coalman

I really like the idea of forcing the reserve keeper on for ten minutes. I also think that VAR should step in if players go down holding their face when clearly nothing came near it. Automatic red card. Anyone crowding the referee gets an automatic yellow unless they are the captain. With keepers taking goal kicks there should be a countdown clock the same as when they pick the ball up. 90% of the bullshit would stop overnight if FIFA grew a pair. Instead of wasting their time sucking up to Trump with the Bellend D'Or award.

I'd say that it would make more sense for THB to be in the box full time given that setup. Saw him stop, decide not to cross and go back so many times. Manning was also superfluous most of the time given Scienza's excellence down the left. Archer and Armstrong are never winning headers against that number of defenders.

It's also painful watching THB get to the edge of their penalty area. Stop. Agonise for a bit. Then turn and play it backwards. He should either be in the box trying to get his head on the ball when we have a man advantage or we should put on someone capable of unpicking their defence on. And I can't remember Downes playing a progressive pass all game. As soon as they went to five at the back our crosses into Armstrong on his own or Archer who was apparently on the pitch were easily mopped up by their centre backs. While Coventry stopped offering threat at that point, so did we bar Scienza who looked lively every time he got the ball.

So much this. Worse than that it's clear where the ball is going next before it even reaches the player. You see other teams starting to press where the next pass is going before the ball arrives, is controlled painfully slowly and then inched towards its destination. We're just putting players under pressure in the wrong bits of the pitch. At no point does it look like we'll pass past the players we're supposedly drawing into our trap.

I love the way Scienza doesn't mince his words.

C'mon Baz

It's lucky we've got THB and Downes to recycle the ball for us.

There's no one in the box when Fellows is about to cross.

We still don't need 5 at the back here.

GOAL!

Now we get 5 minutes of pressure before Coventry realise they can nullify us with 10 men as easily as 11. Meanwhile no subs are made because playing 4 at the back is a sackable offence for Sport Republic.

"Surely they don't need five at the back".... amen, tater, amen..

Or. Let's get another centre back on to defend against crosses.

Ouch. That replay is horrific. Well spotted ref

If we're allowing unchallenged crosses I'm not sure it matters much who is in goal. Our centre backs aren't great in the air.

Understood. It's still going to have the same gaping holes you don't want to address in it the next time you try to make it anyway.

How is the ability to win future games irrelevant? How is wanting to see the team address obvious weaknesses irrelevant?

Out of curiosity, do you think we're going to continue winning games if we continue with the performance we showed against Norwich?

I haven't written him off but I also haven't written him on. He's clearly not on the pace of the game. Time will tell whether there's a "yet" there.

Agreed. When we move through ball so slowly it's easy for the man receiving our obvious passes to be under pressure as they're receiving the ball. Then we have no out ball. Then the ball keeps coming back at us. Whereupon nobody puts a tackle in and the other side strolls up to the edge of our box to cross. Rinse and repeat. That's two games running we've managed to repeat the worst Russball from Martin, Juric and Rusk only in a League lower. The only difference being that Norwich figured us out early rather than in the second half.

So do we.

Imagine how good we'll be in the second half when we bring on Aribo and Romeu.

This is what happens when you keep passing into danger

On top of that. Trump wants 5 years of your social media history before you'll be allowed into the country. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1dz0g2ykpeo

Eckert has come in and done brilliantly. There are flaws there though for all to see. Both of those things can be true. If he's open to the flaws and willing to learn he could go on to be a great Saints manager. If he looks at the results and thinks he's the real deal and doesn't need to grow then not so much (we've been down that road). I'm hoping for the former. At our best yesterday we broke out of defence and absolutely tore West Brom apart. At our worst we sat back and watched them hit ball after ball into our box while offering no threat at the other end. Again it's possible to enjoy the former whilst being appalled by the latter. He's made a great start as Saints boss. Long may it continue. It also shows pretty conclusively that a different manager could get a better tune out of our team than Will Still. There's still an open question about whether another manager might get a better tune out of them than Tonda Eckert but he's earned the right to have a crack at promotion.