Gazza - 6.5, he is so calm on the ball, few cheeky passes out perfectly to feet. Looks like he could be a great buy, couldnt do much about the goals. Clyne - 7 MoM for us, made some cracking tackles, most exciting player going forward aswell IMO. Fonte - 5.5, No protection, did okay, stood off of Long too much on the cross for the second goal. Yoshi - 6, looked good to me, bit dodgy with his passes but a good marker header and tackler Fox - 4, Same old, hoof ball, bad positioning. Morg - 4, drifted far too much didnt do his job very well. Davis - 4 - Same as Morg, maybe worse gave ball away a bit cheaply. Ramirez 4, wasn't fit. Lallana - 6.5, ran so hard all game, best defensive performance all season, should have had a penalty, biggest threat. Jay Rod - 5.5, did nothing but works very hard. Lambert - 5, did nothing, won a few headers unlucky with his shot. All subs made no impact so no rating. Adkins -1, why is he making subs on the 70th minute when a few players (Davis, Ramirez, Lambert mainly) were not playing well. We made very few chances and he needs to act much quicker changing it about. Not just swapping some players about in the same system. Fans were brilliant all game they out sung the baggies.
Gazza - 6 - Two shots on target, two goals, but would've taken superb saves to stop either. Other than that, distributed well. Clyne - 6.5 - Combined keeping Dorrans quiet with getting forward effectively. Final ball unfortunately not there tonight but very impressive in every other aspect especially key last ditch challenges which are becoming a trait of his. Fonte - 5.5 - Comfortable in possession, but unable to find the balance between fouling an isolated Long and relieving the pressure on WBA and giving him too much space, as was the case for their second. Worryingly poor positioning on one occasion in the first half where he played Long onside courtesy of being a good ten yards behind the rest of our back line. Yoshida - 6 - Solid enough. Can't exactly be blamed for the goal as closing down Odemwingie in that situation certainly wasn't his responsibility. Thought he looked decent on the ball, despite what others seem to think. Certainly yet to build a real understanding with Fonte. Fox - 6 - The levels of criticism are unfair. Won one vital one-on-one tackle in the first half, and put in some typically dangerous deliveries when getting forward. Like Clyne he was clearly asked to charge up and down the flanks all day, hence the Shaw sub. Lost Odemwingie for the second but we were chasing the game. Yes, his positioning and awareness are well below average for a Prem full back, but he really isn't helped by Lallana. On numerous occasions, while Fox was tight on Odemwingie, Jones popped up on the overlap (especially on one occasion in the 1st half where he criminally drifted offside, otherwise they would've scored) while Lallana had drifted infield. Schneiderlin - 6 - kept their attacking midfield 3 quiet. haven't seen the first again yet but either he or Lallana was guilty of not closing down. Davis - 5 - Wasteful in possession all too often. Like Schneiderlin, he doesn't seem comfortable being the more attacking of the central midfielders in a 4-4-2 system, which is why whilst dominating possession, we never looked like hurting them through the middle and our only attacking threat came through long balls to Lambert and crosses from deep. Ramirez - 5.5 - Given that I missed the Villa game I was excited when i saw he was starting tonight. What stood out was his first touch which was fantastic, however his fitness and match practice are lacking, with his performance rapidly deteriorating up to the substitution. Despite him playing poorly i'm almost more convinced he'll be our best player this season after tonight. He had all the right ideas but the execution was just lacking. Had Clyne's throughball been weighted better he would've equalised after a brilliantly angled run. Lallana - 5.5 - Typically energetic, passionate and graceful display. Concerns though about his tracking of the full back as mentioned earlier (see Fox). I also felt that once Jones was booked we should've looked to exploit him. He's the weak link in their back line as it is and we should've looked to get Lallana running at him one-on-one. For whatever reason that didn't happen. Unlucky not to score in the last minute, but too honest when clipped by Olsson in the area. Whether you agree with it or not, as captain he has a duty to protest to either linesman, referee or both about what was a clear penalty. His failure to do so showed an air of resignation for me. Lambert - 5.5 - Thought he was really poor tonight. I think he just needs a run of games and the assurance that he still is our number one frontman. Two things he did superbly last season was a) win almost all headers, and b) retain the ball. He did neither tonight. Recently, tonight especially, he seems to lack the confidence in his unique ability to embarrass centre backs in the air all game whilst also being a superb passer of the ball. I'm sure he'll find his old form soon, he's far too good not to. Rodriguez - 5 - Very quiet tonight, although I think he'll good for us. Held it up pretty well.
