Saint Albert

Is this the same level of fact as Obafemi starting against Watford last weekend?

Wenger was their preferred choice, but according to the Telegraph he declined... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/11/14/arsene-wenger-turned-fulham-club-turned-claudio-ranieri/

Mourinho’s offered up Southampton’s ****ty performance last weekend against City as an excuse for yesterday’s Man U loss in the Manchester derby... “It's a heavy result for the effort of a team that had three away matches in the same week, with a super difficult match of a high, demanding level in Juventus against a team that had two friendly matches at home against Southampton and Shakhtar," Mourinho told BBC Radio 5 live.”

“...the club intend to support him by looking for potential new additions in the January transfer market. There is a consensus that they still lack the defensive leadership of Virgil van Dijk and the direct attacking pace they had in Sadio Mane - and they will look to address these areas.” I’m not sure if this is consistent with Ralph Krueger’s comments about the January transfer window in his Echo interview last week.

“Although there is an agreement within the club that they should have picked up at least one more win based on their performances, there is no crisis state yet at Staplewood.” Crisis? What crisis?

On the positive side, Hughes might have finally come to an understanding about the best way to play Gabbiadini, and that Gabbiadini is a far better option than Long or Austin.

Doing it in November doesn’t seem like the best timing to me, as well. Getting rid at the end of the dumpster fire that was last season would have been better and fully understandable given the long list of screw-ups attributable to Les Reed since the Koeman debacle. At least he’s gone now, and won’t be picking Hughes’ successor in the event the club let Hughes go.

From the replays the ball deflected off the diving defender, causing the flight of the ball to change. This is probably what confused Foster. The linesman potentially saw the change in the flight of the ball, and assumed it came off Yoshi.

If Saints do end up sacking Hughes (a big if) and this is true perhaps he’ll use his contacts in the Chinese league? There’s a few decent managers out there like Roger Schmidt. Villas-Boas is still unemployed as well after declining to extend his contract in China and trying his hand at the Dakar Rally instead.

Blimey Palace just spurned an excellent chance to equalize in injury time.

Players who I thought performed well... McCarthy - Blameless except for that one moment with Hoedt in the second half when he should have come out. Made some good stops. Stood no chance on the deflected goal. Lemina - Tenacious and skilled in midfield. Let down badly by his midfield partner today. Ings - Linked up well, good tackling in the box set up Gabbiadini’s goal. It was a blow when he had to come off, Gabbiadini- If Hughes drops him again I will post “is he gone yet” in the Hughes Out thread every day until he’s gone. Gabbiadini has the skills and positional awareness to link up with the other players, and he can score goals. Might be about to start a goal scoring streak. Stranger things have happened. Easily better than Long and Austin. Redmond - had good moments, robbed of an excellent assist for the Austin “goal” Hoedt and Yoshi - both had decent games. Hoedt looked assured and even skillful with the ball at his feet. Players who I thought performed poorly... Cedric and Bertrand...Bertrand looks out of sorts. Lucky not to concede a penalty and second yellow for that tackle on Chalaboa. Cedric was poor defensively, and turned his back on the Palace goal that he deflected past McCarthy. Hoj - Sometimes he’s played well this season. Sometimes he’s played poorly. He was awful in the middle of the park today and was responsible for a number of giveaways. We look light enough in midfield as it is without Hoj spending much of the game laying the proverbial egg. Austin - robbed for the goal but he’s slow and out of position far too often. Of the others, Armstrong was alright, I suppose. JWP was culpable for not clearing before the Palace goal. Obafemi wasn’t on for long but I’d rather see him start ahead of Austin or Long.

After having a nightmare last weekend, Foyth has just made it 0-1 for Spurs at Palace.

I’m in two minds about it because he set up Gabbiadini for the goal. Still, seems a little reckless. Hopefully it’s just a tweak and nothing more serious.

Do we know if Romeu was injured? I didn’t see any mention of it. We needed him to shore up the midfield in the second half.

I’m no Hughes fan, but I think he’ll be staying in the short term. Nothing in Krueger’s comments this week or in Wilson’s Telegraph piece make me think he’s in danger of getting sacked anytime soon.

Anyway you slice it, the referee and his assistants had a nightmare game today.

FT: 1-1. Sigh.

That looked dangerous from Success. Deeney blocked his shot for us. Watford corner.

Me too. May have awakened my children when Austin scored. 4 minutes injury time.

Obafemi on for Redmond.

I like Lemina’s defending on Delofeu there.

“Defending of the lowest quality” commentator on Cedric’s defending for the Watford goal.

Watford piling on the pressure.

****. Watford score with a deflected shot.

Gabbiadini fell as if shot there.