gio1saints

Playing 200 matches in a saints shirt IS praiseworthy. You don’t play 200 matches in a Saints shirt if you are shite. DO click on the link- it’s fun to see who actually is on that list of playing over 200 Saints matches. And how many of them you think are unworthy of praise.

Ivan Golac, one our greatest full backs. A hero to many. 173 times played for saints but forgotten by everyone. 🤭. Not by me- or you. 😂

Everyone below Jan Bednarek is forgotten right? 🤭https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-southampton/rekordspieler/verein/180 erm Peter Shilton, Ivan Golac, Marian Pahars, Mark Wright…..and so on… it’s rather a long list of forgotten nonentities.

197 and 196 appearances - 3 or 4 matches,

Some really good points and nicely picked up on the away form data. A goal difference of zero really says we barely scraped over the line when we’ve won and have never destroyed teams like what happens at SMS. Perhaps, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, though 19 unbeaten is one hell of a reason to be optimistic - we have gradually learned to be better all-round- and this will soon - perhaps as the final piece of the performance jigsaw - translate into better more convincing winning away performances.

You might be right though quality of opposition is the main factor for sure. I honestly did not think Jan could play this way and to see his renaissance under RM has been a revelation this season. He’s an automatic starter, regained his international #5 shirt for Poland and is the on pitch tempo lead for our PB football in absence of JS. Either football style suits him or the forwards are easier to play against - or more likely a bit of both. FWIW : Jan is currently the outstanding CB #1 in the championship for passes, progressive passes and pass completion percentage. Source : https://fbref.com/en/players/4115ce4e/Jan-Bednarek Well worthy of special acknowledgement when he hits 200 matches in a Saints shirt. Oh, and as a point of reference a previous foreign CB called Jose Fonte Baby, I believe, managed 286 games for Saints so some way to go! .😁

Agreed they are neither ever going to be legends ( unless Beds or Stu scores a winner/Hattrick in the 2024FA cup final win over Liverpool) but point I was making was that 200 was entering Hall of Fame category. 200 League appearances for both is a high and merit worthy achievement for any Saints player.

Longest unbeaten run 19 matches, 5 September 1921 – 31 December 1921 NB Millwall away was match 7 of Saints record breaking 30 matches unbeaten run in the Championship during the 2023-24 season that culminated in their automatic promotion to the EPL. Edited 31 October, 2023 by gio1saints We are getting there. Thirty league matches unbeaten is still on - 12 league matches later. Shout out to all the gentle people who laughed at my prediction. Please do it again. It’s obviously a good luck charm. 😇 The full post to check my other “insane” predictions:

Love Stu❤️. Stu will be 32 in March. out of contract in the summer. And Was on £70k pw. My personal view : I don’t think he would play as much or enjoy it as much next season at Saints in the EPL (if we make it- nor staying here if we don’t) Given his contract situation this current season will probably be his last for Saints. And we should appreciate him accordingly. He will reach 200 appearances shortly also. The ideal for him might be if he goes to Celtic to pick up a championship winners trophy but had not cost them anything so they can give him two years on a decent wage.Maybe even a join up bonus. That might also enable perhaps some young talent incoming from them to us also. 😁😎

Wages c £8k pw. Compared to Stu ( older) and Aribo ( bit younger) who play similar position but are ( or were - I’m unsure if they got the relegation haircut to salary? Anybody know?) on £70k pw.

Nicely spotted. Players get 2 games suspended for reaching 10 by the 38th match ( source google). That’s both Ryan and Jan out probably around beginning Feb - on current form. Hopefully JS and a fit again James Bree at that time ensure no major loss in personal or momentum.

Was a very surprising line up last time ( JS at right back! Joe Aribo started! KWP was like everywhere!) v these. No Che. But it worked. Wonder if RM will refresh his starting line up again this time or revert to what is currently the standard when fit 11 ( Gav, RM, THB, Jan, KWP, WS, FD, SA, RF, AA & Che)? Our default team is predictable but means nothing if they cannot counter it. I personally would prefer him to pick that away line up than the rather exotic home match line up we used Boxing day. Though winning 5-0 does say it kinda worked. just dont think they get fooled twice on that. Very hard match in store and the players that start are going to have to put a lot of energy into this to stop early swans enthusiasm and desire to atone for the thrashing only a few weeks ago. Assuming we are not 3-0 down at HT I think we have more than enough to beat these - especially last quarter of the match when they may start to tire. 1-2 Saints.

Not necessarily Stu Aribo or Charlie leaving ( well I hope not!) so the right winger is either him - or someone else we purchase? Or he is part of a some kind of swap deal with Bournemouth taking one of ours?

Appreciate the thoughts Bermudasaint. 😇.

Somewhat Worryingly he looks to me like an alternate to Stu. Stu, 31 and 32 in March I believe,? who is in last six months of his contract also..or Charlie or Aribo. All sameish position and he’s hardly what youcall a right winger so Why need another of these - unless one of them is off????

All identifiable improvements agreed and all part of the advanced PB playbook required of the team @benjii- but I still consider the critical element to be the players mental speeding up and finally realisation , understanding THEN execution of the PB playbook. The identified improvements have come a priori because the players better understand where they are meant to be & what they are meant to be doing every second on the pitch, in and out of possession. Better Coordinated pressing off the ball as you’ve identified as a noticeable improvement happens for instance because ( most) every player now instinctively knows more often to be in the right place to do it- not have to work out what’s the instructions for this particular scenario and then do it. Those microseconds make all the difference in the timings and how it looks and how effective it is. Just one player not playing from the same song sheet can make the whole team look rubbish. NB. we do have a noticeable tendency still to leave the opposite flank winger relatively free and our fb is often tucked in at that time quite some distance away. And when skipper JS comes on we do play even faster from the back like he is pushing us to do it even quicker even better. Great reason to keep putting him in the team cos he is driving towards not just not losing but excellence and higher standards.

