Holmes_and_Watson

Che's header into his arm didn't make the 2 min Sky match highlights I just watched. Can't have been that important. 🙂

I imagine Everton will pretend their FFP issues will go on for ages, to stop Harry having any more influence on transfers. 🙂

Clearly it was the latest cunning disguise of my arch nemesis! The old leaping into a film career in a different genre trick, isn't going to fool me! 🙂

Wow! instant pathway return! But madness to sell with no replacement in place, and when pushing Romeu out the door. You'd hope the player would prefer first team football here, rather than a squad berth at Chelsea. But perhaps the size of fee & wage increase, Euro Ball football would make quite a difference. It would be interesting to see if City wanted to exercise their £40 million option, to keep Chelsea away at £50m. Kind of derails their deals with us, in one way, if they have to make such a big outlay 5 mins after selling him.

> interupts monograph writing on 4-2-3-1 vs 4-1-3-2 by stripey or plain shirt< Who?! Quickly Mrs Hudson, call a cab! We must get to the crime scene before that bumbling Ralph Le Strade clutters it up with his youthful new police signings. They're no Baker Street Irregulars (Inter-London Winners 1888, 1891,1892)!

I went with a 7. Just about. That's purely down to everyone having identified the need for a striker as a priority. The club continued to ackowledge this throughout, but in the end we are hoping that it's Mara who will be making the difference. He'll certainly be getting minutes to prove himself, so I hope it works. Ralph is a bit more defensive minded this season, so chances will be fewer. We're going to have to hope that we've enough clinical finishers to make those chances count. The lack of a more experiences striker dragged the score down. Everywhere else got a refresh. I'm a bit wary of pushing players out the door due, less to skill and experience, than an attempt to lower the wage bill; with that impacting contract negotiations. But it looks as though there were other factors going on as well (Bednerak supposedly having his mind more on a world cup game than on the club that pays his wages etc.) I did like Forster. While not having that physical presence, Bazunu is a lot more agile. So far he's done just fine. Salisu and Bella Kotchap look like a super pairing. We kept KWP and JWP so have held onto our best. Lavia looks excellent, although I do think we're going to miss the eperience, attitude and skill of Romeu in the squad. Ralph has a deeper squad to select from, and we've already seen him being able to come back from going behind. I've a concern that due to the way he's set it up, we're going to be going behind a fair bit, and may not quite be clinical enough to pull ourselves back. Adams has already got some goals though, so here's hoping.

We are set up to contain a lot these days (I get it, even if it's not great to see), so we invite a bit of pressure. Although Bazuniu bailed us out with a couple of runs out of his area, that was when we were trying to equalise. Wolves weren't peppering our goal. Their goal came from someone who went missing allowing a runner to have loads of space. It was in KWP's area. As Woves moved up the park reasonably quickly for the goal, he was probably miles away, and we hadn't got anyone in to cover that space. Wolves exploited that space behind KWP a couple of times. That's something Ralph is going to have to sort. Perraud got caught a bit for pace and positioning today, and has done a lot better previously. Diallo had some good passes, but the team really missed a Romeo/ Lavia figure today. I know the club were keen to move him on, lowering that wage bill. But Romeu had a lot of attributes that would have helped us out today. Being a bit more compact, means we're not initially going to create loads of chances outselves. We have to be clinical with what we get. Adams missed a sitter by striker standards, as the ball hit his arm from his head. He could have done better with a second effort too. But the formation would have been Adams or our new striker, and his hold up play is decent. Ralph does seem to have plenty of attacking options available, if not outright strikers. So when Edozie made a great run into the box, there was no one to take advantage of it. There are any number of teams similarly placed in the bottom half this season. Saints plan is to hope that the mostly youth signings can fire often enough to keep us safe. I was hoping for a point here today. Had it not been for acres of space given away for their goal, we'd have probably have got it, judging by the rest of the game.

NOw why wasn;t there someone in the box to take advantage of all the good work Edozie did there. wasted.

Great return header form Mara back to adams to win that corner >cough<

Commentator saying that no defence will want to see Traore come on in the circumstances. Our two are phsycially his match, so it's not something that's going to bother me this season.

Traore has been keeping up his weight lifting I see.

new guy hacked down.

Nice skill from Edouzie there to keep that in.

Wolves couldn;t stop KWP, so the ref makes sure by brining play back.

Well done AMN. Avoided an own goal on his debut. He knew what he was doing.

Littel surprised that Aribo is off. But let's see what the new kid can do.

Perraud badly caught out there. JwP ightly having a moan.

Neeeded an early ball in there from Aribo. JWP a little backward passing in mentality as well. Result: One of them passes it out for a wolves throw in.

Gah! Armed it in.

I thought on balance, Wolves looked more likely, with Saints looking to contain them, and then break. Mo nearly put someone through for us, just for them to break for their goal. Was it KWP who was supposed to be back covering for that? I thought at first Bazunu could hav edone better, but the scorer didn;t hit it cleanly and it chipped past him. We'll have to change our gameplan eventually in the second half. But we'll see how the first bit of ti goes as we didn;t look out of it by any means.

I thought we would be in for Kalajdzic ourselves. COuld be crocked before the end of his first half?

He could:- Be one of the few players to make it through to hold down a regular spot in the first team - Mount, James Due to a lack of striker options, get enough ad hoc game time in cup games, and as an impact sub in league games to jkeep him happy. Get more lucrative loan moves to European trophy level clubs, do well enough to get game time on his return. Secure any number of loan deals to mid table or lower clubs. When he finally leaves, people will be reminded that he hadn't left years before. Vanish into their squad, without kicking a ball for the first team. I the first half of last season, I was hoping he might come back here on loan so he could continue to get regular first team football in the Premier League. I also thought his development might be better served by playing nearly as much football at a club playing in European competition. As everyone's form dipped last season, and there seemed to be a bit of a peeved Ralph reaction to Broja, I thought it would have to be the latter. Chelsea have a cottage industry of laoning out players. So, if he's not getting decent minutes this season, I'm sure they will be able to find him a hime to develop.

Seven

Yes No, but one will Yes, in part due to contracts No, it will be the likes of Salisu 🙂

Hopefully. We've liked what we've seen from Mara. This period will see him get a lot more minutes and settle in.