What you think your lot will sign a bucket load of players? Because unless you do the squad will still be weak overall.
Do you know but for me that was even worse than the Wigan game. We still insist we walk the bloody thing into the net! Possesion is all very well but at one stage I actually predicted what would happen. Once again we were attacking, the ball was past back to a midfielder who past it back to a CB who tried to pass it forward but straight to one of them. Clyne caught wanting because he lost sight of his man who had got in behind him. The rest as they say was history. Sunderland were a yard faster to the ball. It was rare for us to pick up a second ball. The mid field just didn't turn up today. Their passing was so broadcast.......even a babe would have read it. As I said Saints insistance to walk it into the net and the naivety of some of the players beggers belief at times. Sad day for Saints on this showing we are not going to make the grade that is for sure.
Credit where credit is due I thought Sunderland were solid today. O'Shea won every ball in the air today and Lambert was left a frustrated figure.
Disappointing game from Saints perspective, too many players underperformed. Ramirez did not look like a £12m signing, Spiderman gave the ball away in very unusual fashion, Clyne's worst game of the season, Punch tried hard but couldnt finish when in good positions in the box, Rickie was very well marked, etc. Credit to Sunderland, and their supporters - a perfect away result for them and their defence were excellent today. We certainly miss Adam Lallana for creativity. Our midfield didnt win any second balls, about the worst midfield performance from us that i have seen this season. But hey - we are still outside the drop zone and its on to Craven Cottage where they can put it all right - Happy Christmas !
Forgot to mention Howard Webb and his linespeople - thought that they had a good game which made a change for officials at SMS this season. Although apparently Robbie Savage reckons that we should have had a penalty when Mayuka went down - it looked like a dive to me and my mob, but Savage reckons he was tripped.
The Officials were all good today, I have seen Penalties given for that, but Mayuka was a bit too theatrical I guess. Biggest heroes were the Ground Staff who presented a great playing surface, considering the rain that has fallen on it recently. My all seeing elder sister reckoned she saw Puncheon take a nasty kick on the ankle in the pre match kick about, may have cramped his style a bit?
This. Nothing wrong with trying to play through, but without the right people in the right places, we just go round in circles until we give it away or lob the ball into the mix. Especially when we played 442, Sunderland stifled our midfield and we couldn't get any momentum going. After knocking it round a bit and going nowhere, all we could do was whack it up to Lambert. Not good tactical choices from Adkins - We needed expansive football to break down a resolute Sunderland, but what we got were wingers tucked right inside with fullbacks who were always back to defend because we couldn't keep possession up the pitch. Lambert and Mayuka were just left to feed off scraps.
Didn't happen today. Problem is when you concede the first goal teams like this will be so hard to get in behind. We did not make it very hard and it was a tough result to take. Oh well, we'll just have to go and win somewhere no one expects us to. I just wonder if Nigel will step up his Matt Phillips interest on today's evidence. Certainly January becomes a little different if we are in the bottom 3.
Looking ahead to Fulham, they're not on a good run of form and I think that if we can get a win there then that'll make up for the loss today.
Well after my train debacle today I'm glad in some ways I didn't get to the game. Disappointing result for me, that was a game we should have got something from. There comes a point when you look at the 'winnable' games remaining in the season and add up the points and you decide it probably won't be enough... fact of the matter is that losing games like this means we will have to beat a team we are not expected to beat later, and we haven't really looked like doing that so far. Only consolation is that QPR, Wigan and Reading lost, but Sunderland and Newcastle are pulling away a bit, need to reel them in. All our rivals have tough games coming up, so lets hope we can steal a march going into the new year, because we have a very difficult run then and we need to still be at least in touch going in to the final stretch.
Sunderland offered very little, they are a team we really should have beaten at home. Unfortunately saints offered even less. That is probaly the mosy negative I have seen saints paly all season...
Suspect we lost momentum with 2 weeks off, were missing Lallana, forgot the scoring boots. Could be any of these reasons, but the fact was that Sunderland scored a goal and saw the game out. It happens, we did it against Reading. It is noticeable that we are scoring less as our defence has tightened up. One nil wins as against Reading are only one step from a draw or a 1.0 loss. This was Sunderlands day...we just have to learn from it and target the Fulham game. Luckily other results went for us.
Yes vital we get something from these next two away games. Who would have thought that we'd be moaning about not scoring rather than not letting them in!
Plenty of the team were off their game yesterday that's for sure but for my money, our inexplicable failure to whip crosses in cost us more than anything else. You simply cannot stand balls up unless it's to a completely unmarked player who has time. All of our decent approach play and set pieces were undone by shoddy delivery.
It's a bit de ja vu, just like last year, when we have a bad game, those below us do the same, it must be galling for QPR, Reading and Wigan to see us lose, then they all do the same with the same score, what are the chances of that happening again?
Best not to worry too much about other results right now. It would be great if the bottom three didn't win another game all season, but they probably will. We know that the dotted line will be around 35-40 points, we just have to get there. Anyway, another match is upon us, so who wants to start the Fulham match thread?
