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Reply | Saints Announce New Season Ticket Details- Good For Some A Kick In The Teeth For
at 13:11 18 Apr 2024
Seems I need to make the most of my tickets for the Stoke game at home because I won't be going next season.
I'm a Kingsland boy usually - Block29/30 partly because I like the view from there; partly because at my age mixing it with aggy away fans is not something I welcome; partly because I arrive at the Central station and walk in thru the industrial estate. Seems that two out of those three will not be available next season.
The view will be the same but I'll be near the away fans. My experiences with them has never been good and I don't wish to repeat it. It also seems I'd have to come in over the bridge and then navigate the space between the stand and the bike racks with a lot of away fans giving it large around turnstile F?
No thanks.
Time to buy that TV subscription for me. |
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Reply | 3 home games in next 8 days
at 09:15 18 Apr 2024
Well, shows how much I know about football!
Humble pie at Chez 901.
I've said elsewhere that the team (certainly v PNE) was forced upon RM but nonetheless a few wins and a stumble elsewhere and we're a lot closer to the top two than I expected. |
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Reply | What Brought About Russell Martin U Turns Against Preston
at 09:11 18 Apr 2024
The team v PNE (and the result) has got us RM doubters in a quandary.
My view of RM is that he has stubbornly kept to a plan that sees a team going out to play that includes players in the wrong positions, a system that requires players to be better than they actually are (some defenders don't want to pass a ball between two opposition players 20 yards from goal) and stutters where we need to put on foot on the gas or chase a goal.
And why? Because it's "his way".
Perhaps beyond "his way" is the fact that many PL play the possession game and and RM's got ahead of himself a bit. We've seen Leicester play this way and aside from their recent stumbles, they've made it work, arguably with a better defence.
Against PNE however he was forced to remove the GK who many of us think is the weakest link in the team, kept JS on the bench and restored some players who played well a few months back and then seemed to fall out of favour.
Now either he has read all the threads here, decided we were right and changed his team or he was forced into the moves by injuries or he is a tactical genius (no evidence of that) or he got lucky and the players coming in had something to prove and went for it.
Personally I think RM has a little too much of the necessary managerial quality of always being right and sometimes if a player is questioning his way, he reacts like a sulky kid and drops them from team and bench. When he thinks they've learned their lesson (or when his other options are unavailable) he has to bring them back. It's certainly a way to manage high performing players, but not the only way and perhaps not the best way.
I'll wait and see the team for the weekend. I hope he plays the same team in the same formation but actually playing back to back games with the same team probably has not happened this season? |
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Reply | Stadium Update Meeting
at 17:03 16 Apr 2024
I'm guessing that a third of home fans arrive via the industrial estate and if that is going to be away fans, its means a long detour?
WHy is the club making life difficult for its own fans? |
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Reply | Four things from watching the highlights on sky
at 09:57 15 Apr 2024
Without VAR it was never going to be handball.
Stephens did NOT "win" a free kick. The defender committed a foul and JS went down very easily.
Overall, I agree with those here that JS should NOT be appearing in midfield. He adds nothing and arguably takes away by failing to track players, failing to pass the ball quickly, failing to be creative.
He is however the golden son of RM at the moment and I'm sure is int he team just so RM can bait us. |
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Reply | Nothing Says More That Youre A C**t
at 08:23 12 Apr 2024
There is no hope.
Mr Jelly, I wish you well in your rabbit hole and hope that the weather is good and the "elite" missing.
I remain surprised at how an articulate and thinking person able to apply critical analysis to situations, continues to apparently think as you do.
Or perhaps you are a creation of the conspiracy designed to keep people like me guessing? |
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Reply | Mike Channon
at 13:00 11 Apr 2024
I was introduced to the Dell as a 14 year old in 1971 and told that if I worked hard and progressed, one day I could play on that turf. In the meantime, here's the players boot room and a pile of boots to clean - see you later.
I can tell you that Channon had big feet.
I did eventually play at the Dell (but not for Saints - for Hampshire) and I did play against at least one of Channon's brothers in a Sunday League game.
He was a great player and probably deserved better treatment than we gave him.
Best Saints striker I've seen? Perhaps Ron Davies or Martin Chivers?
