qwertyell

Romeu has been off colour all season - looking more like he's reverted to Wanyama's cheap and cheerful back up from two years ago than the surprisingly decent, consistent performer of most of last term. Maybe it's just that Lemina's dynamism and all round game is showing up how limited our other midfielders are in contrast.

That was f-ing clueless. Hanging on at home for a lucky draw against Newcastle, for goodness sake. At no point did we play like a side chasing the game. It was the same turgid pace throughout, only the structure fell apart with all the substitutions. Sorry, but this manager inspires no confidence at all. There's just nothing there to take comfort in. If we were playing well but not getting the results you could at least see light at the end of the tunnel, but we're appalling all over the park. If there we signs of a new system or style "bedding in", maybe you could cling to the hope that it'll click in time. But there aren't. Whatever the Pellegrino stamp supposedly is isn't evident thus far, having had several months and a raft of very winnable fixtures to show what he's about. We're in trouble, chaps. These are the easy games we're struggling horribly in. If we can't change course, with the ugly run of fixtures coming in November and December, we could be sitting on about 15 points at Christmas. Van Dijk, playing half-assed, can fudge right off to wherever too. We're no more secure at the back with him doing the bare minimum than we were with Stephens playing.

Have we tried lethargically passing the ball sideways and backwards yet? I feel like that's the key to winning any football match.

United have been following Andrija Zivkovic of Benfica for some time. 21 year old winger. Don't know if he's playing or on the bench.

I think the deeper role is where he'll end up eventually. At what level he'll be playing then, I'm not so sure. Neat and tidy on the ball, with the ability to switch play with decent mid-range passing and an eye for long through balls - that all worked great for him for the England u21s. But it was against kids, mostly as physically underdeveloped as him. Unless he can match up to the adults in your average Premier League midfield, he's got no chance. He doesn't have to be quick - Michael Carrick and Gareth Barry are proof of that. He doesn't have to be built like the Hulk - Ngolo Kante, Scott Parker, Dennis Wise, among others, have been more than able to hold their own. But he does need to be able to tackle, to relish the battle for possession, to stop being so accommodatingly passive. He's never going to be bruiser, so his defensive work will have to be built around positional discipline, reading the play and being a step ahead, interceptions, and general enthusiastic harassment. I'm not sure his development has been helped by not having a clearly defined role at Saints and playing a game here and there in this position and that. But that's his challenge to overcome. I don't think he's a write-off as a footballer, but he's a player looking for an identity at present, and seems a bit lost, unfortunately.

Isn't the point of experiments to find out answers that aren't already known? The results have been in on Long for many a year: he averages less than 6 goals per season in the Premier League. That's not very good. No-one can be remotely surprised that he's doing a woefully inadequate job of leading the line. And yet, here we are: playing one up top, who doesn't score, during a horrible period in which we're desperate for goals. Funny old game, Saints.

He hasn't. Did his knee in preseason. Not expected back in 2017.

Didn't Schneiderlin used to be quite good two or three years ago? Sad.

Not sure what else there is to say that hasn't been repeated ad nauseum for months - we are absolutely shocking going forward. In the early days of Puel, even if it didn't come off, we could at least see what he was TRYING to do, how he wanted us to attack and in what shape. The biggest concern I have with Pellegrino is I don't see what the plan is. We're somehow both rigid and shapeless. We don't attack the goal, we just pass nicely and occasionally make half a yard of space on the wings for a cross to one man in the box marked by three. And that's about it for our attacking ideas. The manager doesn't look as if he's got any particular idea how to resolve our goalscoring epidemic. Three games of Shane Long leading the line alone has been as fruitful as everyone would've predicted. Pellegrino has had as soft an opening set of fixtures as he could've hoped for, and he's overseen a desperately poor start to the season - we needed these early points in the bag because Nov/Dec are going to yield very little. At this rate we're going to struggle to the halfway point of the season with less than 20 points - and less than 15 goals. If you don't think we're in for a relegation fight, you haven't been paying attention.

Hyperbole, probably - he has made a couple of decent last ditch challenges. But I would argue his demeanor and general strolling-about-ness is in marked contrast to last season's Van Dijk, and those last ditch challenges have been required as a result of him being caught out of position first, or just playing too casually. Anyway, second half is up - let's turn this ship around... somehow. Sent from my F3311 using Tapatalk

H/T 0-1. We created two chances: Redmond - who has been hopeless - put through and meekly scuffing wide, and Long drawing a save from Butland close in where he should've done better. Aside from that, we've been sloppy all over the park. Van Dijk's barely interested - playing like he's doing us a favour. Romeu is still out of sorts. Cedric's been poor going both ways. The only reason we're even still in the game is Forster, who is having an excellent game. It's going to need another stark second half transformation like last week if we've got any chance of getting something here. As things stand, I can't see us a) breaking them down or b) not conceding again. Troubling times.

