Early thread as I still have visitors and we will be out tomorrow. Also, I made shaw that their was know speling erors in the thred tital becos I dint wunt too bug No7. Brentford seem to save some of their better home performances for our visits so I am expecting a very hard game. My memories of them is that they are quite strong and physical too. Based on the Brentford supporter on TSP their strength lies in breaking quickly and their defensive weakness is the ball between the CBs and FBs for runners, so maybe we should play someone who can run beyond their back four and not just have our “forwards” hugging the touch line. I don’t think Dibling (the CBS had his name as Tyler-Jay Dibling?) is ready to start but happy for him to have a cameo towards the end. I thought ABK looked good, calm and dominating when he came on at Cardiff , which could be a positive if that appearance doesn’t convince someone to buy him. Plenty of other positives from the cup game and hopefully RM might consider going four at the back again, so we can play with a central striker.
But what if it was the spelling mistake that inspired us to victory? Have you just doomed us to another loss?
Brentford v Southampton Referee: Josh Smith. Assistants: Wade Smith, Akil Howson. Fourth official: Matt Donohue. VAR: Paul Tierney. Assistant VAR: Mark Scholes. #19613 tomw24
Can’t see us ditching the back 5 yet. Fernandes for Smallbone the only change I’m expecting whilst its touch and go on the Ramsdale deal being completed in time and him having a.proper introduction to his team mates Will be interesting to see if having a slightly more dynamic player as the advanced central midfielder will knit this system together. Another toothless display and I would say Russ needs to go back to the drawing board.
Not convinced even such a notable upgrade in Ramsdale would come straight into the team off the back of one or less training sessions. Doesn’t seem to be how Martin operates.
Dibling struggled to adjust to 90 minutes yesterday. Started and finished well, but very sideways and backwards for the middle part of the game I’d like to see him getting longer, but not starting yet Archer and Fernandez should start
Ramsdale Shuga THB Bednarek KWP Downes Les Armstrong Fernandez BBD Archer Dibling and Ameroid mayo to come on at 60m
If RM persists with 5-3-2 then he absolutely MUST tell Arma and BBD to play in the channels and not hug the touch lines with an occasional foray through the middle. The point of playing wing backs is for them to provide the width, so let them do that. The lack of a central striker just means that the midfielders have nobody to pass the ball forward to and if we want to use players like Mateus and Dibling, who like to play 1-2s, then central forwards become essential. You only need to look back at how Forest found it so easy to press us and turn the ball over, when we persisted on trying to play down the flanks instead of, at times, through the middle. We became too predictable.
It would be nice to play a left footed player at left back and Taylor would add height against a physical Brentford team.
I think Ramsdale coming in could be the only change, and I’m not even sure about that. Has he played much football in pre season? Or even last season? Fernandes as well as he was subbed early last night, I’d have him in for Smallbone or Aribo, not really fussed which. Martin didn’t seem too happy with the performance last night which I can sort of understand. As entertaining as it was, from his perspective we were playing a relegation threatened championship sides reserves and conceded 3 and were second best for a large part of the second half. I can’t see any of the players who played the 90 starting, so no Dibling or Archer.
I'd be surprised if Rambo came in so soon, the goalie plays a pivotal part in Russball and will probably need more time training with the defence. That said no doubt I'll be proved wrong he plays and instigates the move that scores OUR winning goal.
Head to head since a 1-0 Saints win 26th October 1901 in the Southern League. won: 34, drawn: 13, lost: 24 From https://www.11v11.com/teams/southampton/tab/opposingTeams/opposition/Brentford/