Best opposition striker I've seen against us? Perhaps Aguero (but I think Foden may soon eclipse him). |
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Reply | Consistently inconsistent - the RM effect?
at 12:54 11 Apr 2024
I would suggest that this season we have scored a number of goals that owe as much to luck as tactics and individual players.
Adams - for whatever reason - has missed a number of sitters this season. He knows, we know it, RM knows it. I get why RM keeps him in - because he is perhaps the best fit striker we have and give him enough chances and he will score - but it's been the same all season. Picking out the Boro game is like saying we beat Leeds and therefore should beat everybody else.
The Ipswich late goal was entirely avoidable. Yes the red card was debatable but at 2-2 away from home to the top of the league, 10 men, what you do is play nine at the back and leave one up. You don't carry in playing as though we want the 65% possession to continue. LAck of a plan B cost us, not a scuffed shot.
The point I'm making is that our players do seem able to have a series of good games. Rather they play well for 1 or 2 games and then fall away again to mediocrity. Why is that?
I suggest that it may be because of constant changes to the first 11, to tactics being compromised to incorporate favourites, to wildly differing tactical instructions from RM (see the Blackburn game where hardly got half the team over the half way line - against a team who got thumped 5-0 this week).
If a player starts to play well in a position then surely pro manager 101 is to keep him there and keep the system that gives him the ball/space. It's not to move him around (how many positions has AA played this year?) or to put him in places he cannot cope with (JS) or to go from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 on alternate weeks.
For me, this is a sign of lack of experience from RM who has the best squad he's probably ever had but is learning in the job and is seemingly hampered by his ego. |
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Reply | Nothing Says More That Youre A C**t
at 10:50 11 Apr 2024
Cloud seeding etc has been tried many times in many places and so far as I can see from the admittedly limited reading I've done, the results are inconsistent and never guaranteed.
To link what is a scientific exercise in meteorology with Covid, is where credibility starts to get strained.
If we were for a moment to believe that Covid was an invention that all the world's Gov'ts - regardless of political stripe - agreed upon in 2019 and 2020 (no evidence of that) and that their intention was to keep us all at home, which arrived with wrecking the economy of the UK and many others, (plenty of evidence for that), who benefitted?
If you're about to tell me the "elite" were the beneficiaries, please tell me who they are and what they stood to gain?
And no, I do not believe that Covid was an invention nor that it was an attempt at population control. |
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Reply | Top 3 dropped points ...
at 09:23 11 Apr 2024
The maths is easy - we could get an automatic place if other mess up.
The realistic facts are that the team above really only need a couple of wins to get us in the playoff places.
If I were manager right now, I'd have people watching the other play off teams and be planning how to play against them. I'd also decide on a first 11 and play them together (barring injuries) over the next 6 games. No more meddling! |
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Thread | Consistently inconsistent - the RM effect?
at 11:48 10 Apr 2024
I could not make the Coventry game, but threads here and watching highlights suggest that Aribo had a good game. The Boro match I did watch and I thought KWP had a good game. Scrolling back through these threads other players have been picked out for playing well in individual matches.
Is it the case that players have one/two good matches and then relative ordinary games.
Or is it that they have a good game and then get dropped?
Or they have a good game and the following week half their team mates change along with the system? |
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Reply | Press conference today
at 10:40 9 Apr 2024
So why say this?
We need to show real desire. We ran hard on Saturday, we fought hard
I agree that KWP et al were doing as they were told, but if the defensive masterplan to keep a clean sheet is not to allow the defence of half the midfield to go over the half way line, the style we've been playing all season, becomes unworkable.
If that was indeed his instruction, he has gone from one extreme to another and that is not how to do tit. |
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Reply | Brighton Alleged To Be Talking To Russell Martin To Replace Roberto De Zerbi
at 10:36 9 Apr 2024
I think that's a little unfair Mr Nick.
We want a manager to whom the club means something outside of a professional relationship.
We want a manager who recognises what the players can do and finds a system to bring out the best in them.
We want a manager who can see when Plan A has run its course and can make changes - long or short term - to develop Plan B.
I think the club has shown that they do not want "big names" as managers but rather somebody who can make the best of us.
