The irony

[Number 1 Jasper]

And I thought the real irony was that we were beaten by a team who have totally changed the way they play to be effective, and have been royally criticised and jeered at for doing so, from all quarters. Yet we have a manager who sticks to his playing principles and is now seen to be the excuse for the team to be losing. On the last day of last season, when Adkins let slip he might not be with Saints for too much longer, there was an anguished wailing and wringing of hands. Fickle.

very VERY well said .

 

[Matthew Le God]

While Adkins is a legend for getting us promoted two seasons running, the question for me has to be, would he have achieved either of those promotions without Rickie Lambert's goals (and all round contribution)? For me, the answer is no. He wouldn't. That he should leave him out now is by far the most ridiculous team selection since Branfoot left out you-know-who. Perhaps even more so, at least Branfoot had a theory behind his decision.

I don't feel embarrassed by yesterday's result despite my mates winding me up, because, sadly, I've been using "Adkins" as our excuse. How sad is that? What happened to the great man?

Amazing how many people don't understand what the word "irony" means.

The opening post of this thread does not describe anything ironic.

 

[PO10Saint]

Okay, I accept your first point. I wasn't at the game and haven't seen the highlights but I'm prepared to accept that 4-1 may have flattered West Ham. But that really supports what I'm saying. you talk in your second post about "a few uncontrollable errors in concentration" but those errors in concentration have happened in almost every game this season and were also happening last year. Playing conservatively, trying to keep it tight and stay in the game is a poor tactic given that Saints have a defence that was somewhat error-prone last year and is now making more mistakes because it has rapidly lost confidence after a poor run (albeit against some of the best teams around). As I say, I haven't seen the West Ham game, but I did watch the Fulham match and Hooiveld in particular looked like a rabbit in the headlights every time the ball came near him. That own goal was coming from the moment he stepped on the pitch.

You have to look at the opposition's team, sure, but you also have to play to your own strengths and trying to keep it tight at the back when your defence seems to give away either a penalty or an own goal almost every game is NOT playing to your strengths. There's a post from a Norwich fan in the other thread pointing out they didn't keep a clean sheet until the second half of last season and that's the point - Norwich played to their strengths and attacked and we need to do the same. If we'd gone out and attacked we might have won 5-4, we might have lost 4-0, we might have drawn 3-3, I don't know. I just believe that when you have team that's strong going forward and weak at the back you have no choice but to attack because if you try to play conservatively your defence will let you down, as it did this weekend and has done in most games this season.

Hear what your saying but it's pretty much only Barca and the Brazil teams of 70's / 80's that can get away with I'll score more than you approach to defending. Problem is against the top teams they have more quality and most of the time taking them on over a 90 minute game we'll get beat so I understand what NA has done against City and co. try and turn the game into a 30 minute match and against a team of much better quality you have more probability of creating a shock and holding on to it. Against the next set of teams they will be capable of sitting with two banks of four against us, shutting us out and hitting us on the counter attack if we just go at them. Think Chelsea in Europe last year. We have to have a balanced and realistic approach to games - in terms of quality we are some way of the overall pace and we need to accept it - there was a post i read at the weekend that talked about Lallana being a great player - I didn't call the person out on it at the time but its worth noting that he has been a really good player for Saints over the last couple of years but he is some way from being classed as a great player in the company of other premier league teams and that stands for the rest of our squad - t is going to be an uphill slog this season and NA is trying to find a way of giving us an edge with his tactics. It nearly worked against City and Utd but backfired horribly on Saturday through poor individual errors, not because of the system.

We've got to give him time to find his way in this league with us - its a long season there's plenty of points up for grabs

 

[gomarchingin]

That sums it up. It can't be proved. NA played Guly and Jrod I assume because he felt they were more mobile and would give some pace on the break. It worked in the first half and didn't in the 2nd. Lesson learnt, line drawn bring on the Spurs!

Lamb , you said it right there , pace on the break , counter attack in numbers , we needed pace for that hence Lambert being dropped .

 

[SFC4BAG]

Which worked perfectly until the early errors upset the apple cart.

 

[gomarchingin]

I think Norwich had one very big thing we didn't; Organisation. And confidence to boot. They might not have been the best defensively, but they were better than we have been, and worse attacking than we are. So they had to go more attacking to carry a threat, but could do so without playing entirely riskily because of a better more strict and organised set-up and defence. We on the other hand, have to find a greater balance, we can afford to play less attacking because we have more attacking talent and threat, but the more we attack the more we expose ourselves. I think the situation between the two teams are somewhat similar but the balance of the teams is entirely different.

