Simon3737

I think that’s a very good point about players approaching 30 not suiting the high press style. I always think the fascinating thing about Lallana is that he came through the Academy and was older than Walcott, Bale and The Ox and saw them become first team regulars and then get big money moves before him. I suspect that jealousy has affected his attitude. He’s still a great player though, but needs to swallow his pride and move to a smaller club now. If he gets the right attitude, I’d imagine the fact he was a late developer (and doesn’t rely on pace either) will mean he can physically cope with playing at a high standard longer than most, to 35 or so. I won’t hold my breath on him improving his attitude though!

I was pleased we got Strachan at the time. He’d kept Coventry up for 4 seasons in a row before they eventually got relegated. Coventry and Saints were the two teams back then who used to just about survive every season, with one of us usually finishing 17th. We wanted a manager to keep us up, he’d kept a similar team up 4 times out of 5. Great appointment!

I think we should realistically be able to get 10-12 points from those fixtures (to end up on 36-38). I’d guess that will be enough to stay up this season (last day nerves though). If we keep on playing like yesterday, I think we should break the 40 point barrier and be safe before the last day. However, if we go back to playing as negatively as we did until a few weeks ago though, we’ll struggle to get 4 more points IMHO.

I accidentally posted this on the wrong thread yesterday.... I think that’s the best we’ve played all season and the result flattered West Brom. I reckon Mr Gao turned up in a Saints tracksuit at the dressing room this morning and picked that team. There’s is nothing in Pellegrino’s Saints history to suggest he would of picked such a balanced and positive team. I think Hojbjerg was very unlucky to be dropped but I’m not sure I’d have risked dropping Romeu instead to fit Lemina in (and I wouldn’t play all 3 together at the expense of an attacking player - except away to a top 6 team). I think the 11 who started today plus Hojbjerg, Gabbiadini and Austin are the only players we should consider starting with when everyone is fit. Let’s not get over-excited though. If we’d lost both West Brom games by 1 goal rather than winning them both, we’d swap places with them and be 20th on 20 points.

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I think that’s the best we’ve played all season and the result flattered West Brom. I reckon Mr Gao turned up in a Saints tracksuit at the dressing room this morning and picked that team. There’s is nothing in Pellegrino’s Saints history to suggest he would of picked such a balanced and positive team. I think Hojbjerg was very unlucky to be dropped but I’m not sure I’d have risked dropping Romeu instead to fit Lemina in (and I wouldn’t play all 3 together at the expense of an attacking player - except away to a top 6 team). I think the 11 who started today plus Hojbjerg, Gabbiadini and Austin are the only players we should consider starting with when everyone is fit. Let’s not get over-excited though. If we’d lost both West Brom games by 1 goal rather than winning them both, we’d swap places with them and be 20th on 20 points.

Wishing to get Gao out is utterly futile. It would be as much use standing at the Bargate with “Trump Out” banners. We don’t have a vote. We have no say in who owns our club. We’re not a PLC. Better to try and persuade Mr Gao that his club has great assets (playing squad, stadium, training ground) but has been badly managed since 2016 and needs radical change (new CEO, Director of Football, Academy Manager and, obviously, First Team Manager). IMHO the best way fans can influence Mr Gao to act now is for non-season ticket holders to stop buying match day tickets and for home fans with season tickets (or day tickets already bought) to boycott all purchases inside the stadium (food, drink, programmes etc) and boycott the club shop etc. Such actions would hit him in the pocket and (if fans advertise their financial boycotts on social media etc) will worry the club’s sponsors and partners (and they do have influence on him!).

IMHO: -----------------------------McCarthy--------------------------- Cedric------------Stephens---------Hoedt------------Bertrand --------------------Romeu---------Hojbjerg-------------------- --Ward-Prowse----------------------------------------Tadic---- -----------------------Gabbiadini/Boufal------------------------ ----------------------------Carrillo------------------------------- I expect what Pellegrino will actually do is recall Redmond and Forster (just for giggles) and we’ll lose 4-1, but he’ll be delighted as we had 58% possession (and say West Brom are a very good team with very good players and there’s only a small number of points between 8-10 teams etc etc, blah blah blah).

