle and Davis thing is that Pelle is in no way perfect, but he is doing his primary job, which is the main Striker, I think that he suffers from being Italian as sometimes his gestures come across as being petulant, but I think that he does care about winning. Davis is a very fine CM, but I don't think that he is as effective in a more advanced CM role. The balance of the front four was working great yesterday in the first half and I would like to see JWP on the right and Mane more central with Tadic always on the left. but maybe this will change when Clasie is available
Having recovered from this weekend (family party, the game and the 350 mile round trip) I don't really want to enter the ongoing Pelle debate, only thing I will say is that I agree with someone earlier that said there seems to be a disconnect between those who were actually at the game and those watching on TV...move on. My points 1. RK - not his best day I would suggest. Surprised but OK with his starting line up and positions of players although surprise Cedric was dropped. Game started well, JWP playing wide right providing excellent support to Yoshi and some fantastic crosses into the box. Then suddenly RK swopped JWP into No10 and Mane who was getting through some fantastic work in that position onto the right side. Yoshi was now exposed as Mane wasn't as disciplined in getting back and JWP spent the rest of his game chasing after the opposition, Not sure why RK did this 2. RK - I understand the decision to take off Romero and put on Davis but it proved to be a disaster as once he did this we were over run and the defence exposed 3. RK (or Fonte) - should have sorted Pelle (& his attitude) out quickly after the very disappointing second Manure goal 4. RK - in the 2nd half, why didn't he bring on Cedric and push Yoshie over to LB. Martina bless him isn't Prem quality and would rather have an U21 instead 5. How the hell didn't Snidders get booked for one of his shirt pulling, arm grabbing etc antics. On a different day with a different ref he might well have picked up a couple of bookings 6. Rooney - why don't refs book him for the continual verbal assault they get from him. The reason for his ineffectuality yesterday was because he was marking the referee! He didn't stop contesting every decision and was in his ear for 90 minutes. No wonder we didn't appear to get many decisions
Agree so, so much. I really think it's a definite tactic, with "toupee" being a sort of English superstar now (not in my books, btw) with his goalscoring record & milking it to provide a lil sway on the ref throughout the game.
Pointless article and just plain wrong. Morgan was chanted at the end (which he seemed to really appreciate) and everyone knows about the twitter exchange between Saints and Luke!
Ha you mention commentators,they're useless, because of circumstance we could not go yesterday and only contact we had was five live who spent all 90 minutes talking about man bloody u.they knew every player inside out and backwards,when we had that header saved they asked each other if they knew who had headed it.Pundits and commentators up against a wall I say.
Right - sorry I went AWOL straight after the game, but I had to rush off up to Brum for a family occasion and just got back now. Consequently, I had no internet access until I got home about an hour ago and have spent a lot of that time reading the errr .... "interesting" opinions on here My take on the game - Ron's right, we lost it ourselves. We were magnificent for the first 25 minutes, got a cracking goal (I was right in line for JWP's cross and it was a peach) and then let them get right back in the game. Their goal was at the other end, so it was hard to see - was it really offside? I'll have to look at the highlights to see, from what I could see, our defence just never cleared the ball and let them almost have a clear shot. After that, we just seemed to drop deeper and deeper - Jose and VVD seemed to be playing incredibly wide and apart from each other, leaving Manure time to come through the middle. Our midfield went missing - Big Vic had one of his "ok" days - he did well at the beginning, seems to be forging a decent partnership with Romeu and Prowsey's becoming (imo) a better and better player each time I see him. His workrate was very good and because of that he tired. Maya, I thought, had a good game - he defended well, tackled when necessary and I still like him as a player. Yes, he made a complete hash of the backpass - but then, didn't Jose present one like that to Van Persie last year and no-one is saying get rid of him! We seemed frightened of them after that and midfield folded. Tadic was, to me, infuriating. He didn't track back, he lost the ball and was completely anonymous for a lot of the game - we need to sort HIM out and get him back to some level of fitness - I don't know if the speed of the PL is proving too much for him, but a number of times he was caught in possession. Mane, was, as ever, a thorn in their side - his running ability and control was superb - plus he