The9

If I'm Adkins I'm sat at home counting my money waiting for the next bottom half Premier League casualty, rather than risking my hard-earned reputation on trying to hoik one of the endless sleeping giant championship sides out of one of the toughest leagues, without the assistance of wealthy backers.

I was always under the impression they had no problem with winning a load of stuff and being massive, just that the Glazers siphoned off United's profitability to help pay off their other business debts at the expense of the club's success.

The thing with attacking wing based football is that completion percentages are not that high for crosses. It doesn't mean they're not good to watch a lot of the time, you can't beat a nippy dribbler beating his man, and I'd rather see it than Saints parked ten yards into the opposition half mostly standing still playing 10 yard passes sideways for a couple of minutes as no-one attempts to create space or get in behind...

Having said all that, that is an EXCELLENT tactical blog illustrating the nuances of their roles (very reminiscent of Zonal Marking in formatting too), and I'm more than happy to link it again here for the terminally lazy : http://wp.me/p2RtpI-33

I don't think anything much is different at the moment, we've always had some spells of pressing high up the pitch, and the MotD thing the other day about how we were "suddenly" getting players forward in numbers is utterly laughable as a "new development" when the same thing was raised following the Man City away match in the first game of the season. If anything's different under Pochettino it's the use of Davis instead of Ramirez to support pressing - which was arguably due to injury on Saturday, plus Adkins did that second half at QPR as well. So far we're seeing a very gradual shift, and it's gradual because one of the reasons Cortese put Pochettino in to begin with was his adherence to the system we already used.

Given the outright unlikelihood of winning a World Cup held in Brazil, stupider things have happened than using a World Cup to prepare for the Euros.

Probably worth noting that aside from their effectiveness from set pieces, Stoke play a lot of exciting attacking wing-based football, West Ham still hoof a bit and are all about second ball percentages but can play it when needed, and Newcastle had the highest percentage of long balls to short passes in the Prem this season last time I checked around Xmas.

That "great French side" of 1988-1992, when they won nothing, failed to qualify for a World Cup and got knocked out in the group stage of Euro '92 ? It's not really a selling point is it ? As far as Lambert goes, he's too old, too slow and too unfashionable to play for England. Carroll is a donkey on the ball but comparable in the air and with much more pace and agility, plus he's got 10 years over Rickie to improve. Michael Owen scored a header the other week, is he an option ? Lambert's biggest problem is he's not a great lone striker in an era when no-one plays 2 up top, Saints have built their whole attack plan around him which England couldn't, and he is probably better in the hole with someone else doing his running, which would be Rooney's job for England.

Antonio did it more.

Bit harsh, he might have been playing Maloney onside, but Rodriguez was marking him at the set piece and just left him. Oh, and according to the OS, Forren is playing for Norway this week, so you'd have to think that would make him at least as match fit as all the other post-season Norway-based players.

Oh I don't know, that Kevin Davies / Beattie / Ostenstad deal was fairly successful over its two phases.

Match of the Day certainly had some footage of the away fans after Morgan's goal, cos *I* was on MotD on Saturday "shalalalalalalalala"ing.

McGoldrick didn't leave because he was gash, he left because some silly sods wanted to pay money for him and we were skint.

Lallana was at Bournemouth, didn't seem to do him any harm. I think it's generally ok for U-21s but once you get beyond that point, if you're out on loan you're not getting a new contract. The rare exceptions are injured senior players rehabbing away from the heat of the first team.

We didn't have much in the way of traffic problems when we had free bus tickets and the council insisting on the park and rides being provided, they were only removed when the club was in trouble under the understanding that crowds wouldn't go over 25k and that's been quietly forgotten since - hopefully the Council would insist on similar measures being reintroduced for any expansion. Then again, I'd be more than happy for the Liebherrs to sponsor a city-wide tramlink like Manchester's...

Scared about getting left behind with crowds under half the size of their direct rivals Man U, and with the limited availability of land they had to move when they did or they'd probably have had no opportunity to move later. It was well worth mortgaging a few years of success for a long term base which they can use to drive up merchandise sales and not have to turn football tourists away - they also have a captive audience with the population of London on their doorstep. The key to supporting a stadium expansion is exploiting new markets and building loyalty amongst people who previously weren't interested. I don't think you'll get much in the way of figures though.

They'd have to get rid of the car park charge to enable us to sell another 30k best-ever selling pink and yellow spotted home shirts to the Japanese, or something. I forget. I can see that getting people in cheap would shift shedloads more merchandise, but it would have to be supported by a more accessible model of flogging Saints junk than "OS and 3 shops". PS to the bloke above who said Darlington have a bigger ground than when he first started watching Saints, Darlington (now officially called Darlington 1883 FC and playing in the Northern League) are currently ground sharing with Bishop Auckland, capacity 2,500. A cautionary tale about overexpanding to a too-big stadium with the Darlington Arena now owned by Darlington Mowden Park Rugby League club.

That also amused me. Go back and check if you put QPR and Reading down for 13 successive defeats or something. Villa are the only ones looking like they'll go under 30 points to me and even they perform about once every 2 months.

Point of order regarding the opposition not scoring when we have the ball - are we still leading the division in own goals?

We're decent at keeping the ball but lack penetration due to the lack of pace and movement up front. When we get a better striker in we will have twice as many options and should become much less easy to defend against. At the moment we go through massive spells of playing pointless one-twos in front of banks of 8 defenders who are constantly able to adjust because we rarely play balls through them or shoot, so they never have to break ranks. We need to move the ball more quickly and run at defences more to mix things up. When Shaw and Rodriguez started to do it Wigan couldn't cope. The rest of the time they let us faff and defended well enough. Early on a bit of hoofball was surprisingly successful for us, probably as Wigan didn't expect it and that's one of Lambert's strengths.

Vaguely seem to recall seeing some table where (I think) Wigan still had to play everyone around them at home (obviously they've just played us), can anyone confirm this? Fwiw I can't see Newcastle being remotely involved, they lost a pile of players for months earlier and have now signed 6 more to reduce their worries if the top 6 starters from last season (minus Ba) can't get on the pitch often enough.

Also, as far as post marking goes, teams who do zonal tend to only mark the far post with the near post clear anyway, as the need to move towards the side the ball is coming from means the nearside flick on zone of the 6 yard box and near post are covered by the same player, who doesn't step onto the line unless they have to.

We definitely man marked for the corner after conceding the goal as I made of point of checking who was meant to be picking up Caldwell. It was Yoshida alright, and we haven't zone marked since Pochettino took over as far as I'm aware. Adkins was doing it at the start of the season because our game of statues at the end of the Man U game at home for van Persie's equaliser showed what happens to systems when the players are fatigued.

Under the ball? He let his man run 5 yards away felm him into space and didn't challenge the header. It had eff all to do with people on posts and everything to do with not marking.

Easy answer to this question. When we sign a proven striker with pace so he's actually got someone who can get on the end of his through balls. Not sure how anyone's meant to stand out in a creative midfield role when the only option other than giving it away is passing it safe to a wide man. Missed a difficult chance today but still working hard and obviously being used to try and get us early goals, with Davis the back up for if the game instead turns into a war of attrition in midfield. The last two matches have needed a more defensive minded centre mid in the hole to regain possession high up the pitch as opposed to a more creative player with no outlet for his accuracy.