Dangermouth

Link to the Leicester site. Alternatively you can just read a thread from one of our matches from last year. Do you think we could persuade them to take MP so they have the whole package? https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/114118-west-ham-post-match-1-1/?page=4

Do you have a couple of free season tickets going spare then?

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I have to say I agree with this post in full. That's just to reinforce the point that I cannot see why anyone would not (that's about the whole of the post not just the MP bit).

Ditto. Cannot see why it was construed that way. I wonder why the players haven't bought into Pellegrino if he's so good? I wonder why we can't adapt to his 'philosophy' when several players have played under different coaches, in different teams, in different leagues, etc. I wonder quite how he wants us to play other than with one eye always on defence as the interview with Romeu said and working towards being able to shoot from the 18 yard line (Monk had a specific term for the coaching philosophy beginning with an 'r' in another post). I cannot see how and why this method is meant to win games (and, we hope, entertain). I cannot see why we persist with the same thing in a game until it is apparent it won't work and we throw VVD up front. That particular tactic, I think, should be considered as a black mark against a coach/manager and does indicate a complete absence of clues. There does seem to be no evidence at all that he actually a) is any good and b) is going to make us a Champions League-chasing team in any decade this millennium or c) is going to do anything at all.

Thank you x2. Any chance we could ship him over your way and see how his wheels fare on the snow and ice?

Think he should be allowed the game away at Man City. Would you want the new manager to have to pick up the reins before that game and prepare for it knowing the chances are that we'll lose?

Yeah, only saw the 2nd half too. McCarthy, not a lot of chance with the (very good) disallowed goal and the one that went in. His kicking looked poor and he panicked when he had to make them. Pied - mainly fast and strong, didn't always know what to do with the ball; looked like an adult playing with teenagers at times. Didn't think he was fouled for the 4th goal, just the feet came together. Didn't like getting beaten but their number 10 (one of two good players, the number 11 was good too) did try and take him on and showed him no respect. Liked that. Stephens. Coasted it mostly. Bednarek. Slow. Doesn't look especially comfortable, good or much good with the ball. McQueen. Ok. A bit disappointing. Think he should have looked to have imposed himself more so do now again wonder if he's quite up to first team level. PEH - not a lot really. JWP- same old. Tella - fast, quick feet, looks like he came from Arsenal. Afolabi - solid, didn't look too comfortable with the ball worryingly enough. Hesketh. Looks to have bulked up on his legs a bit. Looks for the forward ball often. Lacked in vision a bit, touch wasn't too great. Made things happen but still unconvinced by him. Barnes. Quite fast. Didn't do a lot. Does look as though he has potential though. Still needs to work on the decision-making. Thought overall they were the better team, played more fluid football, better touch. We just played it by numbers again with the exception of Hesketh who does try the right balls most of the time. Targett - went off injured which means, I think, that he gets injured every season. Might want to get rid if he's injury-prone.

I looked at the squads from 7th down as I think the top 6 range from quite a bit better than the rest to a lot better than the rest. Most teams seem to have at least 3 or 4 reasonable players and then a lot of quite mediocre ones. Overall, ignoring the possible fact that we have the worst keeper in the whole of the professional setup I tend to agree with those who say our squad on an individual and position basis is one of the better ones. I also think we play some of the worst ‘football’ that anyone does in our league. What I did was look not only at our fixtures until the end of the season but all the other teams and I think this league is starting to shape up like la Liga or the other leagues in that the mass of the teams down the bottom will scrap it out with each other and there will be quite a lot of teams on a very low points total. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a low total e.g. 35 perhaps a couple fewer points required to stay up. That said, I believe we will struggle a great deal to avoid relegation. Remember this is a team that isn’t used to being in a relegation fight and doesn’t really have the team, mentality, management for it and doesn’t have any ‘scrappers’. Playing ‘pretty’ (it isn’t, but ….) football isn’t what you want in those circumstances. One thing that stood out was some analysis from Charlie Nicholas. He said that when Austin came on for 2 or 3 minutes it looked like the change would have some effect but then MP waved Long out to go on the right and it was a case of ‘same old’. Now we all know that Long is in many ways ineffective, but is at his best when played through the middle and isn’t especially good when played down the wing. So why play him in a position where he’s not going to do any good? Another thing Nicholas said was what we’ve all seen. Saints simply continue to play the way they’re coached, Nicholas said as though we were playing in a training game. He then made the point that when the game changes so too must the team to take into account what has happened, but Saints don’t. That to me suggests the manager shouldn’t have a job because no manager should ever be unable to recognise the fluid nature of the game and that things have to adapt to what happens because it’s not a ****ing computer simulation.

