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Saints V Oldham The Preview
Saints V Oldham The Preview
Friday, 22nd Oct 2010 10:36

Various Saints players have said some fine words this week, now is the time to let the football start talking on the pitch where it matters.

Its great to see fine words on the pitch, but the problem is that certain players are not performing on it and there lies the problem, in essence though the issues since Nigel Adkins has taken charge are not when playing at home, but performances away from home, I have no doubt that whatever side is put out on Saturday to play Oldham will put up a good display, but promotion will not be won aat home but on the road, where we need to start putting sides to the sword.

At Huddersfield too many players were found wanting and sadly its the same players that have been doing that all season, draws at yeovil are not good enough and defeats anywhere certainly are not.

At times it can get monotonous when writing about Saints performances, there is a good reason for that, and that is we keep on making the same mistakes over and over again both individually and as a team, I have oft repeated this mantra "Do the same things and you get the same results"   Yes thats well and good when you are winning, but when you are not its telling you that you need to change something.

As I mentioned I have no doubt that if Saints put out the same side that lost to Huddersfield then they will have a good chance of beating Oldham,however all that will do is create another false dawn and the possibility of a poor showing at Notts County.

Take our midfield this season Hammond & Puncheon have played every league game this season (12) Scheneiderlin has played in 10 and a sub appearance in another, thats 34 (1) games between them and not one goal from any of them, there is something drastically wrong there, what is should be telling the manager is that if you play all three of them you are reducing your scoring options drastically, so why would you want to do such a thing when you look at their stats.

Some would laugh at stats and although I would agree that stats dont tell the full story, over a period of time they dont lie, to put it into perspective if you have a midfielder who doesnt score in 34 games there has to be a good reason, you would expect een a defensive midfielder whose job is to sit and hold to score maybe 3-4 a season.

So as I have been saying Nigel Adkins has to do something different and freshen up a midfield that has been propped up only by Adam Lallana's performances, his 5 starts plus 3 as sub have produced 3 league goals and that is much more like the total a midfielder should be aiming for.

The balance of the side still isnt right, Adkins needs to start to ring the changes and get that balance right, he can do that wholesale or bit by bit, I would suggest he needs to make that start now.   

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Kiwifiedpom added 22:51 - Oct 22
Nick, I entirely agree with you, the comment that if you play the same players you get the same results and that changes have to be made. Again I agree with your criticisms of KD and I think that Bart provides the better all round package.
The Back line has the depth to provide a number of combinations of which I think Martin is knocking harder on the door, he is better than Seaborne.
But as you say its in the Midfield we have our real problems. Puncheon has the raw talent but the coaching is not identifying and remedying his problems. In fact all round the coaching is failing the players in developing the individual talents. Puncheon's miss at Huddersfield highlighted for me that to much emphasis is being placed on side footing the ball. Sure it is the most controlable and accurate means of kicking the ball but there are a variety of basic ways of kicking the ball especially when shooting.
Guly seems to be taking to long in adapting to the English game and again thats a coaching problem.
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