The Kraken

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.

Christie Brinkley is 68.

She’s more plastic than person these days.

I looked at this the other day, but it seems like the Argentinian league starts on 27 January, so it’s hopeful he’s well through a good dose of pre season training.

I can’t begin to imagine how much he must utterly stink. No wonder nobody is sat next to him. Good job there’s usually spare seats around to get away from him.

That’s what I’m hoping too. The lad was flipping brilliant tonight.

Did he? Or did he just go off? I don’t know. I know he was down on the ground before going off, but hoping that’s Jones plan to get him off after 60, protect him a bit more and don’t push him too much.

Exactly this. We don’t have a strong team/squad. We know that. Under Ralph, he got better results from the sum of their parts, while having utter capitulations of course. Jones needs that. Players working their socks off for each other, high pressure, make it difficult for the opposition. Under Jones so far and apart from Palace second half, we had been utterly passively and basically made it easy for the opposition. Palace second half and this, just want I want to see with a limited group. Work hard, play hard, and we might have a chance of staying up.

One thing that tells me after game….. AMN must never play CM for us again, he is the epitome of slow, ponderous, back foot football. He has looked ok when he’s been played out wide, but he simply isn’t a dynamic central midfielder. Lavia is key to the equation of course. Having JWP and Diallo with Lavia is our strongest CM combo, and we must play a three, been saying this for some time. Work hard, cover ground, make space for each other, cover for each other. AMN gives none of that, he likes to get the ball in his own half and pass it off.p with no intensity. The other players at least look forwards quicker and seemed a good cohesive unit tonight. I maintain there’s a player in Diallo, but a defensive midfielder In a two, it isn’t.

💪

Not many people (pundits) talking about Romeo Lavia’s role in Djenepo’s goal. First class win the ball, spin, and play in tge attacker. Defence to attack in one second. Pure class.

Correct. This performance was utterly night and day from anything previous under him. The closest was 20-30 minutes second half against Palace. Jones has had fans on his back early, and I’d say rightly so, it’s been a shambolic few matches under him and terrible to watch. Today reminded us of the times at our best under Ralph. Press, work hard, quick passing, no dilly dallying about at the back, and exploit the other team’s mistakes by breaking very quickly in numbers. That’s how we can stay up.

Meh. Manchester United probably the worst one to draw so we got second best. Very difficult though.

It’s called man of the match. Not man of last week. Happy to explain it more if it gets confusing 👍