Sheaf Saint

Looking back through the records, he never made the bench again after his debut in the FA cup in Jan. Everton, like us, had a lot of injuries in the second half of last season and had a lot of youth team players (including my nephew) on the bench most weeks, but he didn't feature again. They had another young LB - Nkonkou - who was ever-present on the bench, but he wasn't even trusted to start when Digne was injured. Ancellotti preferred to play one of his CBs there instead. So his immediate pathway to the first team was pretty much blocked off. However, Ancellotti then left, and Nkonkou has gone out on loan for the season, so had he stayed things might have been different. But Everton's loss is our gain I suppose.

Not directly, but it was obviously to do with progression to the first team.

Finally caught up with my nephew today at a family gathering and had a chance to ask about this. Apparently he had told Everton months ago that he was unhappy and wasn't going to sign the pro contract offered to him, but they wanted to keep him on his scholarship anyway. The rumours put out about him having a bad attitude and refusing to train would appear to be a case of the club trying to gloss over the fact they had lost one of their brightest academy prospects, to placate the fans. I have no difficulty believing this because we've seen Saints do exactly the same thing with players we have sold in recent years.

Yeah he absolutely beasted our defence when they beat us 3-2 at SMS the season before last, and I remember him playing down the right that day.

Up top in the first half by the looks of it, then on the right of a front 3 in the second.

This is a very important point. When we were playing a back 4 in the first half, Valery was hopeless at RB. Made it far too easy for the Utd winger to get past him time and time again, so Lyanco was having to come out of position to cover this on more than one occasion. He really wasn't as bad as some people (who likely weren't even at the game) are making out.

I watched Lyanco closely for the first half to see how he did. He was very shaky to start with but soon settled. Difficult to make a proper judgement on his first game in English football, but I think it will be a while before he's ready for the PL. He wasn't at fault for their first goal - it was Perraud who over-committed and let their player get in behind, and literally nobody tracked back from midfield to mark the scorer. Watch the replay and he's just stood in acres of space with nobody getting anywhere near him. Very poor. The second goal came from his mistake but it was a very good finish, even if we did allow them too much space. I think it's fair to say that Ralph won't be employing a back 3 of Lyanco, Romeu and Salisu again anytime soon. Strange game overall. We looked much better after the change of shape and personnel at HT, but I said to my mate I hoped we wouldn't just sit back and try to protect the 2-1 lead, but that's exactly what we did and it backfired. Che looked really sharp and had a couple of good chances to win it when he came on. The first forced a really good save and the second was just a few millimetres too far in front of him otherwise it would have been a certain goal. I have no idea why Ralph persisted with Valery though, and I don't see why he is still getting game time when we have two much better options now. He was ball watching a lot in the first half, and when Ralph pushed him further forward in the second when we went to 3 at the back he did nothing of note in attack. All our dangerous attacks came down our left through Djenepo and Perraud. Valery was pretty much a spectator on the right, occasionally receiving a cross-field ball and then just passing it back to the CBs. Good to see us win a shootout though. Well done Fraser. The last one I saw live was at Derby in the playoffs in 2007.

Well then the rules need changing. Morally, there is no argument to be made in favour of allowing a player who has already been shown a red card to stay on the pitch to debate the referee and 'chat' with the player waiting to take the penalty while the review is underway. There's no other professional sport in the world that would allow that.

No. Just no. Why would we do that when we have finally got our squad pretty much how Ralph wants it? Koeman would quickly undo all the progress Ralph has made with this squad in recent years. He would drop our promising young players in favour of some new signings from his previous clubs, and would then fuck off again as soon as a bigger club made him a better offer, which would put us all the way back to where we were when he left in 2016. It would be absolute madness.

I don't get his reasoning here. He's saying Walker got in front of Armstrong but didn't play the ball. So how is that not a foul then?

