Alpine did, to his credit.
However, after the unwarranted abuse I got last weekend, I have every right to call out the hypocrisy.
Anyway, I won't post any more about it, because you are right, I will just enjoy the win
Credit to Puel - he had a full 7 days to work with the players and it paid off.
Man Utd will obviously be a tougher ask for us. But they have 3 games before the Wembley game, which has to play in our hands.
This is Tadic's best game for a while. He's played himself into the cup final.
Would like Redmond to do a bit more, although we've largely been attacking down the left hand side.
How long before someone says it's 'papering over the cracks' ?
For the first few minutes, we were woeful. Then we got on the ball a bit more, got the goal and have looked comfortable ever since.
Clean sheet is vital now. At least that second goal takes a bit of the pressure off the defence, but hopefully we push for a third and kill this game off.
JWP has played better than Hojbjerg recently
As for Long - apart from scoring the goal at Swansea, he was anonymous for most of that game. He's better when we will be playing on the counter attack - we will probably be dominating possession for large periods of this match.
Imagine what can be done with an entire TWO WEEKS for the next match
It would be typical Southampton to lose at Sunderland but then go on to win at Wembley.
I've found that American 'soccer' fans are generally much more knowledgable and intelligent than the average British fan. You demonstrate that point rather well...
Also, as a 'tourist' who went to an MLS game, I was welcomed with open arms. As I would, and most Saints fans would do, to any tourists who want to come to SMS.
I was just about to post something like this.
Why are people so desperate to play down us reaching the final? Why are people unable to recognise that it is a brilliant achievement? I don't get it.
As for other managers, Koeman was interested in the cups - we got to the quarter finals of the League Cup twice and the team bottled it on both occasions. In the earlier rounds, you could arguably say we named stronger teams than Puel did.
For the big occasion (two of them), Puel got the team to perform. That's a fact.