First off, I think he is a brilliant buy. Not afraid to run at players, not afraid to have a shot and despite rocketing the ball over the net when he had an open goal he didn't let his head drop and kept pushing. My main concern is our attempt to play him at striker. The two times i have seen him play brilliantly was when he replaced Tadic at the top of our diamond and when he was running at players on the wing against Swansea when Austin came on in the centre. If we are to play him up front, we need a tall player such as Rodrigues or Austin to play alongside him. Too often we have attacked and crossed high to Long and Redmond who don't have a chance against 6ft defenders as we have seen in all three home games. When he did eventually move over to the left he was brilliant. Far too often you would look at the pitch and see our left mid and striker in the middle of the pitch with Bertrand scratching his head and having noone to pass too resulting in our patented backpass. Rant over but interested to see if it is just me or if you would keep him as striker.
I was not that excited when we signed him from Norwich but starting to feel confident that we are developing him into a class player. I prefer him as a striker but not as a target man meaning he has freedom to look for space himself without being told where to play.
I agree he isn't a striker yet, but we should look at how he played yesterday positively. He did a lot of finding of space, and popped up all over the front of our lineup. This is why I'm not too hung up about the diamond formation: the players on the pitch, if they are experienced enough, will intuitively place themselves where they need to be as the situation demands. Redmond knows he can run at defenders from anywhere, so he knows his best position isn't right at the top, but anywhere across the shoulders of the defensive line. He isn't Mané's replacement yet, but that, I am sure, is what Puel wants him to become, rather than an out-and-out striker.
I think the key thing here is we cannot play Redmond and Long together. They are not clinical enough infront of goal, Austin or JRod needs to accompany 1 or the other.
Tbh, in what I've seen of Redmond since he came to Southampton, he has gone way up in my estimation. His exchange passing and close control when he is running at defenders is excellent. Add the fact that he will run at and by defenders for fun just adds to my appreciation. Plus I have no problems with Puel turning him into a striker. Where I have an objection is considering Redmond a striker within a compliment of four. Saints should have four very good strikers, with Redmond being schooled on being a fifth, simply because it gives the squad greater strength and makes Redmond a better player overall. BTW, he was onside for that disallowed goal.
Yes, I agree. A support striker. Interestingly, Trevor Sinclair spotted that Redmond is intended as Mane's cheaper replacement, and was complimentary. Did surprise me somewhat that the pundits on MOTD actually noticed something outside the Top4.
Not suited as a striker only because of his finishing, yesterday should have scored and his other chance should have at least drawn a save from the keeper instead of going over. him and Long extra training on finishing, should have have a session when Le Tiss was there a month ago- pretty sure he is only a phone call away, in the area they should be working the keeper
Once again we are looking to judge someone after a handful of games and deciding where he can and can't play. The lad looked electric against Swansea and to be honest Puel can play him where he wants for me. Everyone misses chances. This kid hasn't been a striker before, and if the coaching staff think they can turn him into one, then who are we to judge? It is also great that we can play him in one of several positions. Keeps the opponent guessing. Ps. Has anyone forgotten just how poor Mane's finishing was at times, especially when he first joined? I still think he is very dangerous down the middle and Nathan may well be the same.
As proved by the fact that Austin, whose whole game is predicated on finishing, missed an even easier chance (Coincidentally created by Redmond). Albeit in less brutal fashion. Feel like the anxiety of our start to the season, primarily created by the frustration of those two home games, is really getting to a lot of people.
Agree on the general point but Austin's chance wasn't easier. He was closer to goal but the ball was travelling across goal past a defender and he had to react and try to stab it home. It was still a poor miss but it wasn't as bad as Redmond's. Redmond wasn't that much further out, had the ball under full control at his feet and time to set himself but still blazed over. I wouldn't play Redmond and Long together if I could avoid it and if we had a one-off must-win game tomorrow I wouldn't play Redmond as a striker but he obviously has to play the role to get used to it so I won't complain too much. I still think we needed (and still need) another striker in the squad but that's not Redmond's fault.
Any anxiety to the start of this season was understandable. First you lose arguably your best manager since McMenemy. Secondly, you then lose a few key players [a couple to your immediate rivals], all acknowledged to be very good indeed at what they do. Granted, you get excellent recompense for them. Then, you get in a relatively unknown manager to most of Saints supporters, backed up by a coach who came from the disaster that was Aston Villa last season. For the outgoing players you recruit relative unknowns [again to most ordinary Saints supporters], with perhaps the exception being Redmond, and you don't fill all the perceived gaps in the squad either. Then, instead of competing in one league competition, you are well and truly in two, with a perceived slightly weaker squad [until proven], with that new manager and assistant. Then Saints lose or don't win their first games largely because they can't score freely enough. One tends to forget the quality of the opposition during these times. In the Premier League, you don't get time to play around. The first game of the season is every bit as important as the last one, so the longer a club takes to get up and running again, after yet again being disrupted over a close season, just makes it harder and can be a cause of anxiety [can we do this yet again.?]. Because these days, expectations are very high and will get higher still.
I don't understand the fuss over Redmond's miss. He should have scored, yes. But it won't make my list of Top Ten Horrible Misses for this season. It wouldn't even be IMO the worst miss of the game as I thought Long botching up a situation where he had plenty of time and space and hitting a tame shot right to the GK was worse. He was going for the upper corner region, which was where he should have been going. He had a bit too much adrenaline and missed high. That kind of thing that happens to someone every week. Anyway, like I said in the game thread harping on position is silly. Just pretend Redmond played as a winger on Sunday. Or as an AMC. Then ask yourself did he create problems for the defense? Did he put in some good crosses? Did he create goal-scoring chances? IMO, the answer to all of those questions is "yes." I thought Redmond had an excellent game. The only thing he did wrong the entire game really, was that one bad miss. But if he were playing winger or AMC, I would still expect him to work himself into similar positions, and still expect him to score. He was an effective attacking player who had a bad miss. What's more odd to me though, is that Long misses goals like this every match. If Long scores when he should, we would probably have at least six more points right now. Yet somehow the focus is on Redmond.
With the amount of games we're scheduled to play I'm fairly sure the plan is that Redmond, Long, Austin and JRod will all have to play as strikers.
He looks a threat wherever he plays, frankly. Yesterday was just one of those days when it looked like no one was ever going to score - until Charlie showed everyone how to stay composed in front of goal. Long, Redmond and Tadic behind Austin sounds good. But there's loads of potentially lethal combinations of those four plus J-Rod, and we haven't even seen Bouffal yet.
Didn't realise that happened, what stand was that? The Chapel reacted fine where I was, I think there was a collective ! but he set it up brilliantly and we could see he was disappointed himself ... but then we don't have any passion in the Chapel do we
