coalman

I look like Lionel Blair in highlight videos.

There's about 2/3 of a really good footballer in there. Passing great, movement great, shooting good. But also, struggles to take the ball on the half turn and isn't going to win the physical battle in the middle of the park. If teams stand off him he can pull them apart. If they get in his face he fades into the background.

Got to remember it's going to take Martin a while to coach the high risk no reward football into them so it's automatic and for their fitness levels to drop to the right level. It's not an overnight thing.

Trust the system. It's part of a long term process. The result doesn't matter.

That's the first true test of Will Still's management - if he keeps Stephens as captain something inside of me is going to die.

He'd be the best keeper in the division.

To be fair some of his link up play and assists were very good. But his finishing.... oh my. The no look handball deflection for the first is a thing of beauty. I've never seen another player with the ability to score absolute worldies and regularly miss absolute sitters.

Christ we have a lot of central defenders.

Whilst I don't want to return to the heady days of Martin's empty platitudes it's hard not to be traumatised by last season. If anything it was far more traumatising than the Hassenhutl, Jones and Selles relegation simply because we were being told every work how the process was working. Trying to sugarcoat that we were fucking shit top to bottom also wouldn't be a good start. So he had to find a polite way of conveying that without alienating too many people.

One thing I like from his videos is he's looking to take the ball in stride with his first touch to commit the defender rather than stopping and taking the pace out of the game. We've needed that so much in recent years.

Surely rule 34 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_34

Talk like a pirate day seems to come round earlier every year.

Correlation and causality aren't the same thing.

Then he'll need a really commanding ball playing centre back that can step into midfield to dominate the game.

Let's wait until the cheque has cleared before we get picky about that.

We do seem to have managed the incredible feat of making our striking options worse every transfer window for several years now 😢

He showed incredible pace and skill getting out of the car, wriggling past the front desk and into the doctor's office. Then fell over as he was about to get on the stretcher trying to follow his training and check back to maintain possession.

How did this turn into a rumour overnight. Has MLG un-scooped himself?

He was on a par with the wingers we had (who didn't wind up doing much in our Premier League campaign) so you can't say he was awful in terms of contributions but he wasn't standout either. I do remember him (and Rothwell) giving the ball away a lot though.

I dunno - I thought Edozie was coming into his own before getting taken out by Norwich. By the time he'd recovered we'd brought in Brooks and Rothwell and he was reduced to a bit part player.

Picking a single stat doesn't tell the whole story. From https://fbref.com/en/squads/33c895d4/2023-2024/Southampton-Stats - he got 5 assists and 2 goals from 895 minutes. Compare to Sam Edozie (6 goals and 3 assists from 1364 minutes) or Ryan Fraser (6 goals and 2 assists from 1633 minutes) which seems comparable to those two players. Then compare to Sulemana (0 goals and 3 assists from 950 minutes) and you have to pray that Atalanta's medical team are busy rubber stamping his transfer right now.

It was a bit beyond his debut. He started the first few matches well but by the time he was subbed off injured in the playoff final I remember being quite relieved as he'd fully bought into the Martin style of taking stupid risks in stupid areas and didn't seem all that keen on tackling back after he'd given the ball away.

Indeed

Fair play to the lad - he's not afraid to try things.