I think the main thing we're differing on is that I don't see our defence as a lost cause. I don't think that 8 games into the season, or 7 games when the tactics for this game were being drawn up, it was time to just completely write-off our defensive capabilities, and just go gung-ho, balls to the wall and try and attack so heavily that we make up for a defence that has no chance of keeping the ball out of our net. If we had been entirely hopeless all season, then I may have felt that way, and if we had been entirely hopeless against West Ham, then I may feel that way now, but I don't feel that way. I think despite what the stats tell you, despite what it seems, that our defence has enough quality to compete, we don't need to give up on them yet. I know people make stupid generalising statements like this all the time and it annoys me, "If you were at the game you'd know", "I saw it so I know what I'm talking about and you don't", but I firmly believe that if you'd seen the game you would feel the same. We defended very well for the vast, vast majority of the game, Carroll was a non-factor, their moves rarely got anywhere near our final third, and we were solid throughout. As I have said, and as you picked me up on, it was a few uncontrollable errors that cost us the game and completely undermined the good work of the defence and team as a whole. The first goal was the most clear cut, and the one that cost us most, a simple, straight as an arrow lofted free kick into the area, dropping harmlessly into an area a couple of yards in front of Boruc, he could have come out and claimed it almost unchallenged, but he stayed at home and it bounced into the net. Will that happen again, almost certainly not, Boruc is a vastly experienced keeper and that is not a mistake that will be a recurring one. Out of order, but their third goal, a silly free-kick that wouldn't have been given most other times, another simple lofted ball into the box, which almost inexplicably Fonte ends up handballing. Calamitous? Yes. Uncontrollable? Yes. But is he likely to punch the ball in his own area gain? No. Then the second and fourth goals both came from a tired and out of position Yoshida (who as I have mentioned many times, played 180 minutes for his national team in the past 7 days) being beaten down the wing, the first leading to a simple square ball to Nolan for the tap-in, the second to a sublime goal from Maiga once the game was well dead. Poor defending? Undoubtedly. Uncontrollable? Not so much, could have been stopped. But will we often be calling on a fatigued low-confidence player to be playing in a position which they are not at all comfortable? I ****ing hope not!

Those four goals, the four times that West Ham threatened in the game, all came from more defensive errors from lack of concentration which has happened an entirely unacceptable amount of times this season. But it wasn't our defence being comprehensively out played and shown to have no quality, it wasn't Hooiveld getting embarassed by a quick skillful player and giving away another penalty, it wasn't our starting LB getting beaten all-ends up and allowing a threat to be placed on our goal, it wasn't another rebounding ball not being cleared and being allowed to fall to their team, these were not recurring errors, the theme was recurring, the errors were not. For those reasons, I believe it wasn't just a case of yet more of the same rubbish that our defence has been presenting, it was just a case of a team with **** luck, bad injuries and rock-bottom confidence. And under those circumstances, I am not prepared to give up on our defence, I believe unfairly, and just accept that they are terrible and go all out attack to compensate. There is still reason to have hope and have faith, still reason to try and play in a manner where we will not concede, and I think the worst thing to do right now is to give up on our lads, show them that we do not believe in them when they already have no confidence, and just leave them stranded as we commit to attacking the other team. At this stage of the season, we need to have confidence in them, protect them, give them help, and I do believe that we can put in a performance very very similar to the one we did against West Ham and come away with a clean sheet, and a huge breath of confidence injected into the team. If in a few games time, we've again conceded 3 or 4 against Spurs and WBA, and then put in another poor performance against Swansea with more pathetic errors, then I'll start to think it's time to explore other options and try and compensate for our defence by attacking the **** out of teams, but for now, it is not yet time for desperate measures. The tide is against us right now, we're being forced out to sea by these errors, but to accept that, to allow the tide to take us and let us get swallowed up by the current would be a mistake, we still have the strength to fight against it, we just need to push through and soon we'll be sat on the beach with an ice cream, relaxing and enjoying the warm glow of the Premier League.

Nice post but that is not the first time this season we have conceded four goals in a game and it wont be the last . Awful defenders do not suddenly become Bobby Moore with a good positive team talk . I do admire your optimism .

 

[Puck]

I think Norwich had one very big thing we didn't; Organisation. And confidence to boot. They might not have been the best defensively, but they were better than we have been, and worse attacking than we are. So they had to go more attacking to carry a threat, but could do so without playing entirely riskily because of a better more strict and organised set-up and defence. We on the other hand, have to find a greater balance, we can afford to play less attacking because we have more attacking talent and threat, but the more we attack the more we expose ourselves. I think the situation between the two teams are somewhat similar but the balance of the teams is entirely different.

