team-saint

2 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

 I just don't know where he fits. It feels like we've moved on from him as a squad.

If it's a choice between attacking reinforcements and JWP I'd almost certainly float to the attacking reinforcements.

Does Ward-Prowse not count as an attacking reinforcement? He's not a striker obviously, but has an average of 8.5 PL goals per season over the last four years - it wouldn't surprise me if none of our forwards got that many this year.

I expect my season ticket price to increase by about 50% as a result of this, which I suppose clouds my judgement, but even so, this is a significant disruption to a high proportion of fans in the pursuit of highly uncertain benefits. It stinks frankly

Whatever you think of his all around game and leadership, the fact is we are losing one of the best players in the division, who would probably have scored 15 goals this season. Finding someone who can replace those goals is going to be incredibly difficult

20 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Among the usual "I'm too good to play in the Championship" guff you always get from players in relegated teams, Alcaraz is one of the few in Saints' squad for whom that is true. ( Others being JWP and Lavia ).

I'm a big fan of Charly but I don't agree with this at the moment. His positives are that he scores goals and tries to make things happen. However, he gives the ball away constantly, often in dangerous areas, he doesn't track back enough, he's rash, he can't last 90 minutes. He'd do well somewhere like Brighton but he would be in and out of the team. Much better for his development to play a full season in the Championship, probably score loads of goals, and then if we don't go up he will obviously move on.

31 minutes ago, beatlesaint said:

How can he say he’s been compromised by listening to too many people then say he’s taken no notice of outside sources?

isn’t that a complete contradiction?

He does this in almost every interview, sometimes within the same sentence

Trying to understand what he's on about is almost as hard as trying to understand what the players are meant to be doing on the pitch

I am an actual gay and this shirt is probably one of the most cringeworthy things I've ever seen 🤦‍♂️

Thought he was very good in the first half of the season

Not a natural goalscorer but very good at holding the ball. Does the Long role much better than Long ever did

Form has gone downhill since Christmas along with the rest of the team

Ings is at a higher level than Lambert reached with us, but probably has a way to go to reach the legend status of SRL

Lambert had a pretty good career but I can't help but wonder how much more he could have achieved if he got fitter earlier in his career and was playing at the top level before he reached 30! Ings has already surpassed his PL goals and will probably do the same at international level soon

3 hours ago, skintsaint said:

Jeez that WBA game we had Hoedt, Lemina and Carillo on the pitch and still won 😄

There were two games away to West Brom around that time, one in the cup and one in the league, and we won them both with Carillo starting!

Gross was really good in his first season at Brighton, but seems to have faded in the two seasons since. Anyone know what's happened there? Can a player who can't get in the team at Brighton really come and improve us?

Almost all of this has been true for years and yet in the past we have had good home form, for example:

2013-14: W8 D6 L5 F32 A23

2014-15: W11 D4 L4 F37 A13

2015-16: W11 D3 L5 F39 A22

It is basically just the players and management that have got worse

Vest + Yoshi is clearly going to be the best partnership

Some posters seem to have not really considered that Yoshi has improved a lot since he was first with us. He still has the odd mistake, yes, and can get bullied a bit against bigger strikers, but he is pretty reliable now and one of our most experienced players, plus now at around the peak age for a CB. Should be one of the first names on the team sheet and the captain in my view

Hoedt can be awful at times and Stephens switches off too much and gets dominated in the air. But both are still young and need to be playing alongside someone more experienced

Bednarek showed promise at the end of last season but seems to get done for pace too easily and is young. We need to see more of him at some point

Hoedt and Stephens is one of the most painful Cb pairings I've ever seen. Why the **** is Yosh on the bench

Reckon it will be a 4-2-3-1 with Ings playing as a 10

I thought he did really well last season and I'm surprised Hughes hasn't used him more.

Seemed as if we had finally found his best position as well, playing on the right. He isn't the quickest, but he makes up for that with his delivery and close control

https://www.footballfancast.com/premier-league/southampton/southampton-must-try-and-sign-lucas-moura-if-tottenham-buy-wilfried-zaha

 

More of an opinion piece, but interesting nonetheless.

