Match Day Thread Southampton v West Ham United Saturday 6th February 2016 KO 17:30

Well, 24 hours have passed so here's my take.

It wasn't the best game of football I've ever seen in all honesty. However, while Victor's sending off should have killed all opportunity for the match to be interesting we still had the pace of Shane and the drive of Oriol to generate opportunities, one missed by Shane himself and the other by Charlie. The stats now show Charlie having a conversion rate of zero for all home games. Send him back.

Victor's sending off looked like a sending off from the top of the Northam. On TV it looked very different and from about five metres away it should have been even clearer. Lot of debate on here about the decision and I'm not going to add to it. I have no doubt that Clattenberg dealt with it as he saw it. I do, however, wish he'd dealt with the foul on Ryan just as well, though from the top of the Northam it looked quite innocuous.*

Individual players:

Yoshi: solid in defence bar his usual lack of match reactions at the start - he takes time to settle after a break. I do like him and he's a real pro about being the backup. Never a bad thing said about him, no agent shenanigans plus he took real heartfelt joy at his goal. I wish the gobby ones around me would get off his back. He is samurai. We'll get his chant taken up eventually.

Rest of the back six: excellent. Spirited soaking up of a full half of pressure in such a way that they restricted a team working hard to score to a single weak shot on goal. Ace save by Fraser in the first half - his reactions are breathtaking sometimes.

Oriol: I like him more and more. He's stopped the daft yellow cards now that he's fully up to pace and reminds me a little of Morgan (eek).

Classsie: He's going to turn out to be the signing of last summer. nothing more to be said. One duff pass but he was everywhere, and it took 85 minutes before his legs turned to rubber; getting better.

Sadio: If he doesn't pull his finger out he's not going to be chased by anyone come the summer. He looks lazy at times. He could easily have chased down their keeper at one point by running about seven yards. Instead he just ambled over. Why, when he can be so good, does he switch off? He needs a kick up the backside to return him to how he was.

Pelle: Love him but he didn't look match fit yesterday. Someone ITK told me that there were dressing room splits forming and that his dropping wasn't for an injury but for his attitude towards the other players. I don't know if there's any truth in that but he did seem to be shouting much less at everyone else in the team so that may have been sorted.

Charlie: brief but looked to be working hard and tried (but missed) a hard tackle early on. Looks like a hard worker, so I'll forgive him the big fat zero conversion rate at St Marys.

Bloke with me in Onionman Jr's place is an A**enal fan. He thought it was a solid performance but couldn't work out why West Ham gave us all the space we could ever wish for in the first 20 minutes. He also said "Foul coming" as soon as Victor lost the ball.

Vin

* I guess that's why they don't referee from my seat.

 

I was under the impression that the rule had been changed, to prevent refs being crowded by players, but it doesn't seem to be getting the correct response from ref's, who probably should be yellow carding them.
In an earlier post, someone mentioned Tadic being quite vocal and animated, in the sending off of the Norwich player, earlier in the season.
He was heavily criticised by several pundits, for his actions, yet when several West Ham players do it, the pundits don't say a word.

 

Did you say Classie. OMG

 

No, he said Classsie, obviously.

 

No Tom that is not true........A lot of us did qualify to be a referee and do appreciate how difficult it is to ref a game. As someone else has mentioned though we are human too! We like things to be straight forward but in football it seldom is. You are not being scoffed at in my view just that people do not agree with your interpretation on how you should decide if it was a foul. You will have been taught I would have thought that if you see a foul you blow (unless there is an advantage) and a player does not always go down also if it is close to the penalty area to wait a second or so to give the best chance of the severest penalty for the foul. ( goal scoring opportunity and all that) So please do not take offence when people don't agree with you it goes to prove how difficult it is to see the same things. We are just human after all...........

 

It's getting late and you're Welsh. All is forgiven.

 

Thank you... I think...

 

I must admit I'm starting to come round to classie. He played well. Always been a fan of remeu, he does a lot of what vic does but more inclined to drive forwards. One thing vic can't be beaten at is shielding the ball, best of the lot.

 

We should acknowledge Wanyama's contribution to our goal yesterday.

 

Good point actually. He did well to get the pass away under pressure.

 

Think the "assist"was actually a lucky deflection off someone's foot, he was just trying to toe poke it somewhere. He did a lot of the work in the build up, though. He started the move with a good pass, then made a nice run to almost get to Mane's excellent little thru ball. Pass was just a little too far in front of him.

He was also excellent on defense, just too many niggly fouls for no reason, even before the big one. He did take one necessary one to stop a counter.

 

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/sa...hampton_have_their_very_own_monster_/?ref=rss

Yoshida describing Fraser: He looks like a monster but is very kind

 

A gentle giant!

 

For Tom and all refs everywhere -

 

http://playingfor90.com/2016/02/07/victor-wanyama-isnt-worth-the-risk-for-southampton/

An article from US commenting on how much a liability Wanyama can be. Also suggesting he is not the player he was...I agree that Victor has been a bit of a curate's egg....so much so that while happy to have him stay, I can live with him leaving. However, the author doesn't seem to have grasped that when you get a red card, you will miss games, as he suggests Ronald benches him. Ron won't have much choice about that.

 

He had a cracking game all round up until that moment...

 

Perhaps Victor needs an electric dog collar fitted, so that Ronald can give him a shock if he thinks he's getting reckless. Works with dogs....though may need to be more powerful with Victor.

 

Call me old Mr Picky, but it might be that the European Court of Human Rights would have a view. Otherwise a brilliant solution, Fran. Always good to get a scientific approach to a problem.

 

Can't believe that I wrote that. All I needed to say was that "you are only a girl" and I could have scored maximum marks for being a patronising git. Sorry for saying it, and sorry for the confusion. I plead the red wine defence.

 

I noticed that Clutterbuck had several one on one conversations with Jose during the game, over a couple of issues, he also noticed the bit of illegal coaching from the Kingsland sidelines, but left it with just a warning to stop. I didn't see him having any similar contact with the Hammers skipper.