I think the main thing we're differing on is that I don't see our defence as a lost cause. I don't think that 8 games into the season, or 7 games when the tactics for this game were being drawn up, it was time to just completely write-off our defensive capabilities, and just go gung-ho, balls to the wall and try and attack so heavily that we make up for a defence that has no chance of keeping the ball out of our net. If we had been entirely hopeless all season, then I may have felt that way, and if we had been entirely hopeless against West Ham, then I may feel that way now, but I don't feel that way. I think despite what the stats tell you, despite what it seems, that our defence has enough quality to compete, we don't need to give up on them yet. I know people make stupid generalising statements like this all the time and it annoys me, "If you were at the game you'd know", "I saw it so I know what I'm talking about and you don't", but I firmly believe that if you'd seen the game you would feel the same. We defended very well for the vast, vast majority of the game, Carroll was a non-factor, their moves rarely got anywhere near our final third, and we were solid throughout. As I have said, and as you picked me up on, it was a few uncontrollable errors that cost us the game and completely undermined the good work of the defence and team as a whole. The first goal was the most clear cut, and the one that cost us most, a simple, straight as an arrow lofted free kick into the area, dropping harmlessly into an area a couple of yards in front of Boruc, he could have come out and claimed it almost unchallenged, but he stayed at home and it bounced into the net. Will that happen again, almost certainly not, Boruc is a vastly experienced keeper and that is not a mistake that will be a recurring one. Out of order, but their third goal, a silly free-kick that wouldn't have been given most other times, another simple lofted ball into the box, which almost inexplicably Fonte ends up handballing. Calamitous? Yes. Uncontrollable? Yes. But is he likely to punch the ball in his own area gain? No. Then the second and fourth goals both came from a tired and out of position Yoshida (who as I have mentioned many times, played 180 minutes for his national team in the past 7 days) being beaten down the wing, the first leading to a simple square ball to Nolan for the tap-in, the second to a sublime goal from Maiga once the game was well dead. Poor defending? Undoubtedly. Uncontrollable? Not so much, could have been stopped. But will we often be calling on a fatigued low-confidence player to be playing in a position which they are not at all comfortable? I ****ing hope not!

Those four goals, the four times that West Ham threatened in the game, all came from more defensive errors from lack of concentration which has happened an entirely unacceptable amount of times this season. But it wasn't our defence being comprehensively out played and shown to have no quality, it wasn't Hooiveld getting embarassed by a quick skillful player and giving away another penalty, it wasn't our starting LB getting beaten all-ends up and allowing a threat to be placed on our goal, it wasn't another rebounding ball not being cleared and being allowed to fall to their team, these were not recurring errors, the theme was recurring, the errors were not. For those reasons, I believe it wasn't just a case of yet more of the same rubbish that our defence has been presenting, it was just a case of a team with **** luck, bad injuries and rock-bottom confidence. And under those circumstances, I am not prepared to give up on our defence, I believe unfairly, and just accept that they are terrible and go all out attack to compensate. There is still reason to have hope and have faith, still reason to try and play in a manner where we will not concede, and I think the worst thing to do right now is to give up on our lads, show them that we do not believe in them when they already have no confidence, and just leave them stranded as we commit to attacking the other team. At this stage of the season, we need to have confidence in them, protect them, give them help, and I do believe that we can put in a performance very very similar to the one we did against West Ham and come away with a clean sheet, and a huge breath of confidence injected into the team. If in a few games time, we've again conceded 3 or 4 against Spurs and WBA, and then put in another poor performance against Swansea with more pathetic errors, then I'll start to think it's time to explore other options and try and compensate for our defence by attacking the **** out of teams, but for now, it is not yet time for desperate measures. The tide is against us right now, we're being forced out to sea by these errors, but to accept that, to allow the tide to take us and let us get swallowed up by the current would be a mistake, we still have the strength to fight against it, we just need to push through and soon we'll be sat on the beach with an ice cream, relaxing and enjoying the warm glow of the Premier League.

Okay you're putting words in my mouth a bit here. I'm not advocating gung-ho, balls-to-the-wall cavalry charge football. I'm saying I think we generally had the approach right in the first 7 games. You stated early in the thread that part of the thinking behind dropping Lambert is that we need to play a more conservative brand of football and protect the defence. I'm saying that we can't afford to drop our biggest goal threat and I think we have to continue with the approach we took in the first 7 games because we've had some (admittedly limited) success playing that way. Our defence has consistently conceded soft goals for a while now so I don't think we can rely on keeping it tight at the back because someone will make a mistake. I don't believe it's just organisation that's missing either, that should be pretty simple to sort out on the training pitch and things haven't improved.

