Match Day Thread Norwich V Saints 2/1/2016 KO 15:00

As Bernard Matthews said about his turkeys: "They're Norfolk and good". Oh, and I think we'll win, making the cross-country train marathon worth the effort.

 

Good effort. Planned on going but a 9hr round trip by train or car from London has put me off!

 

Maybe these are the reasons the girl wouldn't get frisky with you in the first place

 

I wish fans were as level headed as Ron...he said that strikers are premium players and strikers who are certain to score won't choose Southampton. We will always be in the market for talented, promising strikers who aren't top drawer yet. It follows that if we turn such players into top players, we will almost certainly have the big clubs after them.

He repeated that the team having ambition will be a consideration for him to sign another contract....but then follows up by saying that Saints are showing ambition up till now. I'm taking that as promising.

And a decision about replacing Pelle will be taken if he isn't back in full training in a week. Didn't mention JRod, but I think we have to think of him as bunce...we can't rely on him being fit or staying fit.

Going for a win (because we need it).

 

9 hours round trip from London? Is that twice round the M25?

 

Without wanting to make this sound like the most obvious post ever, this really could be any result.

A narrow Norwich win. A sizeable Norwich win. A narrow Saints win. A sizeable Saints win. A draw. Lots of goals. Very few, if any, goals.

I'd accept a draw, I guess. But it's hardly a result to get you off your chair. Similar to our away draws vs Watford, Newcastle and WBA so far. Decent points if you're looking to avoid relegation. But unless you've got rock solid home form, they're not going to get you into the top ten.

 

Haha there was some crazy train works and google maps gave mad routes from south London. Checked trains again and they have improved dramatically.

 

Think that's the general feeling at the moment. But we are a much better team than Norwich, just need our better players to start showing it! 2-0 saints.

 

As has already been alluded to, will we turn up for the full 90 minutes?
What makes this inconsistency so frustrating, is seeing them out perform Arsenal for the whole game.
Perhaps someone, with "journalist contacts" could broach this point with Ron?

 

You sure that'll be enough?

 

Its not just the "not turning up" for the second half that infuriates me, its the complete change in tactics where we go from high press, high energy and fast attacks to start off with and then after the break we drop deep, give away the midfield and try and hit them on the break.
The Arsenal game we kept up the high press game for the whole match despite having to chase after the ball and push them back for most of the game

 

It is this which, in my opinion, is showing up our lack of depth this season.

If we're being honest, we've lacked depth ever since we returned to the PL (the likes of Guly, Sharp, Barnard, Jos, Fox, Hammond, Richardson etc not being good enough, or deemed to be good enough). It's nothing new (that's not to say it is right - it remains a massive fault of ours, more so than regularly selling players to big clubs for big bucks, in my view). But for the last two seasons, our starting XI - which invariably was always made up of a core of 13 or 14 players - has generally got the job done. We've rarely needed to look to the bench during a game, for example.

But this year it is completely different, The players aren't getting the job done. They're doing the job for 20 minutes or 45 minutes. For the rest of time, they down tools. So for once, we do need to look to the bench during matches - at it's just rubbish sitting there. They are not players who can impact PL matches.

 

Here we are in Saffron Walden, 6 of us, a couple from Rochdale, a couple from Durley and the couple who live in Saffron Walden. All the boys from Southampton originally.. We are all Saints fans for well over 50 years. Off to Norwich for the umpteenth time tomorrow, always a good trip. COYRs

 

Quietly confident on this one. Let's not forget that we are unbeaten this year in all competitions - home and away. I know the record has to come to an end sooner or later but over the years we've had some decent results at Norwich. I think they could struggle with Long and Mane who have looked a good pairing up front these last couple of games. I expect us to score so the real question is how many silly mistakes will we make?

Would start the same as WHU with JWP in place of suspended Romeu. We need a proper right back on the bench in case Martina tires again (can Targett play on the right?). And I would definitely have Reed and Seager on the bench to make an impact if required.

 

Although we nearly gave away a 3-0 lead with only about 5 mins to go not that long ago....won 4-2 in the end though

 

Clasie for Romeu, and possibly Yoshida for Martina, are the only changes I can see for this one. Although given that much of Norwich's threat comes from the wings - Redmond on the right, Brady and Olsson on the left - Ron might decide to go back to the Arsenal set-up, with JWP coming in for Tadic, so that JWP and Davis can help to negate such threat.

 

Both full backs got a lot of cover from the players in front of them vs Arsenal, so yeah, that might be the way to go.