Match Day Thread Southampton v Arsenal Sunday 16th December 2018 13:30.. the Welcome Ralph Thread

We actually need to do a Leicester and average 1.25 point a game for survival.......... that will give us around 38 points.......that is do-able in my opinion with this squad easy..........

Edit............That is we need to average a little over .5 of a game more than now to achieve that........

 

As long as I`ve ben a Saints fan, whenever we beat a `big` club, it`s because they were crap, rather than us being good. I`m over getting pissed off about it.

 

Anyone who was there would argue I think, that Arsenal weren't crap. To be fair to them what undone them is they threw caution to the wind to get the winner and got caught out.......simple........ can happen to any team. Or maybe it could be argued we made them look out of sorts........but I would argue they were not playing crap football..........

 

PEH and Redmond maintain their form. Armstrong, Vestergaard, Bednarek and Maya all improve. We use Austin as he should be used. We finish the game with 3 academy players on the pitch. We end top team's 22 game unbeaten run. What's not to like.

 

They were perhaps made to look a crap team.........

 

To be fair to them what undone them is they threw caution to the wind to get the winner and got caught out.

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We out tactic'd them. RH spotted the weakness, worked on it all week, and it played out to perfection.
Lovely jubbly.

 

So this "pressing" thing...

It would be easy to think, from TV highlights, that it was happening 100% of the time, but watching yesterday it was clear to me that there was something more subtle going on. There were quite a few times when we were happy to let Arsenal knock the ball around in their half, we didn't waste energy trying to pressure them. However as soon as they did pass the ball backwards, the four across the midfield (2xDM + 2xFB) stepped up 2-3 metres. And as soon as any of their defence were in a vulnerable position (having to take an extra touch or an awkward turn to get into shape) the midfield pressed in pairs - one on the guy with the ball, one on the player they would naturally pass to. I saw the players eyeballing each other and mentally saying "now!" when they went into this mode. At the same time one of the front three would double up on the man with the ball. The whole thing being designed to force a mistake.
One of the results of this is that quite often Hojbjerg or Romeu were almost the most advanced players on the pitch. Also, it meant that there was more space between the lines than the normal Premier League defensive setup would allow. This meant that we were very reliant on one of the back three stepping up to cut out attacks. Possibly this was why Romeu did not track the runner for Arsenal's first goal - his starting position was too far up the pitch.
In the second half, as the team tired and Arsenal piled on the pressure, they stayed in a more conventional defensive shape, with players (Hojbjerg in particular) sprinting out of the line to get in their faces.

 

Some good running by Ings as well. Don't know how he made it to 70 min mark. Two crunching on him had me fearing the worst.

 

Their defence was pretty crap. Koscielny was frequently marooned, if Vestergaard had a game like that our fans would have been baying for blood.

However, we had to get through Arsenal’s midfield and actually get some bodies forward, to take advantage of their defensive crapness.

West Ham’s defence doesn’t look great either, so that could shape up into a decent game at least.

Huddersfield field will be a completely different test; much more like the Cardiff game, only hopefully we’ll be better drilled this time. It won’t be easy though.

Not even thinking about City yet. Or Chelsea.

 

The thing about a pressing game is the idea behind it is to make the other team make mistakes. Arsenal were pressing us when they could too. The result was both arsenal and us made a fair few mistake, for example Romeu being closed down. doesn't mean either team were playing badly.

 

I did notice while watching on TV we only pressed at certain times. Ralph has not wasted any time to put his mark on the team.

 

Great game. Great result. Great to see the team playing football again. Sure, it won't be like this every week, but I'd far rather see us play like this and lose than play an uninspired game and lose.

 

This was particularly encouraging, desire to get back when oppo on the break:

 

You get the feeling they now know that they won’t be long in the team without doing this.

 

Does highlight that arsenal broke from our corner and essentially had a 3v2, even with everyone charging back. Still needs to be worked on.

 

sets us up nicely for the 2 games coming up with Hudders and W Ham.

Imagine if the saints won 2 games on the trot!!!

Coyr Blimey!

 

Don’t get ahead of yourself Jonny. You’ll get over excited and ruin everything if you’re not careful

 

Why are we all so bunched together though? Seven Saints further away from our goal and four Arsenal players closer. Could argue that Arsenal should have done better with those odds!

 

maybe christmas will be full of cheer afterall