Holmes_and_Watson

clear booking for DCC.

Ooooh Djenepo looking miffed. NJ has him riled up. Good to see new signing Janny B offer him some support.

NJ using Baz injury (a number of saints fans rush forward to volunteeer to help him off, as a precaution 🙂 ) to instruct/ make up to Djenepo. At least it's a chat. Not sure the there's player buy in to that instruction though.

Nice crisp passing move there form us, all the way form our box. Before that Jones went absolutely ballistic at Djenepo. The player muttered a few comments with a "what?" gesture, as Jones went on ranting. I noted his coaching staff didn;t change their expressions at all, during all of it.

Howe makes lots of little, cryptic hand gestures, each motioning changes in spacing and positioning. Jones makes one sweeping otion, as if saying "hoof it." 🙂

Longstaff is on his feet. What a moaner.

I'd like to think that the club would actually implement the pathways they go on about, from Academy players as well as those we nab from Man City. So, I'd like to think that if he was good enough, he'd be getting some minutes. It won;t be helped by the position we're in though, so will require some patience, if he's not clearly better. But the coaching staff see him all the time, and would know if he was ready.

We're certainly lulling them into a sense of false security in the opening minutes. Giving them all these passes across the box and shots, before we break out and score.

Breach

Rod

Nice to see Bednarek back. Hopefully, he'll add some strength and depth when he can fit us in between Poland internationals.

I like the optimism of the "if" in the title! 🙂 I also like the relaxed tone of MS and RA. Not for them that Cortese ruthlessness to drive success. Because he was a berk. Far better to have a knowing chuckle. After all, we're in the strongest position we've ever been. Even including the days we had a striker. I'm sure all the club staff staring redundancy in the face, if we drop, will share in the laughter. It's normal practice to have contingency planning. It's less common to incompetently drive your organisation towards having to implement them. At the bottom of the table, responses should be a balance of reassurance, self awareness and drive to get us out of it. We only got the first part, and that read as complacent.

Voodoo

steward

Sheep

Cry

My job here is done... rides off into sunset hitting two coconut halves together to make a horse noise... 🙂

Michael Dawson spent much of the last couple of decades repeatedly getting hit on the head, every day. The people here, repeadedly hit their heads on their keyboards watching the team. But only once a week. 🙂 Diallo has strengths to his game. I think he quietly takes up some decent positions. He provided cover when Villa were more direct. They all struggled a lot more when Villa started passing through us. We're playing some low possession stuff. When he's further back (which we did a bit, just to stop those quick Villa passes, and sees not a lot ahead of him, some of his passing and decision making lands us in trouble. He's just another player not quite good enough to take up a specific role in the team, and who gets caught out by similar weaknesses elsewhere. If I were to put him anywhere, it would be where we put JWP. But there's no comparison between the two. So Diallo gets different duties, and isn't great at all of them. That's my thought on it, anyway.

I missed the five minutes around the goal. So, will have to see that later. Apart from that... We had the ball in the net, but it was carelessly offside from Che. He fluffed his shot, but KWP followed up to put it in. We had the ball in the net again, but VAR was conned into giving the foul. From their perspective, they saw both players looking at the ball. there's an arm, there's contact and the player, still looking at the ball moves forward. From the player's point of view, he feels the contact, makes an exaggerated move forward and then falls over to complete the theatrics. We didn't create an awful lot, beyond that. But we're not set up to score shedfuls of goals. Any of those 2 would have got us a point. As either would have put us in the lead, we'll never know if we would have caught Villa pushing up. We did have little spells. Edozie got into good positions early on, before Villa saw the danger and closed that space. We didn't really take advantage of the best parts of his game. He should have been an outlet to pin them back, while AA worked like a terrier on the other side, in an Ely type role. A forward JWP and KWP work really well together, as they always have done. That's one of the pluses we have in the team. We looked a bit isolated in attack, and sometimes we had that whole line being taken out by Villa passing through them. We do look disjointed. Lyanco and Diallo are not first choices. We lack steel in the middle to compliment Lavia and definitely lack a finisher. It's the same problems we've had for a while. The striker in particular. If SR don't want to/ can't address those areas with urgency, and we've waited this long, then we're not going to get the points. Which has been clear to absolutely everyone, since before NJ stepped onto the training ground. If the owners want to faff about for another fortnight and not get in reinforcements, then they should know where the fingers of blame are going to point when we go down. We looked more than capable of keeping a direct Villa at bay. We were a lot more vulnerable when they started to pass through our centre. Again, a Romeu figure is a massive miss. And a centre forward who can lead that line, is another. AA works hard and Ely is versatile and can do a job. But it's a job to stop the opponents, rather than offering a genuine creative threat. They ahve their place in the squad, just as Shane Long did. But we have to hope that the new signings can quickly start to make a difference in this side. We have clear weaknesses in the side, from players who would normally be squad players to the rawness of some of the youngsters. It's tough for the attacking ones in particualr. Edozie's touch and decision making isn;t all it could be. But he's a kid, and that's what you're going to get. Mara's is the same. But I'd not expect anything else at that stage. But, when you need players to make the correct decisions because of where we are, it's very frustrating to see. But there are reasons we are where we are that are well beyond Mara making a poor pass.

2 bits of poor play from Mara. Shame, as we had some good opportunities there. Possibly at his best at the end of a move, rather than setting anything up

Phew. Glad that Diallo error didn;t come to anything.

Loking forward to all defendeds at a set piece just all falling over. There's loads of contact in every one of those situations. So, they must all be fouls too. Grrrrrrr...

JWP and KWP link really well, esp when JWP gets further forward. Mara is NJ's option for Che. Hopefully, a strong signal to SR to get a bloomin' striker into the club. Perraud a hard working option to bring on for Edozie (could have worked the other way round in that poisiton today. Either way) Ely's versatility means he's stepping into the team. Silly club allowed Romeu to go, so we're a body short there too. But all logical enough changes. Esp as Lavia is coming back form injury, and is young. Needs to be managed.

get stuffed. Defendfer completely milked that contact.

Get in!!!!!