How many defenders you really need to repel the mighty Shane Long and his merry band of impotent attackers?

It's not as if that's the most important element or anything; the aim of the game... "We're only money away from being millionaires!"

Fantastic is pushing it, but Redmond definitely upped his game in the second half, along with the rest of the team. Will he be as proactive and direct at Stoke, or revert back to his usual safety-first, responsibility-shifting self?

Cedric allowing Young to do what he always does and cut into his right foot and cross. Lukaku bullies Hoedt and scores on the rebound. Poor goal all round. Pretty basic. No magic required. Going to be a long afternoon, I think.

The type of man that doesn't voluntarily send himself off when the referee sanctions him with only a booking for a professional foul? What a monster. Surprised he wasn't charged with a war crime.

I think that's a fair summary - we were much better than against Watford, but there was little about the performance to reassure that we're turning things around. We were playing the worst team in the league, who haven't scored a single goal, dominated possession, and STILL looked less threatening than them. The fact is, on clear chances created, Palace should've won 2-1. Forster pulled out two excellent stops to earn us a much needed result. The defence was solid, well shielded by Lemina, who had a great game, and Romeu, who still isn't playing anything like as well as he did last season. Davis did his thing, and generally we were comfortable in the middle of the park, save for about 10 minutes at the start of the second half when Palace upped the intensity and pressed enthusiastically and we - as usual - went into a bit of a flap. But there were no encouraging signs of progress in attack. Long buzzed around - although I didn't feel like he pressed anywhere near as much as usual - and provided zero goal threat. Tadic did well in the build up to Davis' goal, but that was his one positive contribution all afternoon. And Redmond was absolutely dreadful. We had so many chances to counter attack - particularly in the second half as Palace pushed for an equaliser - but were consistently scuppered by Redmond's cowardice, his refusal to take responsibility and attack the wide open spaces in front of him when he could slow down, stop, turn back and pass the ball safely to someone else while he slunk off to hide again like the useless chicken crap he is. I mean, what is the point in him if he's not prepared to run with the ball? He wasn't up against Paulo Maldini - Joel Ward is about as limited a full back as he'll face in the Premier League. Yet he didn't test him once. He didn't do anything aside from ineptly fall over whilst trying to pass backwards instead of driving forwards, yielding the possession that led to Benteke's great chance. We picked Long, presumably for his pace on the counter attack, yet failed to have any counter attacks of note. It was as if everyone immediately lost confidence the second they crossed the halfway line and instead settled for ball retention over trying to score. Perhaps that came from the manager's tactical instructions, in which case we might as well have kept Puel. Anyhow, a win's a win, and beating a team who might turn out to be rival over the course of the season if we don't get our act together is no bad thing. Lemina, Hoedt and Forster did really well. I just don't see how we're going to start scoring again. There's nothing there, no hints of improvement to feel optimistic about, no impression that the manager has a cunning plan up his sleeve that just needs fine tuning - the poor St Mary's punters aren't going to get a whole lot to cheer about anytime soon, in my opinion.

It's coming... We haven't turned up in the second half.

Dominated without looking overly threatening - haven't used Long's pace enough; frankly our counter attacking has been nonexistent. Too many times the likes of Redmond slow the play, turn back on themselves and then pass backwards. We need to turn our possession into another goal - we've got a defensive wobble in us that'll give Palace a chance. Still, we're winning a game of football having scored an actual goal, so be grateful for small mercies. Hoedt's distribution has been superb.

On the bench for a crap Championship club.

Our players literally had to be shown the way to goal. Like, with a map and pointing. I imagine it was some vain attempt at overcoming the psychological hurdle of 9 blanks in 10 home matches (or whatever it is) by scoring for fun at St Mary's against our hopeless keepers. Or maybe Staplewood was being renovated with diamonds and gold and booster seats in preparation for the triumphant return of Glorious Leader Cortese...

Aside from no pace, no strength, an inability to tackle or head or defend in any demonstrable way, he's pretty much the definition of the perfect right back.

I don't think Sakho is expected to be fit for a while yet after his bad knee injury last season. Could be wrong. The rest of your post sounds plausible.

I notice Harrison Reed and Ryan Seager have already been dropped to the bench for their respective lower league loan clubs. Only one academy player called up to the England age groups for the last international period. It seems like decline has set in right through the club on the football side. I'm sure it's not as melodramatic as that, but the sign aren't encouraging.

Did we? The fact our comprehensive, black box-driven manager search seemingly came down to a choice between two managers whose teams have so far failed to score in a combined seven out of eight matches, suggests we've hardly played a blinder. Might've dodged a bullet but slipped off the cliff in the process...