But West Ham, Swansea and Newcastle all look better than us at the moment. Sod chasing the lofty league position, I say aim for top eight and make the cups our priority. Not just this season, but every season.
Usual calm interview. The good thing from today was having JWP back...and it may be a good thing that we were forced to put him on today and give him a run out. Hope Hesketh is okay...they said on Sky that he was being comforted in the stand because he was crying. It will be interesting to see how Pelle's suspension will impact on Tuesday...the first time we've played without him since early on in the season.
I am trying to work out why l am not fuming after that game. I thought we would get 3 points today or at least a point; but to lose in that manner, with no positives whatsoever to take from it.. l do not understand why Tadic plays on the right and Mane on the left. Okay you could argue a case for not playing Mane at all, but the shape looked so wrong today. Great to see JWP back, we have really missed someone who can deliver from set piece and crossing in general. Weather worked for them today rather than us, but cannot be used as an excuse; same could be said of Clattenburg, but to miss the penalty and three other good chances to at least get us a point. Hope fully RK get them over this slump and soon. Still top 5, l'll take that at the end of the season!
We will come out of this slump soon enough, starting on tuesday please. Need to find our scoring boots.
I know people have made the point that Wigan started like us and then slumped badly and ended up near relegation, but I honestly don't see that happening to us (touch wood ) If our results were all shuffled up, we'd be very happy to be fifth just before Xmas. And just as Burnley beat us, there is no reason why we couldn't get an unexpected result...say against Chelsea.
Disappointed with todays result, but my goodness this season has been awesome. Any Saint who is genuinely feeling depressed tonight, scroll back to July's posts on NOT606 & grab yourself a free reality check. Merry Christmas.
More aimed at the half past 4 posse who 'couldn't believe it!.' Even before the pen I thought today was going to cause us trouble. Glad to see master jwp back in action, big big plus.
The WBA home draw was worse than this result, in my opinion. We came into this game with no Morgan, no Cork, and a fairly out of form Tadic. We also came into it on the back of three straight defeats, and just one point from four. And it was away from home. And Burnley are just starting to pick up ever so slightly. It's still an awful result, and by all accounts an even worse performance. But not as bad as WBA in my opinion. Unfortunately we could quite easily replicate our nine straight games without a win that we went through during this period last season too. Injuries, suspensions, tiredness, loss of form, loss of confidence. Like 75% of teams in this league, we don't have the depth of squad to overcome a combination those things. Especially during the busy winter period.
Did Newcastle look better than us when we beat them 4-0? Or West Ham when we beat them 3-1 at their place? There's a good five to ten teams in this league, including ourselves and the three you have mentioned, who are capable of putting four or five or six wins in a row. But we're all capable of going on a horrible slump as well (partly due to what I have just mentioned in my previous post). Not one of us could keep top form going for a whole season. It could ultimately come down to which side has the fewest injuries throughout the season as to who ends up as 'the best of the rest' (or maybe even higher than that).
It might not have been post bursting with positivity, but I'm not sure it was worth highlighting over some others. I'm actually fine. I'm not slitting my wrists, and I'm not calling for drastic changes etc. I'd be perfectly content with finishing 8th and having a trip to Wembley. More than content in fact. I'd also have little issue with us again going nine games without a win, were it to happen. I'm perfectly happy to accept that it can happy to teams like us. That's not me saying that the team is rubbish etc. It's me saying that we will find it hard, and indeed have done so, without certain players being both fit and on form. And that's regardless of whether we're playing Man City or Burnley. It sounded like a very poor performance today, and I see no issue with highlighting that. But does it particularly bother me? Nope, not at all. That's football. I move onto the next game, and no doubt the players will too.