And I don't see why he should be allowed to stay on the pitch and enter into a debate with the referee. In that situation, he should be made to leave the field and only then return if and when the original decision is overturned. Theres no doubt that his remonstrating with Moss influenced him to change his mind. He then went to try and psych out JWP while Moss was checking the monitor. He shouldn't be allowed to do either of those things in that scenario.

Yep. It's almost like there's a pattern emerging here 😂

You're right about Cash.

How in the hell is Garth Crooks still employed by the BBC? We just went and nullified the current champions, who had scored 16 goals in their previous 3 home games, and yet he doesn't pick a single Saints player for his team of the week. I thought Romeu would be a shoe in.

What's Bradley Wright-Philips up to these days?

Mike Dean did it at OT last season when he sent Bednarek off, and if he had actually bothered to watch the replay from other angles he would have seen it was a dive from Martial and not even a penalty.

Bit of bad news I'm afraid... The Sheaf View pub - which I know is a favourite pre-match watering hole for a few people on here when visiting Sheff Utd - is closed at the moment following an arson attack. It hasn't burned down or anything dramatic, and they are hoping to have it re-open very soon, but it doesn't look like it will be in time for Tuesday. However, just up the hill from it is the Brothers Arms (Formerly the Shakespeare Inn), which I can heartily recommend as a suitable alternative. It's a bit small inside but they have a great range of beers and a really good outside seating area.

Yeah, this. And the look on his face when the decision was overturned was also a giveaway. He looked like a naughty school kid boasting to his mates that he had talked his way out of being given a detention.

Well yes, because he has to be certain that his original call was wrong.

Yes, of course. I appear to have added in an extra win in my calculations. Even so, 15 points would still be fairly respectable, given that many people tipped us to struggle and we will have already played Utd, City and Chelsea, and gone away to two of our bogey grounds.

At the very least he should be hauled in front of the PGMOL and made to explain the thought process behind his decision, because it appears that he didn't apply the rule about 'clear and obvious error' correctly.

Interesting that even the MOTD analysts concluded that Redmond is rubbish at choosing the right option when he gets in or near the box. They highlighted a couple of moments where he wasted a good attack which, on repeat viewing, look even worse than they did at the time. If it's a confidence issue then he really needs to engage with a sports psychologist.

Well blow me down - I think this might be the first time I've ever seen you agree with someone on this forum! Yes it does, but they were very much on an upward momentum curve at that point. despite being a division higher this time, they're still on the way down again following their relegation last season and they've not made a brilliant start to their league campaign. As long as we play a strong enough team, we should beat them with ease this time.

So we've emerged from the tricky first 5 fixtures with more points than many expected, and after our disappointing capitulation against Everton on the first day we're starting to look like a team that is actually hard to beat. Our next seven look much more winnable than the first five did before the season started, with the exception of a trip to Chelsea. Although, given we just went to the Etihad and Made City look ordinary, I wouldn't put it past us to get something at Stamford Bridge as well. Wolves (H) Chelsea (A) Leeds (H) Burnley (H) Watford (A) Villa (H) Norwich (A) 3 wins and 2 draws from that lot - which I think is more than achievable given our current performance levels - would put us onto 18 points after 12 games. After that we've got consecutive home games against Liverpool and Leicester, then another four games where we would hope/expect to get points from - Brighton and Brentford at home and Arsenal and Palace away. 2 wins and 2 draws from all them (again - achievable) would put us on 26 points as we reach the half way point of the season. I'm actually feeling pretty positive right now.

Looks like we have become hard to beat, after we were so easy to beat in the second half of last season. We've already played 3 of the current top 4, and only lost one of those games, as well as holding our own against a very good WH team, and getting a late equaliser (something we were incapable of last season) at Newcastle where we would usually lose. Just got to hope we can find our scoring boots in the more winnable games coming up, of which there are a few between now and the end of Nov. 2 or 3 wins out of those and we can head into the Xmas period in a healthy position.