Your description of the West Ham game sounds exactly like what I expect from our defence. Despite what gomarchingin says they're not completely hopeless cloggers who can barely kick a ball. You can list off the bad luck or poor play for each goal and say "That won't happen again" but our defence frequently play well for most of a match but lose concentration at vital moments and concede a soft goal. Straight away I can list Fox's header for Man City's winner, Clyne's slip for the first and Hooiveld's tackle to give away a penalty against Man Utd, Fonte losing possession for Wigan's second, Yoshida being out of position for Arsenal's third (at least I think it was the third). That's 5 different mistakes that all led to goals and it's by no means an exhaustive list - Bent's goal for Villa and Osman's equalizer for Everton were both soft as well. There are no doubt excuses and reasons for each of those individual mistakes but the most important thing is they keep happening. It's not a new thing either, I seem to remember defensive errors resulting in goals against us last season, although I can't remember specific examples off the top of my head. The defence may not be continuously making the same mistakes but I don't think the fact they make a wide variety of mistakes is particularly comforting.

However, I don't think the situation is hopeless. I'm not going to write Boruc off after one game, I actually think he'll prove to be a (very?) good signing and I think a back four of Clyne, Yoshida, Fonte and Richardson/Fox has the potential to do a job until January. But I don't think sacrificing your biggest goal threat in an attempt to keep it tight until the 60th minute is the way to pick up points. You can't afford to weaken your biggest strength to slightly strengthen your greatest weakness.

 

[Mikey]

Okay you're putting words in my mouth a bit here. I'm not advocating gung-ho, balls-to-the-wall cavalry charge football. I'm saying I think we generally had the approach right in the first 7 games. You stated early in the thread that part of the thinking behind dropping Lambert is that we need to play a more conservative brand of football and protect the defence. I'm saying that we can't afford to drop our biggest goal threat and I think we have to continue with the approach we took in the first 7 games because we've had some (admittedly limited) success playing that way. Our defence has consistently conceded soft goals for a while now so I don't think we can rely on keeping it tight at the back because someone will make a mistake. I don't believe it's just organisation that's missing either, that should be pretty simple to sort out on the training pitch and things haven't improved.

Your description of the West Ham game sounds exactly like what I expect from our defence. Despite what gomarchingin says they're not completely hopeless cloggers who can barely kick a ball. You can list off the bad luck or poor play for each goal and say "That won't happen again" but our defence frequently play well for most of a match but lose concentration at vital moments and concede a soft goal. Straight away I can list Fox's header for Man City's winner, Clyne's slip for the first and Hooiveld's tackle to give away a penalty against Man Utd, Fonte losing possession for Wigan's second, Yoshida being out of position for Arsenal's third (at least I think it was the third). That's 5 different mistakes that all led to goals and it's by no means an exhaustive list - Bent's goal for Villa and Osman's equalizer for Everton were both soft as well. There are no doubt excuses and reasons for each of those individual mistakes but the most important thing is they keep happening. It's not a new thing either, I seem to remember defensive errors resulting in goals against us last season, although I can't remember specific examples off the top of my head. The defence may not be continuously making the same mistakes but I don't think the fact they make a wide variety of mistakes is particularly comforting.

However, I don't think the situation is hopeless. I'm not going to write Boruc off after one game, I actually think he'll prove to be a (very?) good signing and I think a back four of Clyne, Yoshida, Fonte and Richardson/Fox has the potential to do a job until January. But I don't think sacrificing your biggest goal threat in an attempt to keep it tight until the 60th minute is the way to pick up points. You can't afford to weaken your biggest strength to slightly strengthen your greatest weakness.

I don't mean to so much put words in your mouth as I was just exaggerating and slightly mis-understanding your points, apologies. I think the big difference is that I don't see Lambert as being 'dropped' so much as 'saved'. He wasn't started from the bench because Adkins did not think we didn't need him or his talents, but because he wanted to utilise them in a different way. I don't think at this stage so early in this season, we can afford to just assume our defence can make a mistake and not try and stop that from happening. And organisation is not something as easy to impose as I think you are suggesting it is. You can spend days on the training pitch, but we have an inexperienced team, none of them are playing with the same teammates next to them each week and being lead by an inexperienced manager. But all the training ground can be destroyed in a heartbeat for a team that is low on confidence and belief. Our organisation was nigh on perfect apart from a couple of scary moments from Boruc in the first half, but as soon as one unlucky and daft goal was conceded that was destroyed and we instantly conceded a sloppy second. Then we came back into the game and controlled it again, before conceding a freak third and killing the game. And then the fourth was also sloppy but also sublime from Maiga.

