Pelle getting a fair bit of stick I see. I wont be giving him any, but I do totally get why some people are giving it. That said, I do very much agree with the stick surrounding the tactics. Lumping it forward when they had Olsson in their defence was never going to be a productive tactic. Thankfully Fonte, in particular, I thought toned it down slightly in the second half - presumably on Koeman's advice. But going back to Pelle, and the point I was intending to make, it will be interesting if he plays in the Cup in midweek. Could be a chance for him to break his Saints duck, and that would surely help him.
Agree with everything here. As I said Fonte and Yoshida were roughly the same defensively but the difference in distribution is massive. I've said on here before how lowly I rate Yoshida's passing.
I'd start Pelle against Millwall. Gives him a good chance of getting a goal in a game we really should be winning. I felt today that he was having to come far too deep to collect the ball and the pings forward to him gave me next to no chance of creating something.
I thought Yoshida was really good second half, he seemed to really get stuck into the physical duel with Ideye and managed to get the better of him most of the time which was pleasantly surprising.
I understand your point. And if this were toward the end of the season when Koeman's had a better look at the team and Jay Rodriguez hopefully is healthy, I might agree. But the team needs to play together to gel, and Koeman needs to see them play to evaluate his strategy going forward. So if we stick with Pelle and maybe a certain strategy for a few games even if it's the optimal one given the opposition, I think it's okay. You might sacrifice a few points early on, but you'll gain them back in the long run.
Maya gave Pelle plenty of high balls to use, trouble is the ones he won, didn't find their way to any Saints players, as they didn't have the imagination or anticipation to work out where the ball would end up, that I would imagine come in time with a bit of practice.
You just have that feeling that a goal, however it came, would do wonders for confidence and make a lot of difference, as usual we had plenty of luck, but most of it was of the bad variety.
So you would have not played Pelle today from the start and you said that to people before the game? I've searched on here but couldn't see it. I must also point out that I agree that playing Long centrally when he came on would have been good; however it is your criticism of Koeman and suggestion that "even a fan" could have known that, that I took issue with. *didnt realise that disagreeing is the new confrontational.
As you can see from others on here I'm not the only one to notice it. It's starts to get confrontational when you call me arrogant, you've never met me before or even talked to me on here so you've no right to suggest things like that. I'm going to stop arguing with you now.
It's all going soft round here. You didn't answer any of my points or the earlier ones and it does really seem that if anyone disagrees it is considered confrontational. I stand up when I read unnecessary criticism of the club. I always will. I still stand by my comment that you suggesting playing Koeman against a big CB would obviously not work is ridiculous and another fickle fan quick to hit out. We wouldn't be playing him against most the tes in the league if that were the case.
Like the 1-1 with Sunderland, 0-1 against Norwich and 0-0 against West Ham start of last season? Let's be honest, we were hardly flowing right then. All it took was a big win against Liverpool, they took that confidence into the Palace game, and it went from there.
I agree with this and have an exact comparison, the WBA game last season at home. Awful game, snuck it one nil.
Surely most people would be able to work out Olsson would much prefer playing against a big striker and facing lots of balls in the air rather than facing a smaller striker looking to run on to balls in behind him? Is it really controversial to say that?
In hindsight, perhaps Long would have given them more problems. Would've given much more space for JWP and Morgan too, simply by the defence dropping off.
Puck, my point is this: would you really have left Pelle out the side today after one match, because he would be up against a tall CB? They are all tall.
I'll also add that not one single poster suggested this before the game. Easy with hindsight. I was particularly unimpressed by Thattheresaintsfan's comment that even a fan would know this, coupled by a 3/10 rating for the manager. That is bonkers for his second game and first home game in charge that we didn't lose. One game in.
Well so far Pelle looks decent in the air but doesn't seem to have much else about his game so I possibly would have done seeing as West Brom's defence would prefer defending high balls and we have another option in Long. I don't really know what Koeman's intentions are though. One very relevant question is what role Long is meant to be playing in the team? Does Koeman see him as someone to mainly play out wide or through the middle? If he's here to play down the middle this would have been a good game for him to start. Today's performance backs up a lot of people's concerns and I still don't see where our goals will come from this year but it's fairly early days and too soon to say much more than we were poor going forward today.
Today's performance may back up people's concerns, but it is two games in! I still don't see anyone truly leaving a brand new striker out the team after one game. *note to sooty saint and saint Joey who both said in the week they would play long not Pelle; nobody else said that.