Exactly this! Perfect metaphor for his fear football.

His tactics were certainly niche Maybe the new “5 Pedges Southampton Way” is about moving on from old fashioned managers focussed on getting 3 points, avoiding relegation, entertaining fans, blah blah blah... Pellegrino doesn’t think that way. He’s an innovator looking for “interesting possibilities”. We had 66% possession tonight. Let’s focus on that! Whoop whoop!

Yes please!

Even if we stay up, I don’t want him to be allowed to bring in the players he wants! I don’t want us to buy players next summer who suit Pellegrino’s boring football. The reason I agreed with Puel being sacked was because I didn’t want his cautious football to becoming endemic, to become the next Southampton way. We currently have a squad suited to attacking passing football. If we stick with negative managers then in a couple of years our squad of players will all reflect that style and we’ll play like a Tony Pulis team, but with less success.

Listening to Pellegrino’s interview with Adam Blackmore doesn’t exactly inspire confidence does it. To paraphrase Gareth Southgate, we need Winston Churchill, but have instead got Iain Duncan Smith!

Are we sure it will Tadic on the right? Can Boufal play right? We need Tadic to stick on the left IMHO.

I’ve been impressed with McCarthy so far. He’s not amazing, but his proactiveness and confidence has improved our whole defence IMHO. Obviously, the results haven’t backed this up yet, but big improvement. I assume Forster is here for the long-term because of his contract/wages putting off realistic bids. I think he’s massively over-done his muscle build-up which is why he has become so slow and inflexible (he was hardly a speedy gymnast type before, but was much better than he is now). His confidence is clearly low too. I think reviving Forster will take a long-time, so I think we need another keeper (loan maybe) to back-up McCarthy. I’d be very worried if McCarthy got injured this season and Forster had to be recalled.

Morgan Schneiderlin was signed under Jan Poortvliet signing and he worked out pretty well! I hope this doesn’t mean the end of Gabbi though.

How long until we get the Jordan Sibley interrogation interview?

So far, his lawyers have agreed to “supporting colleagues” and “embracing change”, but they need more discussion about “valuing diversity”...

My understanding from an interview Les gave a few years ago is that the Black Box effectively generates a menu of players for the manager to pick from. Once a player is selected, Les goes off and talks to agents etc to see if a deal is achievable. I guess players with the wrong attributes or who are out of our price range/too old don’t get onto the menu - and end up at West Ham For example, when we signed Hoedt, I guess Pellegrino will have gone to Les and said he’d like a tall strong left-footed centre half and Les will have shown him maybe 6 possibilities to pick from (with loads of data, videos, scouting reports etc). That’s my understanding of how it’s supposed to work anyway.

Fraser Forster looks like a slower and bulkier version of that tall goalkeeper we signed from Celtic a few years ago!

I agree with this, but I do question why our fitness regime can’t be as good as Tottenham’s. We’re supposed to be experts at sports science with our top class training facilities etc and we have a young squad of gifted players. Our players aren’t as fit as they were under Pochettino and Koeman/Kluitenberg. Alek Gross seems to be failing to deliver the fitness levels we used to have IMHO.

Matt Oakley was a great player for us! Some people can’t see what players like Oakley, JWP and Steven Davis contribute, but we miss them when they don’t play - linking together the ball winners, the wide players and the forwards.

It does look like it! He came across very well in that interview I thought. I’m a big fan of MOTD2 having an intelligent discussion at the side of the pitch, rather than in a studio with fancy graphics etc.

It must be embarrassing to be a West Brom fan tonight. Failing to overtake the worst English Professional team in the form table! It’s not to late to sack Pellegrino before Spurs btw. Bound to cheer the players up (except Redmond) and give them some motivation that the worst is over.

Given that most of our current players current contracts were signed when we were consistently finishing top 8, I would hope their agents would have agreed to relegation pay cut clauses because they probably thought relegation wasn’t at all likely anyway. Let’s hope Les was sensible enough to insist on relegation clauses for everyone. My hunch is he will have been given his mantra about sustainability etc.