The Kraken

Not sure what Pickford was doing giving him all of that side of the goal, but it was an excellent strike from JWP.

That’s a foul.

Particularly first 30 mins or so he was really far forward, often almost playing off of and beyond Adams. A good position for him if we can get the other bits right. A reasonable start to the game and some bright spots but the press isn’t as effective as it was against City, giving Everton too much time. Poor goal to concede from but we’ve had chances.

Yep, poor performance from all of those 3. Edozie has got talents but just not productive anything. Adams has got a job on against those defenders on his own, but he’s not really making a good fist of it. Dammit JWP, close.

Everton’s tails are up now. Need to get control back. Come on Saints.

How terribly fucking easy for them.

Agh, Diallo. Good opportunity, Lavia did brilliant to win it back.

Elmo just shirked out of a header. He really is a nothing player.

Damn, we had a header on goal from a corner!

This, it’s a very weak press and Everton have for far too much time.

Edozie and Elmo need to get into this game, offering nothing so far. Adams is going to get no change out of the service being given to him, playing into their hands.

KWP isn’t at it.

Promising start, looking to play it around in midfield, finding some space in there. Long throws are still dreadful though.

Fuck me, some of these Everton banners are absolutely cringeworthy.

Me neither, not convinced that line up will press and harry like the team against City did. We’ll see.

Sekou Mara, properly world class. Edit. I se this was coved already….

Call it what you want, it’s just another number that might be useful in quickly summarising a game if you didn’t get to see it.

Which is why XG starts to become useful when you’re not able to watch the game. If you’re watching a game you’re able to get a feel for it. If not, XG is as useful a stat as shots on target or possession, no more no less than that really.

Give him a break, he climbed a tree to watch Saints training. Behaviour that these days would either get you arrested or sectioned.

It’s a bit of a strange article. The whole tone of it seems to be based on the premise of “Saints must play better than they did against Forest”. That’s not analysis, it’s just blindingly obvious. If the Forest game was the last game we had played then I’d get it, but it wasn’t. And surely after a promising spell against Palace then an incredible result and performance against Man City, I’d have thought an article might be better placed putting much more focus on that turnaround? Just my opinion, like. But to me it seems to be saying “forget about Palace and Man City for a minute, look how bad Saints were when they played three games ago”. It seems like a very odd focus to me. I find that the final paragraph (copied below) is about the only really relevant bit (although not altogether accurate, I think we saw something of the City performance in the second half at Selhurst). The rest of the article is quite frankly just a lot of words that everyone knows already. “Against City, Southampton were aggressive, direct, and pressed high in a way their fans had yet to see under Jones. There was a clear plan in place and it was executed perfectly. Southampton must now take this approach into the league, regardless of what shape or personnel are involved. If they do, they might just have a chance of beating the drop.”

Damn. I love a good penalty shootout. Gutted I missed ours against Lincoln. Probably a good tip: if you’re going to title your page “football analytics for football fans” maybe get the basic analysis correct in the first paragraph. Otherwise, and I’m guessing here, people might just stop reading otherwise.

Oh dear me. You absolute prat 😆

As Ron said, it was recorded earlier today. They made a number of direct references to the Man City performance.

Not really anything new there, regurgitation of what we know and have heard before. Think the interview might have gone very differently if there wasn’t the Man City result to fall back on.

Blackmore sounds so much like Alan Partridge.