Saint Fan CaM

Can’t see anything but a 2-0 defeat with this one. Woy has his team working well for him and a home defeat looks unlikely to a side who struggle to score. Hope I’m very wrong.

While every single forward in the squad seem so to find it so difficult to stretch the onion net, I find it hard to single out Gabbi for criticism especially when he’s scored more than Long in recent seasons (IIRC). I do wonder whether it is more a case of coaching in a prescribed fashion that is just not working well at senior level for some reason.

According to Sky Sports live text we’ve had one shot on goal after 22 mins....stunning.

Sorry, was not commenting on your post...something is not right with the site...you can see that I replied to another post, not yours??? Weird.

Even Hughes felt the first yellow was harsh. I trust his judgement and indeed my own, over yours. Sonny.

The reason we lost that game was because collectively the team sat back and played far too deep, not pressing when they had the ball. This was true of several passages of play during the game but obviously certainly for McGuires winner where nobody went out to challenge him (probably should have been Vestergard). Nobody putting their b*ll*x on the line for the team or club. The reason we didn’t win the game is more complex. For whatever reason Ings was less mobile. Long starting may have worked, but once again it didn’t....he has lost his way completely. Austin adds nothing now unless he is served a scoring chance on a plate...but we don’t create those type of chances because we’re so pedestrian in attack. Redmond has no end product still and Ely shows no signs of being any better. Our central midfielders are generally too scared to move forward into attack, because doing so will almost certainly cause an issue if the opposition break. A quick word on Hoj. I really like this guy...he has balls in the tackle, works tirelessly across a huge area of the pitch, puts his heart and soul into a game AND tries to affect the game positively. His first yellow was as soft as you’ll ever see...very early in the game...so even if he did dive, it should never have resulted in a sending off. Placing himself in the box to invite a challenge was the right thing to do and in the split second that he was confronted by two defenders he chose the wrong time to go down. That’s not something to be crucified over when most of the game you’ve played like Trojan. I don’t understand why Yoshi is not being selected...he would be my choice next to Vestergard. I would not play Romeu with Lemina again...it doesn’t work.

I had a ticket to this. When it arrived I realised it was for daytime when I was at work. Oh well.

Top post Sir...completely agree with your point on partnerships etc. IMO, if Vestergard and Yoshi can’t sort it out at CB then no other pairing can...height and experience...that’s crucial, but also being able to anticipate and react quickly is hugely important and unfortunately I don’t see these traits in Hoedt or Stephens. Bednarek is slightly better, but still not of a level on his own to cut it at Prem level.

General problem with these forums...it’s in the nature of most of the attendees to focus on making their own voice heard rather than listening carefully to the answers and then challenging those issues. Chimps.

Good summary. Not his fault, but Armstrong going off forced the change that made the whole team perform better.

This. He needs a fresh start and I think Saints could be a good fit for him.

This will be a boring 0-0 or loss without us scoring. Can’t see where the goals are coming from again this season, especially against a tight knit defensive side like Burnley.

Nothing changing in the front line will mean just one thing. Few goals and lost games leading to a relegation struggle. Again.

It may have been a friendly, but the key is the manner of the defeat and the amount of improvement seen since the start of the summer. Little has changed...same system, same poor performances and most worrying same poor recruitment decisions (i.e. dilution of team quality). The worst issue is the failure to address the awful lack of attacking quality IMO. Who knows, it might all click into place over the next week. My money is on bottom 5 for a good proportion of the season and some panic decisions come the New Year.

Well after a promising start to the window, it seems its going to fizzle out. No new striker means, lack of goals and lack of wins, meaning lower table struggle from the off. A Facebook post this evening claims Austin has picked up an injury in training. Great news if true....not. To my mind Les and the rest of the recruitment team are in danger of making what could have been a great window, look like another disaster.

Errr...attack. Anyone who thinks otherwise could not have watched us last season, even after Hughes rocked up.

I do hope we're working hard to sort out our attacking options. I dread to think what position we'll find ourselves in if Ely, Redmond and Austin are out...the quality of attacking options in the squad is paper thin.

Should not take anything from the result as such, however the performance itself should be a good indicator of the quality within the squad to do the basics like score goals, high press, pass accurately, positioning and communication in defence. There’s a hell of a lot of work left to do before we are near the levels required to aspire to even mid-table...on this showing therefore it’s not surprising some are feeling nervous already.

Only intereted in Saints - I think we will struggle again but not quite as bad as last season. 14th or 15th.

Welbeck would offer us something different and would likely score more than Long, so probably a good move. Not sure how suited he would be to playing our system, but only time would tell.

Don’t think we’ll see another striker...Austin, Long, Gabbi and now Gallagher seemingly ready to push on is probably seen by the club as enough. With Ely, Redmond, JWP, Sims, Davis and Armstrong as AM’s we do look very lightweight in supporting attack, although we should not underestimate the ability of Romeu, Lemina and Hojberg to get forward. It’s that initial ability to break at pace by 3-4 players that seems to be the missing component. I hope that the next signing will go a long way to plug that gap.

Is Leslie’s son (the agent) going to gain from this potential deal I wonder? If we’re not selling Scousehampton our best players we’re offering silly money for their crocked players...must be a connection somewhere.

A surprising but welcome addition.

Relegation would have been tough or rather the consequences would have been. I think we’ll have another struggle this year without a better striker coming in...goals win games.

That’s old news from just after Hughes took over and just assumed we’d be after him. I don’ think there’s much chance unless it’s a cheeky last minute raid and I’m not sure £20m is good business either...£15m max. player for me given Stokes situation.