Match Day Thread Swansea City v Southampton Saturday 13th February 2016 KO 15:00

Just to qualify my thoughts on Schneiderlin. You're right St.G in that he deserves better. He is being let down by his teammates. I watched quite a bit of the Sunderland game, and although there was a lot of endeavour and fight in Sunderland, it seemed as though several of Morgan's teammates were not doing their utmost. For example Carrick, who has long been a favourite amongst pundits, was shocking in parts of the game. Yes, he took up his usual good positions and made the odd good Carrick style pass, but in terms of quality defending he was nowhere. Several times he had the ball taken off him and he just stood there. He didn't even make a token run back. Against that, Morgan has to cover every situation in front of the defence. He can't do it alone and it makes him look bad.

Compare that with Saints. Schneiderlin was part of a three that protected the defence. If he wasn't there, either Victor broke up the attack or Davis squirrelled the ball away, and so they rotated in a triangle, with two behind and one slightly forward. It worked and it still works without him being there.

 

Has anyone mentioned the cross field pass from Steve Davis that led to the goal? Awesome.

Vin

 

How will Saints fair after the international break? Not like they did last time I hope!

 

we are ok as it isn't an international break.

 

In my perusal of a longer retrospective form table, I noticed Spurs' pattern over the last ten games or so is lose one, go unbeaten for four, lose one, unbeaten for four. They're due a loss today after a run of four unbeaten.

 

Greetings from the Gower where 'the not positive enough match day thread writer' is enjoying a very fine Valentines Sunday following an even better Saturday. As predicted the return of Davis and Targett helped secure a very satisfactory 3 points. Mr Moss proved what an extremely poor official he is. He actually booked Ward Prowse for time wasting when taking a corner when there were 2 Swansea players encroaching the 10 yard rule by several yards, this on the back of being a complete homer. Following the game we returned to the No Sign Bar in the centre of the city where as Camra members we claimed a significant concession on beer prices. The Pub was packed to the rafters with punters watching the Welsh and Scots chasing a big egg. As the Welsh staged a comeback the excitement spilled into celebration and it would have been rude not to joined in.. hic

 

Does it, if the FA Cup winners (Chavs for example) and League Cup winners (Liverpool) come from lower down the league table? Then they would get priority.

 

I thought 5th qualified and 2 others (FA and League Cup). Those last 2 places may go further down if Cup winners are in top 5. This is how it went down to us in 7th last season. I know there was talk of England losing a place because of bad performance....has that happened then.

 

Looking back on last season, only two qualified for the Group stage, so perhaps the team finishing 5th would have to go through qualifying rounds if this season's Cup winners are outside the Top 5.

 

One 's' in maths, there's only one 's' in maths

 

The Premier League website says this is how Europa League qualifying worked for 2014/15. I would guess it's the same this season.

 

Crooks put Forster in his team of the week despite him having nothing to do.

 

As we only win by the odd goal, it's important that Forster stops the one shot on goal the opposition get. May not look like the Arsenal performance every week, but means he earns his corn just by being in the right place at the right time.

 

Absolutely. He'd have saved that penalty (if it had been given) as well.

 

I thought Kasper Schmeichel showed what a fine keeper he is against Arsenal. But I think Crooks chooses his eleven from the teams who play on Saturday.

 

I think Crooks chooses his eleven from the voices in his head.

 

Still better than Lawro's contribution. At least he used to be reliably biased toward picking bigger clubs, which was understandable in a prediction contest...they'll win the majority of the time, so it's playing the odds. Last year seems to have broken him, though; the orderly world he knew and loved was shattered, and now he's flailing blindly in the dark. We're in our correct spot in sixth, but above Man U and Spurs...and being edged out of the top five by West Brom. The Lawro of old would never pick West Brom to mount a European push even if the actual West Brom were doing so. These are troubling times and his equilibrium will never recover.

 

Just got back into town from traveling. Was able to stream that match though.

My few quick thoughts:

Not really sure why Pelle seems to be generating criticism. Not nominating him for MOTM or anything but he won a bunch of headers for us. I thought he was quietly solid, like the majority of the team.

On the play where Long scored, you can see Cork lets him go by thinking one of the CB's will pick him up. You can see him pointing. But Pelle has one of them tied up, and you can see THAT guy painting at the other guy to pick up Long. Fortunately, that guy is watching some clouds or something, making it easy for Long to slip into a huge space.

Not the kind of thing you give a striker a medal for, but point is Pelle was there doing his job drawing a defender. If we are going to fawn over Long for opening up gaps for other players, it should be noted when Pelle does the same.

it just seems a little over the top that some are demanding Pelle be dropped. I think the logical conclusion here is that Austin is not playing due to fitness issues. Rodriguez is not ready either. I like Mane and have defended him somewhat, but tbf he hasn't been scoring either. Maybe a week off will clear his head.

So there is no one to drop Pelle for right now. He did okay, we won, Austin will hopefully be in there soon. Think of Pelle as a squad player/back up and I think you will look upon his performance and value to the team much more favorably.

The midfield was good. Kind of hard to go nuts over any individual player when we had Swansea so tied up no one had to do much. But as a unit they did what they needed to do and made it look easy. I don't think Davis and JWP was an overkill, since we were still able to generate offense (both were involved in the goal).

Koeman once again confounded many of our expectations with the lineup, and it worked. Time to just trust him from and not worry about changing a winning side. We've changed sides now every game and we keep winning.

Over all a good game, maybe not particularly memorable but still very satisfying.

 

occupying a defender is pretty much as minimum as it gets for a striker.

My view on dropping Pelle was on subbing him. I have no issue with him starting, but when he is not playing well we're not faced with the same limitations on the bench anymore

 

Grinding out results. Love it. Chelsea point will take us above Man U I reckon!