Should have gone 2 years ago. Out, along with the old members of the board, Wilson, Black, Watson etc.

I'm a bit confused. Hoedt is good in the air but a bit slow. Wasn't Yoshida meant to play against the smaller, nippy attackers and Hoedt against the big centre-forwards?

I don't think much has changed on the surface but I do think Saints do see VVD now as a saleable asset, are aware of the January premium and that other teams e.g. Chelsea might very well want to bring him in if they think he might help them get closer to Man City. I do see Man Utd in that even if they don't especially rate him because they do need in some way to be seen to be doing something and chasing down Man City and because Lindegaard (is it?) hasn't really flourished. That said, they do still have reasonable options in what they have already but if Bertie goes as well (unlikely I think) then it might make the chance of Shaw returning greater. That said, I think the fact that the club let him go so readily so early on even though he had kicked up a fuss suggests that they were happy to see him go and don't see a need for him back. I think we all agree that VVD won't be a Saints player at this time next year.

Thanks SKD and Kingsland. I know someone who coaches a team and his opinion was that the more technical of his players are in some way not too far off what a professional can do but with a couple of huge caveats which you mention: the physical side, speed strength and the ability to do what they do at that speed which from those highlights was several times what the amateur team could do but they could e.g. do stepovers, dragbacks, half-volleys, dummies (occasionally) etc so the amateur teams do possess skill and to some extent the mental side. He's said there are a lot of good players who just don't/won't knuckle down or prefer booze or whatever so they rapidly lose any chance they have of maybe getting somewhere. He is a Manc too and very into football so I do tend to take on board a lot of what he says. What was apparent from the highlights was how the Saints youth just kept making such good runs and stretching a disorganised opposition and how e.g. Barnes just made it look as though the opposition were playing in treacle and even though he's only about 20 how physically imposing he was.

For those of us who used to play but don't know how the leagues there now work, what standard are/were the teams they played relative to e.g. the old Wessex League/Hampshire League teams and how good overall were the opposition? I saw the highlights but the team in yellow just looked like a kids'/teenagers' team and obviously not at the races physically.

Ok. Fair enough.

He and the other poster predicate their argument solely on the past. You've added another factor so changed the basis for the argument and are talking about a potential future possiblity so with that in mind your argument might be valid but it's based on a what if. I think the Norwich fans probably felt his dependence on solidity over anything else hampered them and it does seem to be a recurring theme with his preferred style of how his teams play and I agree Hughton's too defensive. He was at Newcastle too, I seem to recollect somewhat vaguely. The better question or comment might be "What constitutes a chance and a good chance?". Did Warnock get a good chance? Did Adkins? And then it's the case that do results in other leagues and competitions matter given that the PL is seen by some to be an extraordinary league. The other comment revolves around a chance with a solid team. If Newcastle weren't, who were?

Thanks for that; never watched his goals highlights before. It's clear he heads the ball well, looks for and knows where the goal is all the time, is calm when he's on goal, can react to events quickly, reads the game well in the 6 yard box and can create space, is strong and fast when he has the goal in his sights. That makes him unique among the rest of our squad. I think he does need a proper run: has he ever had one with us? Yes, he has had injuries that have kept him out for a long time but if he hasn't had a run, ten minutes here and there is no good (for anyone). Out of our forwards those who you might expect to score with any frequency we have Austin, some way behind Gabbiadini, and no-one. That includes the attacking mids. Someone said Pellegrino has said he is good when the game is 'chaotic'. The game has to be chaotic in the final third: that's when the opposition are not set up; and against a set defence of 8 or 9 who is going to find it easy to find space even if the ball is played into them properly? If that quote from MP is right then he's in the wrong league and probably should give up coaching: this isn't football manager, the game and it's not the case that if you play the same ball from player A to player B statistically you will score with 33% of the correctly-hit shots (which seems to be how MP seems to view football) because the opposition put bodies in the way or player A is Cedric and player B is Long (so good luck with that). I agree we should play him or move him on as it doesn't help anyone but I'd rather play him and move MP on (at this rate). While it won't be a case of Allardyce coming in I bet he could get the team to play to CA's strengths. I also don't think he'd turn us into a 'long-ball' team cause we don't have anywhere near enough of that type of player to play it.

