SaintlyAnd

That happens to me too!!

Looking forward to the post match comments from Eckert about how there were good things (there weren’t) and bad things that we’ll work on. But see more of the same next time out. We really need to be playing the ball into the box faster and with players making runs, but its so slow and predictable, and relying on individual moments like today.

Affengruber translates to Monkey Pit

Really need to get the tempo and speed of play up. Its not a big surprise that goals come when we play fast, one-touch passes forward and through defences rather than pumping in crosses. We have the quality to play that way with Azaz, Leo, Dobbin, Matsuki and Cyle/Divin on the end. And I don’t think the right side is working.

Was thinking the same. No intensity, walking pace, pass backwards. They just don’t look happy or motivated.

If he can play full-back then we can have Wood just inside Anel

Playing Scienza central up with Larin ended up like a 442 - he was 10/15 yards higher up than Azaz plays. Led to our two CMs being all over the place and huge spaces between defence and midfield. Then we had no ability (and zero intensity) to play through Watford pressing and chasing, and led to our mistakes. Would love a centre defender who wins every header and defend above all else. Ours don’t.

Well that was shite. Zero intensity on or off the ball. Defenders running away from the ball, lazy passing and cannot handle Watford’s pressure. Huge spaces between our midfield and defence that Watford just walk into. Not a fan of Dobbin on the left - far better central.

100% this. Our recruitment team (analysts and scouts) had to go from working for one club’s needs to multiple clubs and needing different profiles of players. It was chaotic for a while.

I’ve spent a lot of this week feeling so angry and down about what happened. With people in our club and in particular SR. For my own sanity I tried formulating my thoughts on the last few years and how its built up to this. Appreciate its a long read, but was cathartic for me to gather together frustrations. https://saintsstuff.substack.com/p/too-smart-to-do-the-basics-a-view

My gut feel based on all that is I can imagine the clubs internal investigation saying this was something done by a couple of analysts and they’ll be disciplined. So not the lone wolf thing, but also not the everyone-complicit thing.

Some bits from a chat this evening with a friend who was an analyst for various teams over the last few years, his take on things and what I can remember he said (I may paraphrase)… - “observing” other teams training is very common and easy outside the EPL - the 72 hour rule is something no-one worries about - a lot of analysts know each other (or at least know of each other) across teams as they move around a lot, so the “observing” is generally tolerated as a lot of teams do it - he said something about it helps them in their careers not to say anything as it benefits them all to do it (his words were “rite of passage as an analyst”) and impress people with their work (still not sure I understood that part) - its very unlikely the coaches/manager are involved in getting analysts to do this and break rules. He said the manager could be aware it probably happens but a junior analyst/intern would be told what to do from within the analysis department, and then turn that data/information into what the coaches want to know about. I’m sure there were some other points but the above were the interesting points. He said he feels for the intern as he’s getting hung out for something thats very common.

I think there’ll be more articles like this (no evidence but stirring things up) between now and the game. Boro leaking bits to the newspapers and trying to destabilise Saints.

Am I right in thinking he’s beaten more Premier League teams than any of our actual Premier League managers since Ralph? (Selles, Jones, Martin, Rusk, Juric)