The Kraken

Pretty dire game so far. AMN looks weak, not a patch on Romeu.

No Salisu at least hopefully means no dopey long throws. Hopefully collect-a-car is up to match speed. Good to see Mara forcing his way in, let’s see him justify the spot.

New Cdm or Romeu, whatever, the point is we’re one short. Keeping Romeu just for one more year would have given us a strong 3 on the books. Also, he’s a known entity, you know exactly what you’ll get. Playing Diallo as a starter in a central midfield two was always likely to be a disaster, and we haven’t really got a good way around it now.

Getting rid of Romeu still strikes me as a crazy move. Lavia is 18 and was never going to manage to play every game. JWP and Romeu especially looked floored at the end of last season as there was no backup for them. And we never had the option to play 3 strong CMs together, eg Liverpool away. We haven’t solved that problem as evidenced by Diallo just not being up to it.

Pretty sure I read somewhere that Saints did the same with Mark Hughes. Now that was money well spent.

No chance, they’ve got enough dough as it is.

Left of a line from Liverpool to London is a massive catchment area to be exploited.

AMN getting chucked under the bus by the manager here. https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/21895156.hasenhuttl-explains-exclusion-arsenals-maitland-niles-southampton-squad/ “We have with Ainsley a lot of work to do also because he has to adapt to our game and this is something that takes time a little bit,” Hasenhuttl said, speaking after the match. “We see also during the week what we ask him to do and especially in the midfield position it takes a little bit to understand how we want to do it. “It doesn’t make sense to throw someone in who isn’t ready for what we want to do. When he is ready and on the level we think he has to be then he will help us for sure.”

I agree it’s a problem, but not necessarily that the new players aren’t better than our starting XI. Joe Aribo is a pick every time imo, and Mara needs much more game time. We’ve fucked ourselves by losing Romeu and Romeo, we have no proper holding CM, although Christ knows what’s going on with AMN, sounds very suspicious to me. Edozie should only be an impact sub for a while. But not signing a centre forward was a glaring fuck up that literally everyone including the club said was a priority. So, yes, the recruitment was far from ideal. The only place we looked reasonable tonight was defensively, but even that wasn’t great. I think we’ve signed some decent players but playing Djenepo, Elmo and Armstrong is weak management, they should not be starting.

But it’s fine, we’ve got Diallo instead who gets hooked at half time after an absolute horror show.

Aribo played out of position and looked about the only player we had who was capable of keeping the ball. If there was a MOTM vote I’d give it to him, he looked alright even though the tactical decision to put him on for Diallo at CM was way off. Mara got twenty minutes, he didn’t do very much but at least made sure that the shots on goal total wasn’t zero. Edozie got ten minutes, hardly surprising for a young lad in a side that had a complete mare that he didn’t get into it.

He doesn’t nail his defensive assignment though. This has been pointed out in various games, he’s as poor at defending as he is going forwards. Plenty of times he just lets his man drift past him. It’s an assumption that he’s in the team because he offers something defensively but he just doesn’t.

I wouldn’t disagree, but our entire front 4 were embarrassingly poor tonight. Che Adams, a striker who only scored double figures in a league season twice in a ten year career, at any level. Elmo, a fraud of a footballer, utterly shit and offers nothing going forwards or in defence, Djenepo, see above, a completely shite player who shouldn’t be anywhere near the first team. Adam Armstrong, tries hard but not good enough anywhere on the pitch. Add to that Diallo is not an effective CM and JWP had a shocker. The only positives are that Joe Aribo didn’t look as terrible as the rest of them, and the new left back lad looks decent. I’m firmly back in the Ralph out camp, letting that happen under your watch is abysmal management.

And as night follows day, the performance of the forum on a game day matches the form of the team tonight, 502 gateway errors all over the place. Stick a quid in the meter.

Carragher spot on for once. A diabolical game and Saints deserve absolutely nothing. One of Hassenhuttl’s low points, pretty much zero goal threat at all, no midfield presence, and two chances like Djenepo and Elmo,playing almost all of the game. You’ve got to be some sort of fuckwit to be starting with those two chancers and thinking you’ll get something from the game.

Can’t disagree with this. I thought I heard rumours that a Ralph was under pressure and had until the international break to prove himself. He hasn’t done that IMO. Too many games where we’ve made some shocking tactical decisions. We’re going to finish this game not causing a poor side to make any save of note, Djenepo and Elmo have played almost all of the game between them. We’ve seen enough of them to know that they’re entirely crap but here we are again.

Playing with Djenepo and Elmo is like playing with 9 men. Both utterly dreadful. Armstrong does very little as well. We really are quite shit,with these lot on the pitch.

Just get Elmo off, he’s utterly useless.

Once Salisu plays the ball with a ‘deliberate movement’ he’s back onside. If the ball came back off the crossbar straight to the striker, he’s offside. It’s a dopey law, there’s been far worse occasions than that where a goal has been given. But, by the laws, it’s correct.

Crisp packet wrists from Bazunu, shit defending all round. saints have been crap so far, Elmo is a waste of a shirt and Diallo has no midfield presence at all, how we miss Romeu and Romeo.

Scumbag club, scumbag media who always overlook or excuse their shithousery. Its an utter minority shouting out, let’s be clear. But it’s still quite a few more than one person, and I’d be very surprised if any other English games are disrupted like this when they next play. Liverpool as a club have done little to dissuade their militant twats to tone it down with their general bellendery in this regard, so it’s no surprise tonight happened no matter how few in number it was that decided they needed to be heard.

Tezzies when I’m feeling particularly banterific.

Tescos, Sainos and the ‘trose for me 😎

Don’t think the PL have released anything official yet, the EFL have confirmed their games will resume from tomorrow. https://www.efl.com/news/2022/september/efl-statement-efl-schedule-to-resume/

The only one I know is a classic, definitely in there.