He was immense today. So was Davis. Morgan was still making tackles and interceptions at the very end. Sometimes I think people think because he's a midfielder he score be creating chances or scoring goals or something. They don't seem to understand the job of these two is to protect the defence, make tackles, win the ball back, keep the ball etc. Morgan was amazing still running at the end of the game. Davis played great also.
6 tackles 5 interceptions for Morgan. Won 2/2 aerials. Blocked shot. Best passing accuracy after Davis excluding Chaplow who only made 13 passes. 5 tackles 4 interceptions. Next best after Morgan for these. Most attempted crosses. Most completed crosses. Most key passes. I wonder if some of you are at the same game sometimes.
Has anyone else seen the "foul" on Schwarzer which saw a goal disallowed. ****ing pathetic from Schwarzer.
He had good moments but he also had bad moments, just like all season. Regardless of some good stats, the fact remains that both goals came from a breakdown due to him losing his man, and that apart from his assist from the corner he wasn't great going forward either. Another stat is that he also had the third worst pass success in the team after Hooiveld and Lambert It was pretty poor from Schwarzer, don't expect to see that from a keeper haha, regardless of that, Puncheon clearly attempted to trip him, so still probably enough to be a foul. I'm kind of torn over it though.
I'm fairly sure I saw the ref indicate that it was for climbing, which makes me think he gave a foul against Lambert on the defender. Maybe they should have had a free kick before we got ours, but we still had to put it in the net didn't we. How Suarez and Bale stayed out the book though...
That's interesting, never saw that, haven't watched MOTD2 yet but will definitely have a look when I do.
Agree with this. I wouldn't say worst ever, but it was certainly up there. Don't agree with this. Unplayable! LOL He gets caught in possession too much, gives the ball way, and can't shoot. 6 is about right for me too. Plus if the ref had seen his little kick on their keeper, he could have got sent off.
You are a smart one. You agree with a 0 for Yoshida. And go on to give Puncheon a 6. Guess who covered him most of the game? Puncheon. Puncheon provided amazing cover for Yoshida who was struggling the whole game. His defensive shift was phenomenal and he was a great outlet on the counter to take the pressure off. Giving him 6 means you know nothing about football as far as I'm concerned 'LOL'. The red card thing means you just have a personal agenda for Puncheon. Get a life mate
no argument he put in a shift in defence however that gets let down with the constant cut inside and lose the ball. Not many other options though. Have to agree with those guys above. Guly looked like a new man when he came on. Get a feeling he is itching to be let off the leash.
He had a great game defensively, but at the end of the day his job is to go forward, and going forward he provided no real cutting edge, frequently just ran into cul-de-sacs and killed a lot of moves. Whenever he got going and has space to run into, he looks decent, but whenever he got the ball without green grass to run into, and especially when he got squared up against Riise, he had nothing to offer. His desire to cut-back on to his left foot can be a real issue at times, and whilst it has worked a few times this season, and he has managed to make a few clever little dribbles to break past the full-back, today he just got shut down. Once again our defence conceded two goals and we lost a lead, but the main reason we didn't win the game is because our attack didn't capitalise through the first 60 minutes and give us a comfortable lead when we really should have done. And Puncheon was one of the main reasons for this. For this reason, I find it hard to decide that he deserves more than a 6 or maybe a 7. If he had literally been pinned back and ended up playing as a right wing back, with no oppurtunity to get forward then I would sympathise and say he had an outstanding game, but he did have oppurtunities to make plays (not to mention to tap the ball in from all of 3 yards) and he failed to. I have nothing against him, am glad he has had a resurgeance for us and ended up like a completely new signing, and his work ethic was fantastic to help out defensively, but still think going off of his overall performance and his actual role in the team, a 6 is very justifiable.
Hard for me to rate Schneiderlin as doing well overall when he made a reckless challenge that could have easily cost the Saints a point today and further points due to him being on suspended. On the other hand, his staying on the pitch is massively important because of the quality he brings and he showed a lot of that today. I'm just going to write that off as a bad mistake and everyone is entitled to one now and again. Thought Do Prado was good. He has the unenviable task of being one of the players Saints turn to to do whatever needs to be done. Instead of playing to his strengths, he plays to cover up some other weakness in the squad at any given time. Which means he usually can't be said to have done a great job individually, but he almost always makes the team better as a whole. Standouts to me today were Puncheon and Gazzaniga, though neither would rate more than an 8. Chaplow was the worst to me, I would give him a 5. Maya, Lallana, and Rodriguez get 6's. May have to watch the highlights and reconsider Rodriguez as it seems many of you thought he had a good game. Everyone else gets a 7.
One thing this discussion shows is that there are almost as many opinions as there are people. This is why Nigel usually resists anything more than generalizations until after he has reviewed the whole match a few times. He will review every players total contribution and not judge by only stand out errors or stand out moments of brilliance.
His job IS to defend when we have a 1 goal lead and protect a right back that was looking shaky as hell playing out of position. He was playing right wing back most of the game.. I reckon you watched the game on TV.. he was more than good enough taking the pressure off on the counter considering an extremely high defensive mindset..
He had a responsibility to defend, which he did admirably, but his job was still to attack. His defensive positioning was very deep, but when we had the ball he was able to get forward, you act like he never left our half. He had multiple oppurtunities to attack and contribute and didn't. He could have tapped the ball into the back of the net from 3 yards and didn't, hell, you could even argue if he didn't trip Schwarzer we might have scored as well. And an extremely high defensive mindset? He only played the first 60 minutes, during which we were in control, had more posession and Fulham only mustered 3 or 4 shots and looked no danger at all. We weren't exactly pinned back parking the bus, during this time we had plenty of oppurtunities to attack and to score. He had the ball plenty of times in attacking positions and contributed almost nothing. There were probably about 5 minutes before he went off in which Fulham threatened, other than that they were basically just trying to play long balls into the channels for Rodallega and barely entering our final third. And yes I did watch the game on TV, but I don't see how that comes into it at all.
We may need Guly to shine for us with Ramirez seemingly out for a while, his creativity & ball retention skills may prove invaluable.
Jesus. Some people need to start choosing their vocabulary a bit more wisely. I get it if you think he played well, but really, was it a phenomenon, like something you've never seen before? A once in a lifetime event? Mmm... Yes, I do have something against Puncheon. He is not a good enough standard of personnel to keep our football team in the Premier League.
Don't think it's possible for a player to have provided more cover to Yoshida in Puncheon's position so it was definitely up there. Certainly not a once in a life time event LOL. Deal with it.
