Match Day Thread Our beloved Saints -v- The Arsenal - Sunday 10th December, 2017 @ 12pm

He's certainly showing what he's capable of.

 

I think with his emergence we should be looking at 4-3-3 at home and 5-3-1-1 away. Romeu, Lemina and PEH in the middle will be so solid

 

Had to go out...Arsenal had equalised by the time I arrived. Disappointed, but also happy that we are going in the right direction. A couple of weeks ago you couldn't see us getting points off the local boy scouts, but we have found our mojo and I feel that no result is impossible. Given us back our hope.

 

Mauricio sounding more positive than usual.

 

Had to go out after first 20 minutes but recorded the game so just caught up. What a fantastic effort by the boys, undone at the last by Giroud our nemesis. Stating the bleeding obvious I know but if we could score goals we’d be a damn good side. PEH MOTM for me, but everyone did well including Redmond who I have had issues with. Fraser was excellent.

 

Was pretty pleased to see the teamsheet (Lemina, Boufal, Wesley kept aside for Wednesday - shame that Davis was too, but hey, can't have everything), and very pleased at the result.

Austin should have come off a lot earlier than he did, but that's my only complaint from our side of things.

Further evidence today that once we're through the fixture pile-up, then (a) a midfield trio of Romeu, Lemina and PEH looks very tasty, and will hopefully become a regular thing, and (b) Redmond can be excluded from the starting XI on an almost permanent basis. (No complaints from me that he played today - like I said, I want as many players kept fresh for Wednesday as possible - but he really is very poor. Boufal came on, and actually ran at Arsenal!)

 

Defensively he was excellent. Absolutely awful when he was on the ball - and ultimately, that cost him my MOTM in favour of PEH - but against Arsenal I can entirely forgive that. If I have a defender who is defensively excellent against Arsenal, that is fine by me.

 

Well 1-1 was my prediction and I'm happy with the point though it sounds like we could have been out of sight and disappointing to concede late on.

Great to see Austin score again but confused by the emissions of Boufal and Lemina? Clearly worked either way.

Hopefully that sets us up nicely for Leicester and Chelsea which will be tough games.

 

He was also excelllent at City even if it was park the bus

 

I'm assuming it was with Leicester in mind. Which, as I said before the game, would be absolutely the correct thing to do. Got a big thumbs up from me.

I might not be MP's biggest fan, but I can't think he'd have been mad enough to leave those two out if we didn't have a midweek game coming up (one that is more important than today's game).

 

Boufal came on and was virtually through when he was cynically taken out, he didn't have much chance to try it again, should have replaced Tadic at least ten minutes earlier. Gabbi was also treated badly.

 

I always enjoy your posts on footballing things Brendy, but I hope you don’t mind me pointing out that your continual bashing of Davis is getting a little tiresome. Just no need. The poor bloke wasn’t even in the team and you still feel the need to dig him.

 

I'm still astounded at the dreadful decision to blow for full time as we were clearly attacking. Now I know we dropped the points before that even happened and got away with the penalty shouts, but I would bet my house on the referee playing on had it been City, United, Arsenal or Chelsea.

 

A couple of people giving Tadic some stick. I thought he did well today. Held it up quite well and created quite a few chances. Yes, he has his frustrations and can drift in and out of a game but I thought he caused Arsenal problems today and had a good game.

 

When time's up, time's up. There were no stoppages in added time so no reason to play over the added time.

 

I didn't think there was any need for your Pelle bashing. We're all different.

I would quite like to see our strongest team possible against Leicester. I make no apologies for that. And for me, that does not include Davis starting ahead of one, possibly both, of Romeu and PEH. If Davis had started today, I'd have been absolutely fine with that. Just as I was with Redmond. But I'm not going to make a big song and dance about it, a decent enough smattering of key players were left out today; I'm happy.

 

I believe it's a minimum of "x" added minutes, not a maximum. City being the massive case in point last week.

 

Bertrand back to his best. Got forward superbly, a few poor final balls and the missed chance but he is some player.

 

I have never subscribed to the idea that Bertie has wanted away, because he has refuted it several times, but there has been no doubt that his form had dipped for quite a while, for whatever reason. He's been getting back to his best for a few games now though.

Incidentally, laugh-out-loud joke he played in the Cherries game.

 

What about the first half the when he played over and waited for Arsenal’s attack to end?