Saints Stuff

Agree with that, and if Hojbjerg's Hail Mary didn't go in we'd be well north of Cardiff (I think). We're too slow and take too many long shots.

But...wouldn't you expect that to drop out in the xG? Bad/good finishing runs usually balance out, and our stats last year shouldn't have had us that bad. Our strikers are bad, and maybe othr things are being missed, but I don't know what.

Doubly weird: our home record should have been particularly strong, eg 6th best expected goals against.

 

It does get factored into xG to some extent. But xG still has blind spots when it comes to degree of difficulty; hard to adequately account for the amount of congestion between the shooter and the net, the amount of ball movement prior to wrong-foot the keeper, etc. And beyond that, it's known that good/bad finishing doesn't always balance out; there are players and teams who do consistently underperform or overperform their xG. I don't think that it's coincidental that Leicester, a team that presses, plays quickly and features Vardy, has done better than its xG would suggest, whereas our languid play and poor finishers has consistently found ourselves in the opposite quadrant.

 

Season Ticket plus....

 

Christensen considering leaving Chelsea.

Yes please.

Really, yes please.

(But sadly little chance).

 

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018...-squad-withdraws-nations-league-croatia-spain
McCarthy withdraws from England squad with minor injury...supporting the rumours that he was carrying an injury after the last game.

 

So who do we think it was? I'm going to go for Hoedt as he gets blamed for everything else:

The Southampton player became the victim of a teammate's anger after the team leap against Liverpool caused frustration.
STORO (Nettavisen):
Mohamed Elyounoussi lost the fight against Liverpool as a result of injury.
The injury occurred during the training ahead of the match at Anfield, and did not come without drama.
"I was doing a nice workout, and then I was tackled hard in the middle of the leg while I was footing the ground. It could end up even worse, says "Moi" to Nettavisen.
He explains that the tackle was put in by a teammate who had just been told that he did not start in Southampton's backfire against Liverpool.
"It was a headless tackle, a piglet who might have something that this player was a little frustrated. We had just made the team and he was not the part of those who should start. There was more frustration on his part than that it was something against me.
- Is there any evil blood between you now?
"Neida, we shook up in the end. It's hard to forgive ... I understand when someone tackles and tries to hit a ball but hits the foot instead, but this was something completely different. It was hard to forgive him every now and then, but we managed to get up to the end, "said Elyounoussi, adding that he is not of the long-standing variety and that he has already apologized several times.
Playing with pain
The player it is talking about is one of the midstoppers in Southampton, but Moi does not want to name.
Elyounoussi still struggles with his ankle, telling him to play the game on training

 

If we have someone in the team that is so petulant that he would go into rash challenges on his teammates in training just because he wasn't getting picked for a game...well, that's really not good. We have enough struggles at the moment without troublesome players. Midstoppers...So either a CB or CM who didn't start against Liverpool. That leaves Yoshida, Bednarek and Davis, Ward-Prowse or Armstrong I guess.

 

So has Danny Rose, so the only left back in the squad is Chilwell. Not sure what Ryan has to do....

 

Ryan has to switch his phone off, that's what!

 

More likely to be Shaw called up as a replacement I'd guess (if he isn't injured) Southgate seems far more focused on playing youth and Bertrand doesn't fall into that category.

 

There is another translation where he apparently confirms it was a centre back. Saintsweb seem convinced it was Yoshida

 

And yet Yoshida is the player that you would have thought would be the least petulant. Disappointing whoever it was.

 

Shaw was in the squad originally and has already pulled out.

 

Evidently still a position that we need to improve.
If we could get him on loan until the end of the season, in theory that would suit all parties. I doubt we want to spend money, so a loan would be a good bet on a player that should be an improvement on what we have. Christensen doesn't have to move that far and gets to put himself in the shopwindow for the summer, playing in the PL. Not sure if Chelsea want to keep him as backup though.

 

That’s a classic reaction to one side of the story. If we have someone in the team that reacts to missing out on a starting place by putting extra effort into the next training session then that can’t be bad can it? Of course we all know that sometimes we end up trying too hard and that can result in a mistimed tackle but that should not prevent us putting the extra effort in.

 

As Dani Osvaldo used to say.

 

Looks like we will be the last team to play Spurs at Wembley before they move into the new stadium. Annoying to miss out on the away trip to their new ground as I wanted to go there before we were relegated

 

Perhaps we can be the last team to beat them at Wembley, as we were at White Hart Lane.
Would make perfect sense.

 

I don't rate him either.