Watching the game yesterday it struck me that this is the best that we have played since the first half of last season when we were dominating teams with our possession and the fluidity and variety of attacking options. A year ago, we had a front four of Guly or Chaplow, Connolly or Guly, Lambert, Lallana...these players were interchangeable with their movement and were all a serious goal threat. They were given licence to express themselves by the solid central midfield pair of Cork with Morgan or Hammond who were the engine room that very often would break up the opposition's attacks high up the pitch instead of sitting deep and letting them come on to us. Gaston has come in and is playing the Connolly role and is already showing the understanding with Lallana in particular that he had. Punch has come in and is playing the Guly/Chaplow role and is consistantly playing at a level this season that he had only sporadically shown previously and looks like a £5m plus player now. There are a few reasons why our form has picked up, the influence of Cork returning to the side cannot be overstated and Gaston is now fully fit and settling in more with each match. The back four and Keeper have been unchanged for the last 3 games which cand only help with their understanding and young Luke Shaw is showing a maturity way beyond his years and our left side looks less vunerable now. Continuity and confidence are now the key to future success, Nigel has found the right formula and performances should only get better from now.
I can find so little to disagree with this post it would be being picky to do so. Besides which, I've got a rather nice glass of red next to me, which I'd much rather handle. So, I'll just say I concur.
it is the movement that is so important at this level, even Punch although a Saints player for 2 years has played very few games with Lallana and Rickie, the 4 front players are building a very good understanding which still needs time to get even better.
Can't disagree with anything that has been previously said. The re-emergence of Cork and Ramirez is really now showing the dividends we all thought it would. Trouble is we do not have another budding cork on the bench nor do we have a budding Ramirez. Although young ward Prowse is perhaps in the Cork mode and is definitely one for the future. As I have said in other posts Goalkeeper is at the moment our weakest link. Purely from the point of experience...better quality teams will have forwards that can and will take advantage of Gazza's inexperience. Be under no illusion about that............
We started brightly in this league, but lost games against the top sides. Everyone was learning including Nigel...he was entitled to try things and learn from mistakes. Our performances after that could be put down to absences through injury, especially losing Clyne and Richardson which exposed our lack of depth and quality in defence. Playing poor Yoshida out of position when he was trying to learn about English football made people doubt his ability. We have now got a team that virtually picks itself, but that won't last the whole season...let's hope we have new players in January and a points cushion before injuries/suspensions kick in. Gazzaniga will improve with a more confident defence in front of him and experience. In a goalkeeper, confidence is very important.
All fair observations Fran, I think that I missed another "con" that will be key to future success...consistency of performance, we can't afford to let standards drop against anyone in this league or we will be caught out.
I'm going to throw a little curve ball in and say that we weren't that bad all season so far. People say we were bad against Wigan; I think not. We were naive and they stole two goals. We also had our first lesson that it won't be as easy to break down some premier league defences compared to championship ones. We were fairly poor against the Baggies and appalling in the first half against Arsenal, but in most the other games (taking emotion away) we have done okay, but been undone by a couple of naive errors or punished by some clinical teams. We seem to be learning quickly which is good news, but the early season media hype about how bad we were was a bit OTT. So I think the formula has always been there, or there abouts. The cogs are just a little better oiled now.
Great post. The other time this resembles is, of course, the second half of the 2010-11 season when were surging up League 1 slaughtering all before us (apart from Tranmere and Rochdale). Just hope we don't get one of them in the FA Cup!
I agree FLT, by no means am I saying that we have been poor, but we haven't been as dominant as we have been in the last 2 games...we could've beaten Newcastle 5 or 6 nil and it wouldn't have flattered us. At Everton, Arsenal and West Brom we were guilty of dropping too deep as a team but that had more to do with the personnel in the side and a lack of confidence. Now I would expect us to impose ourselves more against the top sides as we did against the Manc teams at the start of the season.
We had the problem of not finishing our chances last season. Would score 2 goals from fifteen chances. Can't get away with it in the PL...you may only get 1 or 2 chances in the whole game.
Always stated here that our problem was not our defence but was laying more on the midfield. In that sence the return of Cork is very very important. Now we have two people who can take control in midfield, Schneiderlin and Cork. We mostly had one who also liked to attack which caused great problems for our midfield and defence. It has been incorrect that all the blame was for defence. There just was no good organisation of the team. That is why i think Cork has been motm in both two recent games.
I think for the Manchester games the players must have thought, hang on we are not far off in terms of quality. But poor finishing against Wigan cost us dearly (hit the woodwork twice) and a sucker late goal after a foul on Jose. Arsenal it all went wrong and we never got into it, but other than that our performances have been getting better. Also think the stick that NA has recieved has really spurred the team on. The commentators on Sunday were quite dismissive about us before the game, esp the defence and Gazza, but were glowing afterwards about our quality of play
puncheon's understanding with clyne is what is most pleasing. its getting almost as good as the old lallana/harding combo we had a couple of seasons ago.
Like TSS, I see nothing at all to disagree with on this thread so far. Cork and Ramirez returning at the same time as experience has been gained all round and good partnerships are forming is all plain to see. Like FLT, I don't think we were anywhere near as bad as many cited earlier on either. One thing I would suggest is that Fran's observation of missing chances holds water this season too. We've been wasteful and need to address that.
Any team can get beaten anytime by another team, otherwise there would be no point in playing the matches. Perhaps we were stale or tired. Interestingly, one player was asked if Nigel ever lost it and he said, 'A few times'. I'm wondering which games that was...though I bet half-time against Spurs when the Saints team came out early was one.
