Midfield_General

2-0 Whole team holding a high line to defend a free kick, one simple pass splits it in behind as they all stand and watch. Defensively they're a shambles, again.

1-0 down after 6 minutes First shot on goal

Never understood why we don’t leave at least one player up on the halfway line when the opposition have a corner, especially if we’re winning or trying to close out a game. It not only gives you an out ball and a chance of scoring on the counter as they crowd into the box looking for an equaliser, but can also actually make it easier to defend the corner as they need to leave at least one person back to mark the attacker loitering up the pitch. At the very least it gives them something to think about rather than just letting them pile everyone in there. We’ve been done like that countless times from our own corners but we never seem do it to other teams. We always have all 11 back in our own box which just invites pressure and sees the ball come straight back even if you initially get it clear from the corner. Armstrong would be perfect for that role because he’s quick and it’s not like he’s going to be much use defending a corner anyway.

Was on a flight so missed the whole thing. Switched on phone at Gatwick and feared the worst when all the messages started pinging up ‘here we go again’ etc but delighted to see the final score and that we managed to win ugly, something it feels we haven’t been able to do for years. By the end of the season I think three points away at Sheffield United will look like a very decent result as Wilder will get them back into play-off contention. Also feels like a first XI is slowly starting to emerge from the shadows, though not quite there yet. Great to see Macca, Wood, Jander and Stewart look like they are starting to cement their places and settle the spine down which has been a mess. Pleased for Still to get the win too, you can see how much it means to him. He’s still learning but I like him and I have a sneaking feeling he’s going to go on to be a popular manager for us in the Adkins mould. Brilliant strike by Roscoe, absolutely delighted for him. But Jesus Christ, can someone have a word with him about doing that flying knee slide celebration? His knees are held together by fairy’s tears and regret, is he mad?

Totally agree with all that, but even trying to win a cup is openly rigged towards the ‘big clubs’ now with farces like the seeding of the league cup draw so the big boys can’t play each other and it’s arranged so they all get to play a club with vastly inferior resources and can knock them all out. The league cup for fucks sake, the one competition you might think they might let us have a go at winning but no, can’t have that can we. Every single regulatory force in football seems hell bent on making every single competition as uncompetitive as possible with only a handful of clubs permitted to have a chance of winning anything. And what’s the point in football without competition? It’s fucked. Edit: sorry for the rant, forgot this was meant to be about Will Still. Give him some time. The other side of Christmas at least. We can’t just keep sacking managers. Personally I think he’ll probably get us into the play-offs if he’s allowed to get on with it.

I think Charlie Austin falls out with a lot of people because he is - and let’s be completely fair to him - an absolute fucking weapon

Go on…

You nailed it when you said that when it really comes down to it, he doesn’t even trust it himself. Everything he says is bullshit, and he knows it. It’s pure self-serving vanity for him and him alone, nothing else. Never seen anything like it.

That is literally what happened. When he really needed a result to save his skin he ditched his ‘principles’ yet again and just threw as much shit at the wall as he could. No shape, no structure, no tactics. And it’s what scraped him the 94th minute win against a newly promoted side. Astounding.

Try this one mate https://sports-com.com/game/Southampton-vs-Middlesbrough.php WARNING: Contains Jo Tessem

You need both to properly compete. We neglected both.

George Long is cat shit

I don’t blame him for how shit he is. I blame the incompetents who spent €8m on him. He’ll be bombed out by Christmas and will spend the rest of his contract out on loan to the Salt Lake City Wildcats or some other MLS shit, never to be heard of again.

I know what you mean but I hope it indicates that he won’t tolerate second best and is showing the players that in no uncertain terms. For way too long there has been a losing mentality at the club and mediocrity has been accepted at every level. If he is going to be the one that says ‘no, I don’t care who we’re playing, that’s not good enough’ and shakes things up so that every player feels like they have to be at the top of their game to stay in the side, then that’s fine with me. No more acceptance of the basic errors and sloppiness that have plagued us for seasons now. Shape up or you’re out of the team, whether it’s against Northampton reserves or Liverpool at Anfield.

Plus he was very honest when he joined and said he doesn’t enjoy the aspect of being in front of the cameras, doesn’t think he’s naturally very good at it, and feels awkward doing it. He’s a training ground guy rather than a polished spin merchant. I personally find his honesty and unwillingness to bullshit an absolute breath of fresh air after the gaslighting and bollocks of you know who after every defeat where he’d tell you black was white and come out with shit like how winning isn’t everything. I’m glad he hates to lose.