Highlights of the goals on the SFC website show a game played at a quarter pace. As to whether or not JBS' grandad is right or not, it looks like we played more of our first team squad/international standard players whereas they played some of their first team and a few people who fancied a kickabout.

Right. Let’s explain the RAWK graph a bit. Longish post. Divide the division into three: those you expect to be your direct competitors, those you expect to be in no-man’s land, and those you expect to prop up the table. In our case we’re in the middle so it’s a case of better teams, similar teams, worse teams. You decide this simply by taking the final position of the team at the end of the season. This means that in 2 years we have gone from the top group to the middle group and (now) potentially to the bottom group so there is a slide already evident. Now you expect to win your home games against your competitors and teams against you so doing so gets you 3 points but against your expected outcome you come up as a par result. You expect to either lose or draw against the better teams. Let’s say it’s lose to keep it simple. So we would expect from our home games to get 0 x 6 against the top 6 and 13 x 3 = 39 against the rest. Away games we expect to lose against the top 2 groups but win against the lower group. So we get 7 x 3 = 21 points. In total, 60. And that’s not a particularly good season. Then you compare results on a like for like basis e.g. expected win against Watford = 0 against actual result = -3 points. Then you take into account the teams we’ve played and who we have to play and simply see how many expected points we get. Promoted teams replace those relegated so they automatically fall into the worst group. So we play (remaining games only) and expect to get: Man City – expect 0 points Man Utd – 0 points Spurs – 0 points Chelsea – 0 points Liverpool – 0 points Arsenal – 0 points Burnley – 3 points (remember it’s based on where they finished last season) Brighton – 3 points Watford – 3 points Huddersfield – 3 points Newcastle – 3 points Leicester – 3 points Stoke – 3 points Everton – 3 points WBA – 0 points Bournemouth – 3 points (remember they finished on the same points as us last season) West Ham – 0 points Swansea – 3 points Crystal Palace – 3 points Total 33 points which takes us to 46 points (same as last season) but we are likely to struggle at Newcastle away, Burnley away, Swansea away at least. This could take us down to 39 points assuming we still win those games we ‘expect to’. Now the point of the lines is to take it that 48 points should guarantee safety but the lower line is likely to be the realistic points total required to reach safety. This will change like Redslo’s points total calculations that he used to post before his job took off but we are on course for a difficult season if we can only match what we ‘expect’ to based on the above. It can change if we win a couple of away games or get a few unexpected points but we’ve already dropped points e.g. Swansea home – dropped 2 points Huddersfield away – dropped 2 points Watford - dropped 3 points Man Utd – par (expected loss against a top 6 side) Stoke – par (expected away loss against a direct competitor) Newcastle – dropped 2 points West Brom – par (expected home win) Brighton – dropped 2 points Burnley – dropped 3 points Total dropped points vs expected based on the above = 14. And again, that’s par, not a good season.

Nicked from RAWK, so thank them if they come knocking: a bit like what Minsk does but a bit better (sorry Minsk). It's the graph at the bottom of the page.

Fans of MK Dons say he reminds them of (I think it was Will) Grigg. Good movement, good pace, eye for a goal, has a good first touch.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11661/11118286/sky-sports-study-reveals-dangerous-months-for-premier-league-managers-to-face-sack We should obvs sack mope to make sure we stay top of the league.

Water makes the teal darker. You can see it's raining in the background unless the PR team decided to 'get creative'.

Where? Southampton. When? When either Cortese left and his work began to unravel or when Les Reed's obvious limitations became more apparent. Despite what those who defend him say the success is probably very little down to him and more down to a large number of factors including luck e.g. had we not had Koeman would we have been able to attract Mane in the first place? He wasn't that keen on us as he did apparently look to move on and up after his first year with us and moved pretty damn quick at the end of the second i.e. we gave him his shop window. Unlike VVD, however, he made the most of it.

Thing I've noticed with Redmond is that as well as being a bit slow mentally, his feet are always wrong, his body position is wrong: he's too much on to facing the ball; he has to take a number of touches rather than knowing what he wants to do before he gets the ball, his head is down and his decision-making is a bit crap; he can't adapt to what happens around him unlike e.g. Boufal.