*insert cliche about wounded animal here* God only knows. Classic Saints, we'll cock this up a treat. Tough place to win, both sides have hefty injury lists. Sensible Saints, we'll squeeze them until they crack. Should be a decent game.
I wasn't ready for a new match thread so quickly, still reading all 4-0 posts. Yes I know I'm a slow reader. How quickly our triumphs become yesterday's news.
Another clean sheet please lads. And with Long and Mane both starting, get the ball in behind their back four whenever they push up the pitch. 1-0 Saints, but it won't be easy.
And now he says that Creswell is 50-50. Looks like his injury is a hamstring. Surely West Ham can't afford to take a risk in that case? If they play him and it goes, he could be out for weeks. And I can't think of another natural LB in their squad (I think MOTD said yesterday that he'd started a large number of consecutive games for them). Better I'd have thought that they rest him up for the weekend - which in turn is better for us, as whoever said LB replacement is (one of their CBs playing out of position, ala Yoshida? Jenkinson or O'Brien switching over to the opposite side, ala Clyne?) would play against us. Not that it really matters, because I don't rate him at all, but it looks like Jelavic is another injury concern of theirs.
Can't see us being as good as we were against Arsenal. That sounds like I'm trying to be negative and I'm not - but the team ran their socks off against Arsenal (I'm particularly thinking about Mane and Long), and I'm not sure they'll be recovered enough to produce that calibre of performance again for a game less than 48 hours later. I'd love it if they could of course, but if they look a bit tired hopefully we won't all be back to complaining about the players because I think in this circumstance it would be understandable. Wonder if we'll make any chances to account for tiredness, I'm not sure we've really got the squad depth for that. I suspect Tadic might start given that he was on the bench on Saturday, so could possibly have been rested a bit for today? Of course, it could have been tactical too so who knows.
We'll win, because I won't be able to watch this one either. Fairly confident that we average about 5 goals a game whenever I'm tied up.
Agree with Pie! - happy to take anything from this game and one or three points is possible. Really hard to see how this one will turn out for me. Agree with St Brendy that the first goal could tip this if we score first. That said, we may have new-found confidence but what we don't know is just how brittle it could be - so the first goal could be crucial. Looking forward to Long and Mane terrorising their back four - do feel there are some gaps to be exploited there. I feel the key area will be the midfield tussle.
I know it was only one win, but the one against Arsenal takes a bit of the pressure off for this one. Not that it's not important, but can you imagine going into this game on the back of another loss. The players and the fans know that we still have it in us, whereas it had been looking like everyone else had moved on and we had completely lost our mojo. The longer the bad run went on, the worse it would become. A draw today and a win in the next game would make this a great Xmas period. Of course, a win today would also be acceptable.
Just seen in another thread that Long says he has never felt so tired....cause for concern with another game today with little recovery time.
Our whole team is injured. Reid, Cresswell, Song, Lanzini, Moses, Payet, Sakho, Carroll, Jelavic all out and one or two others doubtful. We'll line up like this: Adrian Jenkinson Tomkins Collins Ogbonna Obiang Noble Kouyate Antonio Zarate Valencia. Still looks a reasonable lineup to me but I think it will end 0-0 or 1-1. COYI.