So our most effective forward line looks like it's Scienza (5 foot 7), Armstrong (5 foot 6) and Archer (5 foot 7). UNLEASH THE DWARF ARMY

Sorry, but the transfer window can’t be judged as anything other than a disaster. £60m spent while leaving glaring weaknesses in the three most important positions on the pitch - GK, CB and CF - that any fan in the street could have told you needed to be sorted first is staggering incompetence. We’re only a few games in but that triple fuck up has already cost us numerous points and from what we’ve seen so far I’d say it’s already cost us our best shot at automatic promotion this season because we are just going to drop too many points by not being able to score goals at one end or keep them out at the other. That is a basic, fundamental error of squad planning, and despite spending more money than most in this division could dream of, the club has managed to royally fuck it up, yet again. It’s a joke.

Interesting when he was talking about that the three striker options he called out were Archer, Armstrong and Stewart, saying they all like to play in a similar way which is to peel off the last man. Also quite bluntly said “I’m not blind, I can see pumping it up to Archer in the air won’t work” or words to that effect, which was at least good to hear. So I take two things from that: 1. He obviously does want the ball played along the ground and into space behind, so he needs to get the players to start responding to that and properly coached not to do the hoof they were doing on Sunday, and… 2. Damion Downs wasn’t mentioned. I think he is very firmly 4th choice CF at the moment and if we play 4-2-3-1 again on Saturday I doubt he’ll even make the bench again. I don’t think Still fancies him now he’s seen him, and if Quarshie is also left out of the squad again then that is not a great indictment of our summer recruitment in two key positions.

Interested to see how that terrified, Buddy the Elf looking motherfucker they brought on to replace him gets on over the next 12 weeks against teams who actually take shots against him. We should have been raining down on him from every angle and distance.

Yeah, he doesn't play for us anymore, and even when he did, he was strangely not that strong or great in the air despite being 6 foot 8 or whatever he was. Plus we hardly ever seemed to put any crosses in for him. Why is it seemingly so hard for us to apply the basic common sense principles: - If we're going to play long balls forward in the air and/ or lots of aerial crosses: need to do it to a big strong CF who can win a battle and a header. - If we're going to play through balls and play off the shoulder: need to do it along the ground to someone quick with good feet who can run in behind and finish. Last season we played Tall Paul then never crossed it to him, and this season we've played teeny tiny Adam Armstrong or Cam Archer and then hoofed long high balls and crosses up to them. Your average non-league manager would coach their team to play to these obvious basic strengths, yet we've had a succession of managers who don't seem to be able to do it. It's bizarre.

What concerns me is that after something like £68m net spend in the last window we don't have a single striker who can provide a proper physical presence and bully defenders. Not one. It's going to make us very one-dimensional and easy to play against, because from the off teams are going to know what we're going to try and do, and we're not going to have any way of switching it up if it's not working. Said it before but the money spent on Downs should have been spent on a more physically imposing, target man type who can beat people up, back in and win a header or physical battle. Even if they were cheap and weren't considered a starter, it would mean we could change it up and cause a bit of havoc off the bench if we needed to. You need options. But all our strikers are either dwarves or wispy weaklings who get brushed off the ball and offer nothing in the air. I think neglecting to bring in any sort of strong physical presence up front is our single biggest mistake of the window, and it's going to cost us.

More likely to be Jander IMO as Still clearly wasn’t too bothered about what he’s seen of Aribo so far if he was ready to ship him out. Might see him later in the season though if he’s still here once injuries and suspension start to kick in. Which wouldn’t be a disaster as I think he’s a perfectly decent player at this level and can at least hold the ball and pick a pass. I just think he’s a bit languid and maybe doesn’t appear to run enough for the high-energy approach that Still says he wants, hence in a massive squad that needed reducing he was one he was prepared to lose. Also one of the bigger earners by all accounts which was probably another factor.

Yeah the time wasting at the beginning was part of their game plan but was more about killing the atmosphere than playing for a 0-0 for the whole game. First thing you do if you’re away in a derby with a noisy, highly charged home crowd is try to kill that atmosphere and level things up. Don’t concede early, and if you time waste and slow everything down it slowly sucks the life out of the home crowd and everything calms down. Then you build on that. Which is exactly what they did for the first half, and it worked, ably assisted by how crap we were and unable to string two passes together.

Che was far from perfect but scored 16 for us in the last season he played in the Championship. Do you honestly think Downs is getting 16 for us this season, based on what we’ve seen so far and him not even making the bench at the weekend?

Yeah, Martin was 3 managers ago. For all his faults, there’s only so long you can blame the man. Time to move on.