We, the fans, recognise that we are not ever going to have the spending power of perhaps thirty clubs above us and given that money buys success in football, most of us have more modest ambitions. I
n order to deliver even those objectives, we want a manager who does not stubbornly stick to a way of playing that is demonstrably unsuited to the players, easy for the opposition, creates a lack of confidence in individual players, perhaps spoils the career of some players being forced into roles for which tey are unsuited and untrained.
In other words a pragmatic manager with some self awareness. |
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Reply | Press conference today
at 16:13 8 Apr 2024
Some of that is typical managerial BS and contradiction.
He claims the players stopped running early in the piece and said the opposite later.
He also seems to be very defensive about his style and criticism of it but at the same time claims he doesn't care what people say.
HIs arithmetic is also off. If we win all our games from now, we get 96 points. The teams above us (assuming they lose to us), if they win all their games have Leicester 103, Ipswich 102, Leeds 98. Only if they lose to teams other than us and we win, can we go top two and it would require the present top two to lose two out of 5/6 games. Can't see it.
Like we've been saying, when the pressure comes on he's a little short of where we need him. |
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Reply | Russell Martin Admits He Won't Change Tactics Or Drop Jack Stephens
at 16:02 8 Apr 2024
At the end of the day, we need to know what the owners want before we consider the rest of the equation.
Do they want promotion?
That would mean a few tens of millions on new players in the hope of staying in the league and collecting on that investment when they come to sell in 5 years, 10 years?
Or do they want to be a Champ team developing players for PL clubs. That requires less investment and lower but more certain returns.
(In football terms, staying a Champ team will see a decline in quality of team and players).
To me, RM seems like an appointment you make for option 2, staying in the Champ.
If we are still there next season, opposition managers will be looking at us thinking that they can probably beat us at their place and probably get a draw at ours because the style we play is easy to disrupt and play against. |
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Reply | 3 home games in next 8 days
at 11:52 8 Apr 2024
Given the present form of the teams in the Champ, RM's delusional tactical set ups, the sudden (but entirely expected) shortage of players willing to make an attempt on goal is SA is not in the side, are we really expecting three wins - and will it make any difference if we get them?
Playing teams with something to play for at this time of the season is always bad news. If our players accept that playoffs are inevitable, does that reduce their effort by a small amount?
Two of the three teams probably still think they can make the playoffs. Coventry in particular seem to be playing well. If we come out of this with 6 points, I'd be happy because then we are pretty much guaranteed a play off place.
I'm done with feeling "cheerier".
The team is not good enough to play as RM thinks they should but he's too stubborn to make alterations to allow for that.
Now that we are pretty much play off bound regardless how about we use these three games to convert possession into shots and see what happens? |
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Reply | Russell Martin Admits He Won't Change Tactics Or Drop Jack Stephens
at 11:32 8 Apr 2024
There is more than an element of truth in this article.
RM knows one way to play and his continuous experiments with formations and personnel make for a very unsettled team. It's ridiculous that 6 or so games from the end of the season and he still does not have a settled first 11.
He is also worrying wrong about Jack Stephens. Yes, I accept that we've seen centre backs played in midfield or at least in advance of the back line. Those players however are arguably better than Jack (John Stones, Vincent Kompany, any one of several Liverpool players) and it took them a couple of seasons to understand that role and get used to it. Stephens has been shoved into the position after probably 15 years of being coached as a CB. No wonder he's like a fish out of water at times.
If that is a system RM wants, then he should practice on the training ground and revert to in the last 20 minutes of a match we're winning easily in order to give the players a chance to understand it. Not from minute 1 of a game we have to win.
It's clear that the criticism of his team and tactics is something he is aware of. Whilst 30,000 fans may not know as much as him about tactics, nor work with the players every day, nor have people watching how the opposition set up, we do recognise a team low on confidence when we see one.
Against Blackburn, RM's post match comments were all about keeping a clean sheet. We need to do that of course, but not at the expense of stifling any attacking intent. Three shots, one on target and not until the 80th minutes is a demonstration why we are 4th and not 1st or 2nd.
If he's so arrogant that he cannot see the obvious, then he need to pick a team which puts Stephens at the tip of triangle in which Bednarek and THB are the base.
That means moving a more creative player to the bench but is the price to be paid. |
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