Doesn't matter who's selected - they're all on the beach, flip flops on, forming an 80s style conga line & massaging Ambre Solaire into one another. Don't you know. 3-1 to the mighty Saints.
Getting smashed 6-0 at home is an automatic motivator, so I expect our lot to be f*cking fired up for this, if they really care about Ralph's and their own reputations. If it's another Chelsea-like non-performance, then it's gotta be "sacked in the morning".
I’m sure they do care, but from my perspective there have been several games this season when the high press just hasn’t been implemented as well as we know it can. The players don’t always appear to be working in synchronisation and it just needs one player to be one or two yards off the pace to leave us wide open to a quick counter attack, with our full backs half way up the pitch. I can still remember (that’s a feat in itself) a goal at the Emirates, earlier this season, where we had players arriving too late to press effectively and Arsenal ripped us a new one, playing through our left flank. If we don’t get it right on Saturday, then I expect the same thing to happen.
The Arsenal goal was a beauty, and you just don't see them like that all too often. The timing and placement of each pass coupled with the split-second lateness of each corresponding pressing Saints player was a sort freakish poetry in motion. I'm not sure if it was Arsenal brilliance, Saints being sh*te, or just a string of lucky/unlucky coincidences. Regarding the press, I notice Ralph has said that we didn't press quickly enough against Chelsea. I'm more of the thinking that we press too much, and we need to know when to calm it down.
I haven`t a clue what the score will be. Stephens has to start - he was excellent early in the season.
To be fair, so was Redmond. It will be a very interesting line-up & as Che said above, if a 0-6 isn’t enough motivation, then somethings very wrong. Got to get this right. Here’s hoping
I was one of the lucky few who missed the Chelsea game, so don’t have an opinion on that game, but I think you are right about there being times when we need to calm down and to make sure that everyone is where they should be to ensure the press is successful when it does get triggered. One thing I have noticed, in recent games, is that Stuart and Lucy seem to have been given more licence to roam, with them both sometimes being on the same side of the pitch. Maybe this is unbalancing the press, as in not always having players in their “proper” positions to outnumber the opposition, giving them the gaps to play through.
All we need to do is get thrashed regularly and the players will have enough motivation to put some effort in.
