verlaine1979

As others have said, since we started the season with a playing staff that was notionally worth about £30m less than the previous season, I doubt the board were expecting anything much this year beyond consolidation.

I'm surprised that JWP doesn't yet seem able to apply what is clearly very good technique with a dead ball into striking it in open play, but it's probably just a question of composure, which should improve with time. However, to criticise his lack of goals when the player most of his critics would replace him with hasn't scored in 38 league appearances and counting, seems a tad unfair, especially when JWP's assist record is vastly superior this season. That said, I'd rather see Djuricic at #10 than either SD or JWP right now.

[quote=adriansfc;2147681 As for midfield, I'd rather it was Davis or JWP in front of Wanyama and Morgan, not Djuricic. I don't see how he's earned the place and these signings maybe disrupted things a bit. At the moment, none of the options for #10 have 'earned it'. Davis now has 3 assists and no goals in his last 38 league appearances (that's a whole season for those who are counting). JWP has more assists, but also hasn't scored any goals. Last night Djuricic looked capable of beating his opponent with both pace and skill, which the other two seem largely incapable of, and he played a good number of attacking passes (not all of which came off of course, but for those who'd prefer attacking players not take risks with possession, I refer you back to Paul Scholes' recent comments, and our scoring record since January).

On current form (Djury still being out on Djuricic) we probably don't have a better balanced attacking line-up than that.

Absolutely this. We are a solid possession side, but whether through lack of skill or lack of confidence, we don't have players capable of creating overloads by taking on and beating their marker. The only alternative to that is that your off the ball movement and passing are so quick that you're able to bypass the opposition, but despite being better earlier in the season, we've never been brilliantly quick at moving the ball around (nor were we last season). With Elia, Mane, Tadic, Long & Djuricic, we have the players in our squad to attempt a more mobile front three, but despite this, the last couple of weeks seem to have proven that Koeman feels Pelle (or presumably a Pelle style target man) is absolutely essential to the way we play.

Looking like a team short on confidence and ideas. Play really slows down once we reach the edge of the box (which is quite a feat considering we're not exactly zipping it around elsewhere either), with everyone seeming to want time to assess every possible option. Bring on Djuricic for Tadic at half-time - whatever other qualities he might have, at least his attacking confidence shouldn't be shot just yet...

Hmm, a more or less fully fit midfield for the first time since December, and look who's been dropped...

I suspect the fact that he went out in January to acquire a creative #10 probably means he already knows.

Maybe it would be better if we did?

I see lots of people saying we need to shoot more, but over the past couple of games when we've struggled to score, I don't recall very many opportunities to have a strike at goal being spurned? If you don't have clean strikers of the ball (and Clyne seems to be the only one we've got) there's very little point having a go from thirty yards. Closer than that, we have plenty of shots, but the majority are blocked because we move the ball forward so slowly that most of the time we're attacking against a well set defence on the edge of their box. The problem with our attack is the speed of transition from front to back, not an unwillingness to shoot.

On today's evidence, Djuricic looks like the best option at AM with Schneiderlin & Wanyama behind, and Elia, Pelle, Mane up front.

Djuricic looked worth persisting with and Mane obviously should've started. Despite Morgan's carelessness for the second, he and VW should start in midfield now with Davis & JWP relegated to the bench.

Mane and Schneiderlin on for Davis & JWP at half time.

I was referring to this quote specifically:

In the BBC article, the reference to the 'product' is about the Premier League as a whole, rather than Saints, isn't it?

Not a terribly high standard, but Djuricic looked good on the ball in the U21 game yesterday. A couple of times he weaved around a defender in close quarters, creating overloads, which neither Davis nor JWP have the ability to do. Obviously that's a riskier manoeuvre than checking back and recycling it through the CBs, but as Scholes' said in his assessment of Man U on the BBC website today, if you don't risk the ball in attack, you don't score a lot of goals.

He was exceptional second half against Liverpool, from what I remember. He seemed to be operating much further forward during that 45 minute spell, picking the ball up around 30-35 yards from goal, coming in from slightly left of centre. Maybe with the platform of MS and VW behind him (I think Man U away is the only game where all three have started in the league since JWP came back from injury) he'll be able to worry a bit less about harrying for possession in midfield and focus a little more on staying close to Pelle and picking up the ball in the final third.

I can remember him taking maybe three or four within Lambert range all season (remember how long he was out injured?). Even the world's best can't score more than about one in twenty, surely?

He missed about ten games earlier in the season, so I suspect we'd have scored a few more from set pieces if he'd started every game. As for the overall quality of his set-piece delivery, there are only a handful of players in the entire league who are able to reliably achieve the combination of pace and trajectory he gets. You can criticise many other elements of his game (I agree, we need a more progressive attacking central midfielder to play alongside MS and VW once they are both fit), but on the dead ball, he is in a different class to anyone else in the squad.

So you didn't notice Davis twice trying to hit the left winger and booming straight to the keeper second half? Or that attempt at a shot from the edge of the box? I get it, you love his sturdy frame and his staunchly protestant work ethic, but I don't think I'm the blinkered one here. Solid squad player, nothing more.

VW immense as usual while he was on, Mane looked very sharp, Elia & Tadic both showed flashes. JWP and Davis both mediocre with some very wayward long balls and the usual woeful shooting. Defence pretty solid considering the personnel changes. As for Pelle, I suppose it's too late in the season to start thinking about breaking our reliance on playing with a target man, but I really can't remember an attack building off the back of one of his knock-downs or flicks in the last three games. For a team that prides itself on possession and passing, it's actually a little perverse to constantly look for the big man, especially when his retention must be down to about 1 in 10 at the moment. No idea whether he's good enough, but I really hope Djuricic is able to slot in at number ten, as with Mane and Elia's pace and movement, what we are crying out for is someone central who plays with his head up in the final third.

We haven't been anything like as fluid as we were first half against Swansea. I also wonder if we would'n't be better off losing the one in thirty-odd times a Pelle flick or dummy comes off magnificently, if the other 29 times we had at least a 50-50 chance of retaining possession in the final third.

Yup, watching on Youtube it looked more like our under 16s against their under 21s. We were pretty slick for the first 20 mins, but once they went behind, composure on the ball seemed to evaporate pretty rapidly and there were a lot of sloppy passes and bad first touches. Still, definite moments of quality here and there, from Slattery in particular.

Which is why, when our crossing is poor or we're up against a dominant CB, we can look utterly toothless despite Davis, and Fonte popping the ball back and forth for upwards of 60% possession.

Absolutely right. Hopefully Duricic is the #10 we need, because once Morgan and VW are fit, we need to think about playing with someone more dynamic than Davis. The two holding midfielders are more than capable of carefully shepherding possession between the goalkeeper and the advancing fullbacks, the number 10 position should go to someone carrying a bit more of a threat (JWP rightly criticised for his scoring record, but worth remembering that Davis hasn't registered a league goal in 35 games now, and in that time has had a lot more minutes on the field than JWP).