it did look like JWP has been given a leading role now. Little bit edgy given the state of play regarding his contract.
Oh I have no doubt Pelle will improve and I'm certainly not writing him off, just thought he didn't much yesterday.
Prowse played well but lost the ball in our own half a few times by being weak on the ball or with short lazy passes. Other than that, he had a good game.
Some of Vic's 50-50 challenges were great, he always came out either with the ball or with a foul against him (ignoring the few fouls he actually committed lol). The partnership of him and Schneiderlin has everything you need. Not many better duos in the league.
Forster 7 Clyne 7 Fonte 7 Yoshida 7 Bertrand 7 Wanyama 8 motm Schneiderlin 6 Davis 5.5 Tadic 8 Pelle 6.5 Ward-Prowse 7 - Having looked at the first goal again Clyne is at fault. I saw it from a different angle the first time. Davis doesn't even challenge Sterling on the 2nd goal. I have no idea why.
Think Pelle showed up better when he was given some support in the second half, felt a bit sorry for him in the first half as he was completely isolated up there making it easy for Lovren and Skertl to keep him quiet. Think he will show up better against lesser teams, especially when he has Long or Gaston up there to make runs beyond him. For what it is worth i also think Lambert would have struggled if he was playing for us yesterday.
Forster - 7 Clyne - 7 Fonte - 7 Yoshida - 6 Bertrand - 7 Wanyama - 8 Schneiderlin - 7 Davis - 5 JWP - 8 Pelle - 5 Tadic - 8
I think that despite our pressure toward the end we were just tired by then. First game of the season and all that, plus the fact that we were chasing shadows for the first 20 minutes. Also, we were pushing for the win. Maybe we should have settled on the draw with 10 minutes to go.
We were 2-1 down with ten minutes to go lol, I agree though. We should have played out the game at 1-1, hell we should have been 2-1 up ourselves.
Pelle did a knock down for Schneiderlin's crossbar shot and nearly got an assist. Don't think he'll get many goals, but he'll bring a lot of others into play if we get players like Long around him.
May have been a fitness issue but the Long for Tadic substitution was wrong imo, I'd probably have taken Davis off.
He ran out of steam. Before he was substituted, there were two situation where he had the space and time to beat Manquilo, but he was to tired to do anything but a few predictable step overs which Manquilo easily dealt with. In those situations fresh Tadić would have skinned him easily, as demonstrated in the first half.
Yeah, Pelle is a striker who needs someone to play off him, to pick up his knockdowns. Otherwise he'll just be too isolated to create anything and to make a meaningfull contribution.. And he's not a Suarez type of striker who can beat his man for pace or trickery.
I think it's very early to judge on whether Pelle will score many goals or not, or what kind of influence he will be. When Jay Rodriguez first started in the PL for Saints he was a pale shadow of what he started to become last season. It's all about adapting and getting service to the player. Judge what Pelle can or cannot achieve in a month or two, maybe more. He will have found out how the supporting players like him to play and they will be able to adapt to him also.
Tadic looked very good on the ball, but not one of his crosses met their intended target. You could argue that movement in the box could have been better.. I will mark as a 6, but with potential!
Two things that I would say is: 1. Pelle was isolated and the service in to him was not good. Without a decent supply it is difficult to judge a target man. Tadic created a lot space but his crosses were poor and a lot of other times Southampton pulled the ball back from the by-line. 2. Clyne was much further up the pitch and was therefore caught out for the first goal but this was a tactical decision as we have seen deployed by Liverpool in the last year which is why Liverpool often look short at the back if caught on the counter.
Not sure if mentioned elsewhere but bleacherreport did its first player power ranking of the season. We did alright There is one rather confusing omission though. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...s-after-week-1-fabregas-man-city-players-star
