Midfield_General

Good, balanced article - difficult to disagree with the points made, really.

All huff and puff. Zero quality. When we do manage to carve out a chance we can't take it. Feel for Lyanco being played out of position but he doesn't have the quality on the ball to play where he was put today. More points lost against an average side. Way too many passengers contributing nothing - Aribo, AMN, Elyonoussi, Diallo. We've had a half decent little spell but that was normal service resumed. Only real positive is that a few other results went our way.

Just stick JWP on Zaha, wait for him to lose his shit and get sent off, and then cruise home to a comfortable victory against the 10 men

I’m going to give Ralph some credit. We were getting overrun in the first 20 minutes and he acted quickly and changed it, something he often gets accused of being unable to do. We looked like a different side after we went to the back five and he should be applauded for decisively making that change. Fantastic to see the battling and shithousery today - Lyanco, Caleta-Carr, Perraud and Ely all fought for absolutely everything and bullied their men throughout. DCC was a bit lucky not to get penalised but hey, is football. Shout out too for Bazunu who made some more vital saves to keep us in the game. He’s growing with every match he plays. Too early to say whether we’ve turned a corner but we’re grinding out some results now which is great to see, especially with the shocking injury list. Edozie definitely looks like he’ll have a contribution to make. Our goal was a lovely bit of football. Great to have plenty of positives to focus on. Well done lads.

Well if he's pregnant too then fair play, bench him

What's that formation then? 5 - 3 - 2 with Ely at RWB, three in midfield and Aribo up top with AArmstrong? Or a 4 - 2 - 3 - 1 like the BBC have got it, with DCC at RB?

But fit enough for the bench? So it's the sort of hamstring injury that's fine for 20 minutes at the end. Nothing he does makes sense anymore. He's so obtuse, he's doing my head in. (Cue sensational win out of nothing to make me look stupid)

Someone posted some Stoke fans’ reactions to Smallbone and it was… not good. They’re not sure what he is. It was a while back though so not sure how much he’s played since then or whether their view of him has improved.

Ulrich van Gobbel. Souness had previously signed him for Galatasaray and thought enough of him to sign him again for Saints for £1.3m, which was a big fee for us at the time. One of the quickest players in the league, but unfortunately that proved to be pretty much his only attribute. Later to be added to the pantheon of Saints players who’ve had a spot of bother with the law, after getting convicted for renting cars and then selling them.

The lack of balance in our squad, and that team, is embarrassing. I really hope we can scratch something out today but just look at it - a winger at defensive mid and two players who couldn’t get on the pitch last season now apparently mainstays of the team. Apart from the back five it’s just pulling names and positions out of a hat. It’s all over the place.

I admire your optimism @trousersbut did you honestly think Theo was going to be good second time round? He’d already been a busted flush for years. Everton fans couldn’t wait to get rid. I honestly think that putting him on a two year deal, on the money’s he’s on, is up there with some of the worst dealings that we’ve ever done in the transfer market. And that’s not just with the gift of retrospect - he was done when we signed him. It was such a negligent deal for a club with the financial constraints that we have. Like it was just done on a whim with no due diligence or common sense at all. Madness.

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Who's that I spy making a cameo appearance down in the bottom right corner of that picture? It's the lesser spotted Mr Spirit-Of-Southampton-Scarves-For-Arms-Squiggle-For-A-Body-Alternative-Club-Badge-Man! He's been discussed before, but very rarely seen in the wild. A collector's item indeed.

I have to say, I don't remember watching Kelvin Davis, Danny Fox, Jos Hooiveld, Dean Hammond, Richard Chaplow, Jason Puncheon, Billy Sharp and Guly hoisting aloft the Champion's League trophy or the PL. Playing international football at some point in your career also isn't really a particularly high benchmark, especially if you're from one of the smaller nations. And none of the players you're presumably referring to were at international level at that point either. Schneiderlin, Fonte and Shaw didn't get called up for their countries until two years later, in line with their development. Ward-Prowse didn't get capped until 2017. Lallana and maybe Lambert were the only ones who were really close to that level at that point, and even then it was another year before either of them got called up. The rest, while undoubtedly talented and with a lot of potential, were still very much a work in progress when Adkins was managing them. It's not like we were buying full internationals when we were in the Championship. Loads of players from other clubs who have gone on to play international football will have played in the Championship as youngsters at some point as well, that's not unusual at all.

Lavia's injured, unfortunately...

I suspect Blackmore has a personal relationship with Ralph/ Semmens that pre-dates Sports Republic. It’s mutually beneficial. Ralph and Semmens give Blackmore first dibs on the info that they are happy to share, which keeps him relevant, and in return Blackmore takes the soft soap approach, takes their side and rarely asks them difficult questions. So if Ralph and/ or Semmens go, it weakens Blackmore’s position as he doesn’t have that same relationship with SR, and the next guy may not want to have the same relationship with him. Hence, it’s in Blackmore’s interests to defend Ralph and Semmens and try to keep the status quo in place for as long as possible.

I like to read that as Salisu, JWP and Perraud as three goalkeepers, with McCarthy offering selfless running and hold-up play as the lone striker. it’s the last thing they’ll be expecting (taps nose)

Which is mystifying, given that - as also discussed on another thread - AMN isn’t a defensive midfielder, never has been, and sees himself as a winger. When we’re signing wingers to do the dirty work at defensive mid it’s no wonder our midfield is in the shitter. Might as give Theo a go there, why not, let’s try and get our money’s worth for that seventy grand a week or whatever ridiculous deal it was that he was given.

Gosh, that's a surprise

Nicky Banger. Hat trick on his debut in the league cup. Fair to say that was the highlight of his career.

Serious question. Ralph’s under a lot of pressure at the moment for our poor form, but if you were him, what would you change to try and save your job? Has to be within the confines of what is actually possible given the players we have in the squad, Livramento and Lavia being out injured, the fact that the window is closed, etc. What do you think he could realistically do with the resources available to him that might help us get results against West Ham and Bournemouth? (And ‘resign’ doesn’t count!)

Preferring 6 points to 3 - it’s innovative thinking but it might just work (Just joking 😉 - I know what you meant)

The problem there though is that AMN isn’t an out and out defensive midfielder and never has been. He’s certainly not a specialist like Romeu was. AMN has said that he considers his best position to be as a winger. So when Lavia is out, because JWP or Diallo aren’t that player either despite how much we seem to want to pretend they are, we have no other proper ‘destroyer’ type defensive midfielders at all. AMN won’t solve that. And that’s one of the reasons our midfield is so ineffective at the moment - the balance is all wrong. Plus, Romeu could receive the ball, protect it and play out successfully from tight situations, which none of the others can do as well as he did. So we’ve lost that element of ball retention too. Our midfield and attack are just a mess at the moment, which is why we’re so poor.

We’ve got a goalkeeping coach. Andrew Sparkes.

This is bullshit. No attacking intent whatsoever. (I'm joking of course. If we can shithouse and timewaste our way to a 0-3 or 0-4 I'll be absolutely delighted).