Agree with most of your thoughts as a whole Psychocandy but you raise a very good point in regards to Jones' booking, we should really have exposed him and gone at him all game but I struggle to remember us challenging him at all. Was a real nasty challenge for the booking too, the hopeful part of me was begging for a red.
Funny this isn't it. Against Spurs Scheniderlin made 2 interceptions 0 tackles 82% passing. Tonight he had 93% passing, 3 tackles, 3 interceptions. Almost all of you rate him low tonight and he was getting decent ratings on the Spurs thread. It's like all you lot remembered was him racing Bale, one moment in the game.
I think the clear domination of Mulumbu over him and others, as well as that dreadful attempt of a block for the first goal has brought it to the forefront for some people. Personally think both him and Davis have been really poor against Spurs and West Brom, which has for me been a large part of our problems in both games, with those two guys being two of our strongest performers up until then.
Morgan was very poor against West Brom and average today I thought. The first goal is a tough one. Firstly Lallana should have done better not to beat beaten inside, Yoshida has stuck a leg out stupidly. They are more to blame. Schneiderlin might think he'll do more harm that good trying to block that. He's not guaranteed to block the ball, it might get crossed/passes so he's thinking of blocking that also. Gazzaniga would be very hard to beat from outside the box without it being a rocket in the corner or in off the post when there's no deflection. Not been impressed at all with Davis lately. He's not stayed deep and protected the defensive enough As for Mulumbu and Yacob. They got plenty more support from their midfield. West Brom were playing on the counter
Lallana didn't get beaten for their first, he had been beaten several times up until then, but for their first it was a case of Fox being caught in a 2 v 1 out wide (one of many times), Lallana came across to help but as he did they passed it intside to Odemwingie on the edge of the box (Where Schneiderlin should have been), but Schneiderlin was deep in the box in between the CBs. At this point he should have been charging out to close him down, and I would expect him to be doing that in a heartbeat, but instead he stayed almost rooted, took a few tentative steps and then made an even more tentative attempt at a block. It was really, really poor and not something I'd expect from him. Personally not happy with Davis in the past two weeks but not so much for the same reasons.
Clyne our best player, Davis our worst (though that may be tinged by the fact I expected more from him). Gazza looks like he will be a good keeper...very calm for one so young. Ramirez...coming back from injury, largely anonymous, important that he got some match time. Was never sure about buying JRod, but he tried hard.
For me the biggest thing about Davis was that he never actually showed for the ball - didnt want to be there it seemed
Gazza 6 Clyne 6 Fonte 5 Yoshida 5 Fox 5 Ramirez 6 Morgan 5 Davis 3 Lallana 5 Rodriguez 3 Lambert 5 Subs Mayuka 5 Guly 5 Shaw 6 Me and rest of Saints fans who wasted most of the day to travel up and watch that ****e 10
Not surprised by the ratings on here. What is nice to see that most of you rate the midfield (Schneiderlin, Davis and Ramirez) as very poor. I really think that that is the big problem of our team. It is not defence as many of you are saying, but often it is midfield that causes problems for defence. Yesterday also Lallana (of whom i think he is gonna be a great player) is a man who's first thoughts are not about defending. He keeps on going forwards and leaving big gaps on the right wing of the opponent. Something a lot of coaches must have noticed, because all our opponents love to play their attack on our left side. And that is not only because of Fox his capabilities. Yesterday Davis and Schneiderlin did the same: causing a big gap between defence and attack. Also not willing to have a ball from his teammates. Saw a lot of balls going from Fonte to Maja to Fonte to Maja to Fonte and at last to Fow who gave a long ball.....no Schneiderlin or Davis asking for the ball Biggest problem for me after yesterday's game is the teamspirit. It looks to me that there were 11 players and not a team and no teamspirit and no enthousiasm. Also it looked as if players are afraid of making mistakes, so prefer not getting balls or playing very safely (fonte to maja etc.etc.). Hope this will be different very soon.