tracked back. However, FAR too many times we gave the ball away - someone said it might have been one of Jose's worst games - certainly I think his defensive heading was pretty dire, but, again, the players ahead of him weren't always getting into a position to be passed to. I REALLY wish we'd stop this common passback to Stekelenburg - it's becoming too obvious and Martial was waiting for the ball from Maya ......... You'll note I'm keeping away from the most controversial topic My man, Graziano. A beast in the first half - he turned Blind right in front of us and it was a thing of beauty .................. He did, I agree, switch off in the second half - but then, the team was folding and midfield was over-run. He also got a really nasty knock towards the end of the first half and I was wondering if that might have slowed him down a bit, but he chased back in the second half (admittedly after losing the ball) - I thought "uh oh - here comes a booking", but he made a cracking tackle. I didn't see him rant at JWP, but I did see him apparently trying to gee up the team and get the ball, so I thought he had a good game - and 2 goals (whatever you say, LTL and FLT) against Man U are a good return. He needs someone to get the ball to him and he is not a player who is going to be sprinting looking for space for the whole 90 minutes. Yes, we can criticise, that's what we pays our money for as punters, but we lost the game as a whole unit and not because Graziano slowed down in the 2nd half. I thought Davis steadied the ship when he came on (sorry, I like SD - he is a tireless worker and chased them down as much as he could) but I would have taken Tadic off, left Romeu on and then brought Long on for JWP a little later. Yes, we'd have been a little less likely to attack down our left (but we hadn't done a lot of that after Matt was injured) but we'd have left the midfield spine intact - I think Ron gambled and it backfired. One final point - and this will upset Tom - I think Clattenburg is in someone's pocket. How he neglected to book Schneiderlin I'll never know, he gave everything Manure's way and let Rooney dictate his decisions. Best ref in the Premier League - well, I've seen some and he didn't come close. Oh, and Jose took the ball when he was booked - if that was a yellow, the lad who broke Shaw's leg should have had a red. <sits back and waits for the screaming to start ........>
Clattenburg is the best ref in the PL. The only thing he got wrong was not booking Morgan. I watched on TV and Jose's booking was clear cut.
You're probably better experienced than me to call that - I was directly in line and Jose took the ball and slid. I didn't see it on TV.
The replay showed he took the man before he took the ball. Foul, and given where the foul took place, a definite yellow card.
Do fouls warrant different punishment depending where they take place on the pitch? Didn't know that. Well only for denying clear cut opportunities/ last man.
One thing I noticed and I think has been missed amongst the dissecting of our own performance is that of Manchester United. Louis Van Gaal gets a lot of negative comments (probably because he's a ****) but.. I thought without the ball as a unit they were excellent. He gets called a rigid coach, but you can see the benefits of it. Every time our back four had the ball, they had zero options to pass too and that's not just because of lack of movement or a certain Italian having a siesta. When we did manage to get behind them, then we looked dangerous and you saw the individual weakness of their back four, but that only happened if Pelle managed to make something of a hopeful ball or if a defender took a risk (Fonte's run for the 1st goal). Another thing LVG got right was taking advantage of Yoshida. When Fonte or VVD had the ball then Memphis would leave Maya alone and press them. So as well as having limited passes ahead of them, they didn't have the time to look up and look for a decent long pass. So it was either pass back to Stek, square to Yoshi or a hopeful knock toward Pelle.
Fair points Dave, and I do agree. For what it's worth, I would never suggest we lost the game because of Graziano, far from it! It was a new experience for me watching a game from square on up at the top of the pitch - normally I like to sit behind one of the goals. One of the disadvantages I guess is that you focus on the play directly ahead of you, which for me (and FLT) was directly at Pelle level for the second half. So yes, perhaps in hindsight we paid *too* much attention to what he was (or moreover, wasn't) doing. Agreed though, other than a couple of nice moments, Tadic was poor yesterday. I remember saying to Fats it should have been him off very early in the second half, for J-Rod. We were both very surprised it was Romeu. Really great to meet you before the game!
He has definitely been one of the positives so far this season. I've been very pleasantly surprised at how well he's settled in. I always thought he was a good signing, now I think he could be a quality signing. Bargain as well.