That was one of the strangest football articles I have ever read

Last summer a lot of experts on here decided that Stephens was better than Yoshida!

Do wonder what it'd take for JWP to get in some people's teams. In a dire season of mass underperformance by good players, gross mismanagement, he's still been one of the better players. He isn't all set pieces, he's a decent passer and can chip in with the odd goal. If you're a side struggling for goals, with such fine margins, he needs to be in there

Quite right. In 2018 he has made 8 appearances, scored four goals and got three assists. We know his limitations as a player but he should be the first name on the teamsheet with those stats!

Go back a couple of years to threads on this forum about who we should buy and most people looked at our team and said the one thing we were missing was a top central attacking midfield player, someone in the mould of Eriksen. We haven't signed that player but moreover over the last three years we have lost Schneiderlin, Clyne, Alderweireld (okay he was only on loan), Wanyama, Mane, Pelle, Fonte and Van Dijk and while we have made some good signings since then (Romeu, Cedric, Austin, Lemina), I struggle to see how anyone we have bought in the last three years (Van Dijk aside, who has left anyway) was actually an improvement on the players we lost. Romeu has done well but is he as good as Schneiderlin was? Cedric good but not as good as Clyne IMO. Austin injured too much. Lemina good but as good as Wanyama? Players like Redmond, Boufal, Gabbiadini and Hoj have all been inconsistent.

If we have any intention of getting back to challenging top six/top four as we did under Poch and Koeman then I think we need most of a new team. Only Bertrand, Lemina and Tadic (if he can regain 2014-16 form) are at that level now (although perhaps some of the newer players could be with more experience).

Right now I think we are a lower mid-table team unfortunately, mostly because whilst our play is tidy enough in most respects, we aren't good enough in each box and that is where games are won and lost. With a commanding CB and a decent centre forward we would be competing with Leicester and Everton for 7th-9th but at the moment we are below that.

Of course in reality we are 18th in the league and several wins short of where we should be with these players and that is mostly because we have got a duff manager

He was a very average defender even in the Championship but did get a lot of assists

I saw him play a few times in his first season and he always looked okay to me, not amazing but decent, and we got some good results with him in the side. Obviously then he had some bad injuries but it is hard to understand why he has never got a chance since then

Absolutely disgusted that Ryan Betrand isn't smiling enough!!

Koeman came in as we lost Lambert, Lallana, Shaw, Lovren and Chambers. However compared to the previous year, we finished four points and one place higher. Second season he lost Morgan and Clyne. We played four games in the Europa League. We finished a place higher with three more points.

So Koeman kept us improving despite losing key players both years and despite having to play some Europa games. Puel by contrast has taken us backwards. Yes, he has lost Mane and Pelle (although has gained Austin, Redmond, Boufal and now Gabbiadini) and has had to play 6 Europa games, but is it really a harder situation than Koeman faced and yet managed to keep us improving?

Finishing sixth again in this year's league was always going to be very difficult and 8th and a cup final would be a decent season IMO. But the main problem I have with Puel is the negative tactics and turgid football we have played so often this year. Under Koeman we beat every team in the league during his two seasons. We won two years in a row at Old Trafford, away at Chelsea, away at Spurs, put four past Man City and Arsenal, 8 past Sunderland and 6 past Villa. I can't remember a single game this season which really gave me the sort of feeling that those sorts of results give you. And a lot of that, in my opinion, is because of Puel's tactics and showing far too much respect to the big boys. Koeman pragmatism sometimes meant playing quite direct but who cares when we're thrashing top four teams!

Agree however Austin is a different option to any other strikers we have. Would be foolish to not have a 'target man' for a plan B.

Austin is a pretty poor target man, certainly not in the same league as Pelle or Lambert

He really struggled in my opinion. But there aren't many who wouldn't against Hazard who was close to unplayable at times today. So I wouldn't be as worried about having him there vs Arsenal even though he struggled today.