I bet the Southampton, West Ham and Reading formula for winning games and scoring goals doesn't consist of playing this daft lone striker formation. Great if you've got 10 outfield players that are comfortable on the ball and support attacking play, but we don't. Usually we end up with 2 or 3 players in the opposition penalty area. Against Blackpool they would more often than not have 5-6 players in any attacking moves, law of chance saysyou're more likely to score. I question whether this football is more attractive? We don't break with any pace, alway looking to pass the ball back from an attacking position to a non attacking position. As we have less players committing to supporting an attack. I wish we'd appointed Nigel Adkins a while ago when he was at Scunny, I think he's a brilliant manager.
the main thing i noticed about last night and the reason i would say southampton are successful are every time they go forward they have 3-4 players in the box compared to our usual 1, what we really need in my opinion is somebody to play the evans role but who is abit more forward thinking
1) i learned that southampton are good value for 'top of the league' 2) there are probably 6 or 7 teams in the league that are better equipped at this moment to go up this year than hull city 3) we are not the finished article and 2 or 3 additions would help. 4) ignoring the huge accrued debt and failed premiership gamble, we are now living within our means, whilst southampton probably are not. 5) southampton's true football fans will not enjoy their 1/2 season premiership stay unless they spend DQPR style and even then they will realise that the championship is the 'best league in the world' and not the premiership. 6) if southampton's premier league adventure fails, they will be in the same financial position as hull city and derby in 3 years time
Well mussiesredhat you'd like to think so. Unfortunately (for you) you're wrong . Saints finances have never been healthier, a Swiss Trust fund has seen to that. Thanks Markus Liebherr RIP. ------------- ps. Thought I read somewhere on here that Hull are a better football team than Saints? EH?
I think that Southampton definitely had the edge over City last night. They were physically bigger than City and used their advantage in strength well, also they worked extremely hard both with and without the ball - they closed our players down very effectively and they broke very quickly from defence and got forward in strength. Having said that, the game was well balanced and City certainly created enough good opportunities to score at least a couple of goals. Frustrating but a good game!
Don't think you can say you are a better team then us. We have beaten you twice, and we are top of the league. You did give us a very good game yesterday, but for the whole 2nd half we looked comfortable.
City were second best last night and you just shaded it at St Marys. Enjoy the Premiership, but take your eye shades. its as boring as hell ps. when we were in the prem, our finances were healthy apparently! so were Derby's and i guess Bolton, Wigan, et al are all more profitable than Barclays Bank. Yawn!!!
They were better than us, all the Saints fans saying we thought we were better, well not all of us did. Good luck for the rest of the season.
How cany anyone blame Fryatt for last night, he didn't get given one chance? I think last night showed how poor the 4-4-2 is, we tried it in the second half and it was absolute garbage, and Koren was sorely missed.
---- Mussie, I'm not a fan of the Prem. We had a great time in Div 1 last year and we're enjoying the Championship so far. In the event that we do get promoted (no foregone conclusion) I hope we'd enjoy that too. Ps The Prem is no stranger to Saints. Founder members and in it for 13 of the 20 years since inception.
i d suggest that the premiership is a totally different place to what it was even 5 years ago. you will be promoted and i d suggest enjoy the 20 or so realistic competitive games you will have there
I'd agree with this. The thing is this 4-2-3-1 formation was used heavily at the 2010 WC and it was successful for some teams, notably Germany. Because of that people think the formation must always be fluid, attacking, attractive, etc. It also makes some people think that 4-4-2 is 'old-fashioned' or 'too rigid'. The fact is any formation can be made good or bad by the players playing in it and the way in which that team uses it. I think we do have the players for this system but the way we use it is way too negative. We hardly get anyone forward to support the striker and too many players in the team are told to stay back at all times (particularly Evans and McKenna; I'm fine with one staying back, but both? No thanks). When you watch teams like Southampton it's clear to see there is nothing outdated about 4-4-2 and nothing particularly rigid about it either. When you have two out-and-out wingers and two proper strikers, with one of the CMs supporting it can be very effective. That's how we got promoted in 2008. Also every time Burnley give us our usual beating they always play a proper attacking 4-4-2 with proper strikers and proper wingers and every time I leave the game thinking I wish we played like that. They will spend what they need to and with the money they have they certainly won't end up like we nearly did. They'll have as good a chance as anyone to stay up, I can't see why anyone would want to dispute that at this stage. Also your whole thing against the PL is very depressing and doesn't hold much weight. It seems like an opinion you want to have rather than having it for any real reason. We obviously aren't a better team. I think the point being made is that we aren't very far behind at all in terms of football, we just lack a little bit of Lambert-like quality in front of goal. Thing is we've been saying that for months now.
