saintant

Most of it seems quite rational to me.

Shouldn't come down to hoping for the best. We should be putting sides like Huddersfield to the sword.

Poor tactics. I'm afraid this is at RM's door. We should be beating Huddersfield when leading.

Think the point is we should be doing it far more often.

Shouldn't be. We ought to have enough to manage the end of this game comfortably and probably should have gone for the jugular rather than find ourselves here.

Not a fan of the triple sub tbh.

Hope they don't level it up and RM then throws Stewart on. Be proactive not reactive.

Time to stop pussyfooting around and make the game safe.

Time for RM to make a clever tactical switch to take back control and finish them off. This is where managers earn their corn.

Let's hope so!

Let's try to spark this game into life by stating it's shaping up to be a scrappy nil-nil draw.

Without Jude Bellingham we looked very ordinary tonight.

How does Rashford stay on? Crazy.

What is the point of Rashford on England's left? All he has done so far is either give simple passes back to our defenders or lose the ball when he tries to take someone on.

Yeah, I think we'd be better starting Fraser and bring Sulemana off the bench when opponents are tiring. Sulemana is still very raw whereas Fraser is a wily seasoned campaigner who is often involved in our goals and has scored a couple from only limited time on the pitch. Time to give him a run in the side as a first pick.

Don't agree - at that time we were just playing a bad system that saw KWP playing almost as a midfielder in a bid to emulate Man City. It clearly did not work and we have been much tighter since we ditched it.

I agree with you. I've been following Saints for a long time and the best sides we've had always went for the jugular after scoring a goal. We used to put teams under the cosh, put them under immense pressure and the crowd would roar the team on baying for another goal and it quite often came. I don't understand the idea of taking your foot off the gas because you miss the chance to apply pressure and end up letting the opposition back in. We have always looked a better team when trying to get at opponents and have never been that great at keeping it tight.

Looked like Bartley could have been offside when the first West Brom player headed the ball but not conclusive.

Yeah, I suspect he was brought on to add some height when defending corners and free-kicks more than anything. Still every minute on the pitch is good for his come back from serious injury.

He didn't get long but how did Stewart do?

Unbeaten in 8 games and a 20 points haul. We are one of the form teams so hope we can maintain the run after the break. Well done to RM and the players!

They were always going to make this a tough game but they only had one effort on target which was their goal. Was never going to be an easy game and the 3 points are more important than the performance.

Great result. No surprise they made us work hard for it but I think we restricted them to one chance on target if the stats are correct so we probably deserved to shade. it. Tough game out of the way with a weakened defence and we go into the break in a good place. Chance to give Stewart more time on the training ground. I think we go into an easier run of fixtures too plus both Leicester and Ipswich have stumbled lately. COYR!

Maybe the thought is to add more height to help the defence at set pieces.

Busy typing this as we score🙂