And I understand your point and agree with all your examples of poor goals we have conceded. However the only one I think truly comparable is Clyne's slip. It was a horrible moment of silly play and rubbish luck, but Clyne's going to be careful about his boots from now on and that wont happen again. By the same token, Boruc will not concede a simple 40 yard free kick that bounced 2 yards in front of him, Fonte wont do what Artur should have done and punched the ball, and Yoshida (hopefully) wont have to play at LB again. Fox had issues in every game he played until the Fulham one, Hooiveld has had some shockers, and Bent and Osman's goals were the same kind that we have conceded far too many times. If those things or other recurring issues and reared their ugly heads in the West Ham game then I'd have written it off as more of the same rubbish, but that wasn't the case. Overall the recurring theme of stupid goals continued, but as I have preached several times across several threads, everything can be evaluated, and nothing should be taken purely on face value. On face value, more stupid goals and more reason to doubt our defence and our methods, but when you dig deeper, there is much less reason to do so I believe.

It might end up being that we have to give up on focusing on protecting the defence and just base our hopes around Lambert and the rest of the attack, but despite it's highlights and good moments, there have been plenty of poor aspects and I don't think we had done enough in the first 7 games to mean that trying a different technique was a bad move. I personally would probably have preferred to have Lambert on the pitch, but I entirely understand Adkins' thinking and agree with him in many areas. We have played 3 away games prior to this, Man City, Arsenal and Everton. We had 3 different approaches, the first against City was very like the one we played on Saturday, and against one of the best teams in world football it almost worked perfectly, and even when it didn't, many hailed Adkins' tactical nouse and super subs. The Arsenal game from the first minute we got pinned on the edge of our own box and were mercilessly slaughtered until Arsenal had secured the game to the point where they no longer needed to waste any more effort, and even then we conceded two more goals on the counter, that was a game to be forgotten. The Everton game we had pretty much the opposite approach to City and West Ham and played our best attacking line-up and tactics from the first minute, and that lasted 15 minutes before Everton comprehensively punished us for that. Under those circumstances can you really criticise Nigel for playing the way and the players that he did?

 

[gomarchingin]

I can criticise why we dont have a team that can compete under various systems .

 

[I Sorry I Ruined The Party]

I did not agree with the decision to sit Lambert. But having said that, the bright side of that game is that it give Saints a chance to re-evaluate their tactics.

All respect to West Ham, who I do think is a decent side and did what they needed to stay up (in the short term, anyway) but they are not on a level with Man City, Man U, Arsenal. This was a side against whom Saints had a chance to dictate play a little bit. And in fact the strategy worked somewhat as conceived as Saints looked the more dangerous side and held possession for long periods. But it is too far into the season to say that Saints could/should have won but were done in by bad luck. Clearly there are massive problems on defense.

So now it is clear that the tactic was ill-conceived as Saints could not score and defensive gaffes still allowed West Ham to score 4 goals. Given a chance for a fair test, the idea of sitting Lambert clearly does not work. I'll cut Adkins some slack for trying something, because at least it gave us some clear answers.

I think we learned a few valuable things. One is that yes, the defense really is that bad and you cannot try to win games 1-0 or 2-0 with them. Another is that removing Lambert doesn't really help. One thing about Lambert is that he's surprisingly decent defending against set pieces. Do Prado might be better in open play, but because Lambert defends penalties and corners better it offsets that advantage. And Lambert is a better finisher. I think Saints are going to have to win game 4-3, probably with that extra goal coming on some piece of quality and Lambert provides that potential.

I will say that Adkins' season starts this week. We'll have to see what he comes up with. It's now totally apparent to everyone that Saints have a real problem on defense. And teams will start to devise tactics to take advantage of that. Adkins HAS to go to Plan B now. There is no other option.

 

[gomarchingin]

The issue is they dont really have to devise tactics as we will sort that out for them ,

We dropped our goal threat
We came to defend and only counter attack
We still conceded 4 goals

That sort of tells a story in its own , we came to defend and gave them soft goals (not to say they did not deserve them) , we got exactly what we deserved , exactly .

That was not naive that was stupid beyond comprehension .

 

[I Sorry I Ruined The Party]

That is not true. They were NOT playing defensively. Saints had most of the possession and did try to attack, albeit somewhat badly and with no end product.

Did you even watch the game?