sandwichsaint

Pretty tidy finish for a LB! Shades of Big Ron there.

Bit bizarre that most people on here would put a player that's never played at number 10 or AM, and they've hardly seen play, in our 'best' X1. We clearly have options in several areas but as it stands and based on proven performance we seem to have done a bit of a united, plenty spent and bodies in but we're still potentially short in one key position. With a plethora of options to play in the front four and no specialist number 10 we are almost stuck somewhere between 4-2-4 and 4-3-3 in terms of personnel if not in actuality. #10 is pretty key in a 4-2-3-1 but given that it's probably not Davis or JWP long-term, it's not Tadic (leave him on the left), it doesn't seem to be Juanmi at this stage, it definitely wasn't JRod at home to Mity, it could be Mane but he creates well from out wide and is starting to link well with Soares, who does that leave? I'd probably play a mixture of Davis and Juanmi and leave Clasie to tough it out for his own position with Vic and Romeu.

I can see why we do it, and up to a point 'fewest goals conceded from corners' is a stat well worth having, but I'm not sure I agree with it. Against 10 men it just looked like tactical inflexibility from us, we had 10 defenders in the box against a max of 6 attackers (or 9 v 5 if they took a short corner). We also have a very confident and capable GK who totally bosses his 6 yd area and has very quick and accurate distribution. If we had stationed Mane 40yds upfield they would have had as an absolute max of 6 attackers in the box v 9 defenders plus the keeper, more likely they would keep one more player outside the box/one fewer attacker inside which would increase our chances of gaining possession (now 9 v 5 again) and would open our options to play out short, or long to Mane. I don't think you can say that Mane would necessarily have got on the end of that long hoof out on Sunday, it would depend on his starting position and the relative position of their defenders, plus most likely they would have one more defender in that middle third too, but I'm slightly puzzled as to why we bring all 10 back, even when playing against 10 men.

Pretty sure you can buy newspapers in N Wales, try and get one tomorrow.

You forgot Spice World and the owl sanctuary.

I've always had a bit of time for Norwich, not dissimilar to ourselves really, they've won very little but they always have decent support at home and away. They play the right way. I didn't want to rain on the parade that is the match thread (and I thoroughly enjoyed our performance today and can see lots of positives going forward) ... BUT ..... they were probably the weakest Prem opposition I've ever seen at St Mary's, I guess we just caught them on a bad day (?) / down to 10 men / yadda yadda yadda ... we were good but they were shyte ... clueless at RB and LB, ponderous and desperate at CB, did they have a midfield(?) and non-existent up front. Ruddy kept it respectable today. They are going to need 28-30 points at home cos they won't get many away, lump on them to go down!

I've just finished rubbing....

Did you have Twiggy on your shirt? Block 37? You've aged well!

The first comment BTL in that article - Based on this comment and his performances over the two legs looks against Malmo it looks like he's got a bit of stepping up to do to, but of course, if anyone can get the best out of players, particularly defenders, then RK can. I don't see Clasie going in to DM ahead of Romeu (based on what we've seen so far) so presumably he will have to convert to the number 10 role, or play wide? Where does Juanmi fit in, who's looked OK when he has played? I can't see us signing any more players and if we go out of Europa on Thu (50-50 in my book) I could even see us selling one forward.

Surprised to see no shouts for Stek, he seems very solid so far and generally excellent distribution, if he keeps this up Forster will have to battle to get his place back (which is as it should be).

You clearly don't know what you're doing .. the GK isn't listed in an x-y-z formation stylee. I had to read your post 3 times before it made any mathematical (or football) sense at all ...

90% of us would have taken 0-0 at kick-off, lots of last season's success was built on keeping clean sheets.

two poor sides, like watching a championship game, neither side has any control or shape. this will be 0-0 or 3-3 or just about anything in between (!)

Bright start

How wrong can you be? I've got two STs and I'm going with a group of 4, we're all spread over 2 blocks 35+36 and all in singles. Fantastic support.

I think Lawrie Mac mainly linked the word sweeper with road (and violins) but point taken. How could you miss Reuben Agboola? One of the most accomplished ball playing defenders you could wish to see. A couple of near misses too, Ricahard Hall and Fitz Hall both showed great potential and if things had worked out differently CHDAJFU. I'll get absolute pelters for this but i though Chris Perry conducted himself with great professionalism for us, his legs had gone but he was a class act at that level, a poor man's Dave Watson if you will. My top 5 Saints CHs I've seen, in no particular order: Fonte, Watson, Deano, Agboola, McGrath. Bench, Killer, Docker, Blythe, Steele, Chris Nichol.

I don't disagree with any thing that's written there; it looks like Vitesse have made a right rod for their own backs by not giving us a much bigger allocation, if I was local plod I'd much rather have 2500 Saints fans in a segregated area in the stadium than having to manage 1200 in the designated area, possibly a few hundred more in unsegregated home areas and probably another 1000(!) spread across the town centre. What could possibly go wrong?

I'll say 26,800 ...

Got Vignal but not much else, 150 and then a total mind blank on easy ones like Cork, Puncheon. Also I couldn't spell half a dozen names which was a little frustrating. How was Le Tissier spelt (?) cause i couldn't get that to go in in any combination.

When's the first leg? I'm in Brazil for the second leg, just checked, no cheap flights available for that one.

Add a proper reserve keeper, avoid any serious long-term injuries (impossible!) and not be in Europe, and those 20 players wouldn't be far off top top, never mind top 4. Hard to pick a front 4 from the 8 players available, Bale's a shoo-in, but after that it's very difficult, we've certainly watched some top talent the last few seasons. And we'd still all squabble about which team to put out in the 4th round of the FA Cup!

Don't be such a bore, 'Footstats' is where it's at now.

What on earth are the FA thinking here? http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/06/england-women-twitter-world-cup-mothers-partners-daughters On the back of the 'FA's' best performance in quite some time, looking fd to France 2016, when England men bomb out in the QFs, 'you can all go back to being, fathers, husbands, sons'. WTactualF?

What is the actual Dutch for 'I'll drive him there myself'?

We used to go to a hockey tour at Old Loughts every year, their club is adjacent to the Spurs training ground and one of the pitches for the festival was their dome, cue everybody getting there 15 minutes early for their matches,binning the hockey kit and booting a football around for a warm-up. Played in it several times and it was always very hot, plus some bright spark decided that we'd play on the full size football pitch which was absolutely enormous for hockey. Anyway we all turned up for our kick about as per usual, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on a hot summer's day. Enter an umpire that had never been in there before, hot in here isn't it lads, i think i'm going to open these fire doors over there. Knowing nods from all of us (we'd all had a skinfull of beer, this will be good ... ...). You enter the dome through a double door/airlock type arrangement ..... matey boldy pushes open the two double fire doors and we kick off .... but not for long, I can reliably report that a large dome can become a much smaller dome quite quickly.....!