Saint Fan CaM

Russ has told them emphatically to ensure there’s no more of that fucking attacking shit…everything is about the defence keeping the ball in our half. Muppetry.

Then McCarthy pulls off a Wordly save. Defo Marmite!

McCarthy brain fart

Fuck yes! See Russ - fast paced attack works!

Great stuff Russ - take off our best striker and put on…a defensive midfielder. Fuck me.

TP has been done by Gakpo - subbed.

Tall Paul is having a fucking awesome game!

And all because Tyler ignored Russball. PS : where was the card for the Pool player that fouled Dibling?

VAR done the right thing for once.

Lallana’s fucked. Who’s gonna draw the unlucky straw?

There we have it. Southampton architects of their own downfall. Downes fault though.

Yeah Frase r looks very match rusty, but hardly surprising really.

Great stop by Macca

Tall Paul actually looks like a good player - who knew?!?

Well that’s the point - City have some great players who know the system better most. It’s the (better) opposing teams who are able to influence City to make those mistakes. It’s no coincidence that the mistakes look so much like the type our players make, even on a good day!

Not sure if you’re saying that entirely in jest. As I watched the game I’m thinking - the betters teams have worked out how to beat City and City are making more mistakes trying to play out from the back. Saints may be trying to be City lite, but City are showing that the system…Russball if you like…can be beaten even when you’ve got the BEST players in the league.

Your optimism and indeed resolute defence of Russball is to be commended, however it seems your defence stands on the principle of seeing improvements. I’m not seeing any traction in improvement and that’s because there’s little or no sustained change to how we play, so I’m not sure how you gain satisfaction as you suggest. Of course it’s entirely possible that somehow things will click, but the evidence of many months tends to suggest otherwise. If it’s any consolation most doubters will be delighted if your faith is shown to be ultimately justified.

Well said. The issue is not about passing out from the back - most teams do that. It’s about the speed in which we transition from the two CB’s given that often the full-backs are ahead of the CB’s waiting to receive the ball, so if there’s a turn over in the next phase into midfield we get caught napping and the speed/skill in which many teams are able to capitalise ends in a goal. This is exacerbated even more if we’re behind because Russ expects the team to calm the game down and attempt even more possession. Rinse repeat. And of course the speed that we transition out of defence is linked with the number of times we get the ball into a position that allows a shot through fewer than 11 opposition players - hence the lack of shooting opportunities.

Honestly, you have got to wonder why more clubs don’t employ managers that employ such spectacularly incisive tactics - he’s a fucking genius! Actually…in truth…he’s shown once again, in an even more convincing way (if that were possible), that he’s a raving fraud who has no idea what to do to win or draw a game of football. Yep - Russ will keep on raising the bar of ineptitude. Everything points to him being humiliated once again on Sunday and sadly ‘Pool will not need to break a sweat to make our team look like strangers (once again). And who’s for betting the bench will defy logic too - it’ll be five at the back starting with a highly defensive possession based strategy, then after they’ve scored two he’ll panic and bring on three strikers to get aggressive and score goals. Genius. Rant over. COYS!

Calling @gio1saints: needed to decipher the above. 😉

Yep it really is. I knew he was pals with a selected few, but I had no idea he was so close in personality to Nathan Jones. What is it with Rasmus - is he choosing these nut jobs deliberately using selection criteria scribbled on a grubby sheet of bog paper?

I concur with this. It’s incredibly sad to know how good that team/management combo was compared to where we are now. If the club had supported Koeman and kept the impetus, just think what we may have achieved.

Thing is, our defence should be made up consistently of our best defenders… KWP/Suga, Taylor, ABK, KWP/Bree. If Russ had got that combo working together earlier I reckon we’d have a good solid defence. As it is he still persists with his favourites, playing players out of position and switching them around, so no wonder it’s a shambles. Whatever, L’Pool are still going to spank us 5 or 6 to nil.

@gio1saints has this utopian woke view of the Saints footballing World - don’t worry it’ll all come good in the end…if we embrace failure, we can all eventually enjoy it. The perverse inverse of some new age pre-school ‘mumsy’ PE teacher telling the kids it’s the taking part that counts because they don’t want the kids to experience the upset of not winning. The problem of course is RM’s journey of self discovery in failure didn’t start at Saints - he did a pretty poor job of implementing the ‘learning and improving through failure’ ethos at Swansea too. He’s had a good innings to get it right, but the higher his exposure in pro football the worse his mantra stands up. Of course his and the clubs position will improve to an extent when he finally relegates us back to the Championship (assuming we don’t lose our best players and manage to offload the dross in the squad too). Break it to fix it again. While the rest of the footballing World organically just gets better. However for me all of that is somewhat of an irrelevance for the most part. I just don’t enjoy watching the boring style of football we play now and don’t get particularly excited in anticipation of Saints playing - it’s as simple as that.

To break them. Obvs. (C) Wankerson