verlaine1979

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).

Steven Davis is in the prime of his career and hasn't scored a league goal for us in 35 games & counting. Either our attacking midfielders are all awful in front of goal, in which case they deserve equal criticism, or our tactics aren't conducive to getting goals through the middle.

Davis has missed just as many sitters this season, if not more - which single out JWP? He's provided a couple of assists at least. That said, I've thought for some time that we need better than either of them in attacking midfield to give us options when setting the ball out wide isn't working.

You can see why we're apparently looking to bring in an attacking midfielder. If our crossing is off, we create very little, and if Pelle is having an off day we have no option but to stick with him, because the entire team is pretty much set up to try and put the ball on his head/chest.

Clyne brilliant first half, woeful so far this half.

Since 2010/2011 only Tevez, Berbatov, Van Persie, Rooney, Aguero, Suarez, Bale, Toure & Sturridge have finished the season with 20 or more league goals. Obviously there are going to be occasional flukes (Austin might manage it this season), but 20 goal-a-season strikers these days start at about £30m (yes, I know neither Bale or Sturridge cost quite that much, but their value in the season when they did score 20+ was already significantly higher than their original purchase price).

Don't really understand the skepticism about JWP. His scoring record is poor, but last season the entire midfield managed only five goals across the whole season, which had as much to do with Poch's tactics as it did with profligate finishing from all concerned. This season he's only started nine games, yet managed 6 assists with a decent mix between set-pieces and open play. With technique like his the first goal will come soon enough, and when it does, I suspect he'll gain the confidence to strike a moving ball with the same conviction he takes corners and free-kicks. Huge potential, a lot of it already on display, and lots more to come.

...we'd have to figure out how to play without a big CF to hold it up. Elia/Mane/Tadic have loads of pace and movement as a front three, but we'd need whoever was at AM to play much further forward in support than Davis or JWP have done this season. There'd also be less point in constantly looking wide to the fullbacks, so we'd have to play more centrally than we do at present. It can work though - Liverpool's front three last season of Sturridge/Suarez/Coutinho did okay without a great deal of physical presence.

I'm only really talking about enabling a change in tactics if/when Pelle isn't available. When we do have him in the side, his hold up play allows our fullbacks and our conservative MF three to push up in support. Where we've looked toothless has been in cup games when Pelle has been rested. In those games the gap between MF and attack is too wide, meaning we still end up trying to hit Mane/Long/Tadic early, which isn't the best way to use forwards heavy on pace and movement, but relatively low on strength.