Saint Fan CaM

I wanted to be Billy Bremner when I was a kid (I’m not a ginge 😉), so naturally followed Leeds Utd not really understanding the significance of ‘home’ teams. Then as I got a little older I wanted to go to live games and Leeds was obviously too far, so started going to Saints reserve games at the Dell. I could only just afford the bus fare from Swaythling to Shirley, so kids getting in free at the Dell was the only way I could watch a pro game. I loved seeing the first team players coming back from injury and playing in the reserves to get back to match fitness. The key thing I guess in hindsight is that watching pro live football was the impetus to me switching to supporting Saints proper - as a kid, it provided a deeper connection than watching on TV. Does the Bremner idolising give my age away? 🤔

Even that doesn’t suggest they surrendered possession to us and just sat back to defend. They had more attacking intent than us in the first half.

Agree with everything you’ve said except not sure he’s useless - he got us promoted - just, although maybe that was despite his tactics!

Oh don’t get me wrong, Russ is not exempt from blame. Comparing Rangers plight to Saints is not a simple direct correlation in my opinion, but it’s clear he’s not doing a great job and will leave plenty of scars if left in place.

I think concern is that he’s inexperienced in an English football league at a time that the squad needs a massive overhaul. And the scars often mentioned are real in the sense that the style of play we’ve seen since the last Championship season has remained. Can’t underestimate the terrible state of affairs following relegation.

What? The problem with Russball was not Russball as such. It was that the players at his disposal were barely good enough to utilise his tactics to get promoted and were certainly not good enough to do it in the Prem. Nothings changed - the squad is still not good enough. Still knows that, but does he have an alternative that’s effective.

Not sure what you’re disagreeing on - Pompey did come with a game plan and executed it very well given the value of their squad versus ours - bully for them. We didn’t look like having a game plan at any time during that game. A huge derby game. So what if they were time wasting etc etc. - they got a result. We didn’t. All this bollocks about should get significantly better - when might that be? We’ve been patiently waiting for years now since SR took over. And lastly if it weren’t for the financial implications of not going up, I couldn’t give a toss about promotion. I like the Championship. What I don’t like is seeing my team look like a bunch of f-ing strangers after a full international break, playing 8 ‘old guard’ players of the 11 starting the game in the one home game that should really matter. Let’s see how we’re getting on over the next 5 games and we’ll see if there’s been an improvement.

I can’t remember exactly, but there was a point in the first half - perhaps about halfway through - when the stat was shown on the TV. True story.

Point 1: Pompey came to win - they had close to 70% possession in the first half and almost scored hitting the bar - that’s not a team sitting back. Point 2: You’re right, Saints won’t face a Pompey-type team every week…they’ll face better teams that can score goals and win games. I keep saying it - so far the value of our squad does not match the quality of the performances on display (Ipswich excluded) and particularly on the showing of the derby game (!) there’s not a hope of promotion via ANY route.

I think the issue is the supply players - those who are supposed to feed the forwards don’t have a clue what system/process/tactics/whatever they’re supposed to be utilising. They all look like strangers and it makes you wonder what the hell they get up to in training. It certainly cannot be practicing inventive ways of transitioning the ball forwards and beating defensive lines. There’s some f-ing huge scars still hanging around it seems - Still has acknowledged this himself, but so far I’m not seeing any evidence that he’s found a way to overcome the problem. For me the core of the issue is the number of ‘scarred players’ still getting first dibs on the starter team sheet.

This obviously means a lot to you as you’ve posted twice. 😉 We have two strikers that are less challenged vertically (Stewart and Downs), but they’re not starting probably for good reason(s). Thing is, it’s actually not the height of our strikers that’s a problem. If you’ve been paying attention we don’t create attacking moves very well and when we do we don’t convert chances too competently either. But the main issue is the manner in which we transition the ball forward - too slow and too predictable. Everything is re-cycled along the backline and out to full-backs trapped by an 11 man press. In short we’re too damned easy to defend against. Sort this out - get the ball forward quicker and more often to our strikers, get our forwards playing closer together and I’m sure we’ll see more goals and more games won.

Goals win games sure, but I stand by the assertion that despite those goals the football was still turgid and that’s with an arguably slightly better squad. Our patterns of play are bloody boring and generally unimpressive. How many shots on goal? How many times did we really test a 2nd choice keeper? It’s bleak.

I can’t help but feel somewhat pessimistic about where things will end up this season and the reason is that we’re still playing the same turgid football as we’ve done for 3-4 seasons now irrespective of manager. Yes there are new players to pin our hopes on, but will they really make a difference when they’re not part of the starting 11 and players that have been very mediocre in the past get picked to start? We’ll not be in the relegation zone obviously, but the playoffs look way off right now.

They’re one point behind us and the last game I saw they can pass the ball forward and score goals. We don’t against even supposedly ‘worse’ teams. There are some on here that are going to have a few nasty shocks this season - we’re not all that.