Saint Fan CaM

Can see this being 4-1.

Yep knowing Russ he’ll come off for a defender to shore up a 3-1 loss.

Russ must be fuming - having to change his game plan for three subs at 60 minutes.

Hopefully in remembrance

The fight back is on! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Oh well… 3-0 by half-time and it could get much, much worse.

Bum fluff out of sight by half-time. That’s it for me - Russ is out of his depth massively. Get the phoney out of the club.

Our players starting to get frustrated and taking cards now. Utterly shit set-up trying to get to half-time at 0-0. Of course a home goal was always going fuck that idea right up.

And there it is. Bournemouth shite? Nope.

Downes has taken a knock. Looks to be ok.

So far it looks like we’re ok…less risk taking…but of course much less possession.

Fuck me I was right - he’s going 4-6-0

Looks like Cornet is on the right?!?

COYS! Rip ‘em a new one. Or something.

More likely than any other option - other than a humiliating drubbing by Bumfluff.

There will be no sub in extra time because we’ll be behind and Russ will be far to busy writing the script to his after-match interview explaining how brave we were, how delighted he was with 60% possession and he enjoyed learning so much from the game.

In terms of our recruitment he fits perfectly - great at Championship level - unproven in the Prem.

To be fair anyone with half a brain cell could nail our issue 100%.

Reckon Russ is banking on packing midfield to go in at the break 0-0. All to play for in the 2nd half - 60th minute change to 3-2-5 to flood their box. Genius!

Absolutely - it does stink of a Manager under pressure but not really knowing his best team or how to get a result. Having said that, I’ve no real issue with Cornet as he has pace, can shoot and has been known to score goals in the Prem. It also introduces an unknown entity and so might release space for Dibling. We’ll see.

I predict a lot of angst and gnashing of teeth on here over the next 3-4 hours. How fantastic would it be to actually come away with 3 points? As always with our beloved club, it’s the hope that hurts the most.

Yeah but that’s my point - it’s not necessarily part of playing out from the back. If we transitioned the ball forwards more successfully more often, the fewer opportunities would be presented to the oppo’s press because we’d moved the ball forward faster. We play out at such a pedestrian pace the opposition press is allowed to build to a point where the options to get out of the press are next to none and our players are then panicked into a mistake. The media commentators tend to simplify everything by stating that Russball equals ‘possession football’ or indeed ‘playing out from the back’ and so that’s what needs to be changed, which may be true in essence, but it does nothing to address the actual problem. In my opinion this is pandering to a lack of responsibility being shown by the coaching team. Classic pre-cursor to a managerial sacking.

Excellent post, especially the bit highlighted which fits nicely with my post the Bournemouth match build-up thread where I explain the flaw with Russball being the phase of transition from the back to midfield. Having said that, I also believe the manner in which we put teams under pressure in the final third is sub-standard too. The lack of chance creation is shocking.

I understand the sentiment, however it’s not playing out from the back that’s the problem - many teams do this even in the lower leagues. The problem is the endless recycling back and across in front of our penalty area not taking responsibility to move the ball forwards…THAT’S the problem. The coaching applied to the system with regards to transitioning from goalkeeper to midfield is extremely sub-standard - it invites pressure (which is part of the reason for the system), but has no clear flags that enable the players to make the right decisions to move into the next phase. Having no real target man doesn’t help, because at the times a defender needs to clear the ball rather than lose it anyway to a pressing mob, there’s no options…it’s pass backwards or lose the ball. It makes the players lives easier - i.e. it’s not my problem it’s yours, now I’ve passed it to you, rather than taking responsibility to turn and pass the ball forwards. Yes there is risk in employing Russball, but the risk factor is amplified several-fold because the phase after the initial play-out is flawed. The quality of the players we have may be partly to blame perhaps, but in my mind 90% of it is in (lack of) decent coaching.

Yeah mentioned by Russ in the Bournemouth presser. They’re making a decision on whether he returns to Saints for rehab or stays at Blackburn. I’m probably wrong, but it seems players we loan out get injured all too easily and I wonder if that’s because of their conditioning (or lack of it) when at Saints. Hope Dom gets back fit asap…best of luck to the lad.