Or as I prefer to describe, second best at professional fouls 😁

Now that the rest of the team seem to know what they are doing and are meant to be doing in most given situations it has meant that we have the luxury of letting our class act do his stuff more often. KWP has been given licence to hurt the opposition because we are more solid and competent defensively as a team now. When we were weaker KWP had to play a more restrictive defensive role. Now stronger he’s got licence to kill. Reminds me of the licence Saints gave MLT which only came off the back of the rest of the team working their butts off around him and knowing what to do ( apart from just give it to MLT 😁) out of possession.

That table shows only Sheff Wed get more cards than us. We are second bottom of the fair play league. @Appy was correct in identifying the teams use of the tactical foul as a standard tool . It’s been obvious that RM likes a “ good” foul or his players “ taking a card” if it stops a goal or goal action and he’s given his tacit consent if not encouragement to the team to keep on doing it. We will see a red or reds no doubt from it one day but so far the benefits ( of less goals conceded) seem to outweigh the potential downsides ( playing with ten men) .

I still don’t see the Ipswich squad as strong enough to sustain there form second half of the season. We will eventually overtake them is my view and get automatic. First or second depends on if LCFC can do a Saintsy 4 losses in a row but it’s unlikely not impossible. Our #1 competition is Leeds. The play offs will be Leeds, Ipswich, WBA and Coventry.

We’ve stopped playing ponderous football because the players have started to master the skill and the thinking speed required to play the PB game. As an analogy that may make it clearer: It used to take me a while to knock up a spaghetti carbonara (what should be a relatively quick to make dish) - I’d leave bits of egg shells in, splash grated parmigiana over the floor, bits of guanciale would be of varying sizes, pasta water would boil over - any number of f@ck ups or inefficiencies evident in my kitchen work basically - but nowadays I can do it fast and do it well. I did not change the ingredients or the order in which things were done, the cooking times or anything. I just became efficient and proficient at doing it so it looks like Im doing something extra cheffy. 🧑‍🍳😇

Kick off is 2pm today. I think it’s live in UK. Hoping both he and Tall Paul get on the pitch would be delighted to see good performances from both!

He’s got to stop this scoring and assists per minute thing going on when he makes his off the bench limited minutes appearance because it’s making everyone who’s written him off look a bit premature. 😂

Saints under RM ( and notably quite a few of our recent managers) have a noticeable policy of attempting to regain possession very quickly once its lost. And in particular for the saints player so dispossessed to swiftly lead the effort to regain possession, aided by his closest teammates I’m not sure it’s been all that Opponent dependent. Ive tried to think if we’ve done this more against weak teams than strong and I don’t think there’s much if any difference. It’s default standard procedure home and away whoever we play. It’s situation dependent for sure. At start of most matches we always compete especially strongly to regain possession, ditto last five minutes. Once and if we have scored a breakthrough goal we often attempt to put the boot to the neck and attempt to “ swarm” our opponent. Another situation is If we are 1-0 up with only minutes to play - saints may produce a more subdued and defensive shape retaining version of the policy - but that’s the same v good or weak teams. Its certainly easier against a weaker opponent than a strong opponent ( meaning technically less able to hold possession under pressure) but I don’t think I’ve seen us change this policy much if at all versus stronger or weaker teams in this league, this season. Interesting concept though, that it may be tuned up or down according to the opponent and I think there’s s seed of truth in that - though it comes with a health warning because as soon as we start to consider teams as inferior ( or vice versa) to us and hence more appropriate for us to attempt to take liberties with regaining ball possession ( school playground bully style) we invariably come a cropper. That’s why overall I think it’s a default policy but one in which RM encourage the players to be situation aware, and dial it up- or dial it down accordingly.

Occam’s razor : The most likely explanation is probably the correct one. The last response is the right answer. The myth of the “ adjustments” needs putting to bed. All this begrudging of a manager and his team who’ve worked so hard is unseemly guys.. The factors why it took a while to get going was 1. because it takes time to learn a new system. And the learning time required is not necessarily linear. 2. Players were overloaded with instructions and were taking time digesting them. RM admits he probably stuffed them too much too fast. But it was the same stuffing not anything different. As soon as team started to get fluent in PB football RM style and shave microseconds off reaction times all of a sudden it looked like we’ve made adjustments and are playing it forwards and faster - and by inference to the argument proposed- because previously they were told not to. Inherent in the “ adjustments” mythology is that the team were specifically told to fanny around our six yard box and ultimately give the ball away or hit 450 passes in each half mainly from goalie to Cb without looking dangerous. NOT to play incisive attacking PB football. Despite RM saying that this was exactly what he did NOT want us to do. To think otherwise is just bloody mindedness. It’s a myth. nonsense. Saints been trying to play possession based incisive attacking football from the start. Go back watch his interviews where he explicitly repeatedly says he wants to move the ball faster more forwards etc. He didn’t change the tactics. The players just got better and better at it until suddenly- it seems to have clicked and we operate at a consistently high standard . It takes fewer touches to be in optimal position to take advantage in various parts of the pitch. Nobody has learned new skills. It’s still football but we do it faster more accurately more decisively now. It’s not a tweak it’s called evolution learning and getting better at a skill. Go back and read every interview with him and the players snd compare to now. Back then they were learning now the passes movements spaces covering etc are microseconds faster and done on instinct based on repetition and learning.