HarvSFC

Let this match be a learning curve. Every man and his dog could see that the five at the back formation was poor and there wasn't any reason to be stubborn with it. Hopefully, the two goals with the new formation has shown Hasenhuttl that we do have the players to be more expressive and take the game to the opposition again. Additionally, we do not need to keep being reminded that Bednarek and Elyounoussi are piss poor at this level and shouldn't be starting any Premier League fixture. How the latter started ahead of Aribo, the lord only knows. Credit to all of Aribo, A. Armstrong and Mara (And I guess the manager, although 70 minutes late) on changing the game. All need to start next week against a poor Leicester side and that includes A. Armstrong, who looked a bit hopeless last week, but with players around him, he could certainly be a nuisance as he was today. Positives were obviously Aribo, who gave us that Premier League quality in attack that we were completely missing and Bella-Kotchap. He has the same characteristics as Lyanco, but obviously a bit better and I don't think he celebrates making a tackle, but he does let his teammates know when they've made a mistake and urges them to play positively and quickly when they aren't. But, yeah, Hasenhuttl needs to learn from this and if the same mistakes that were made today are made next week then I'll be firmly in the out camp, as you can't start playing after 70 minutes and 2-0 down.

Exactly what we’ve been missing. Creates the chance and puts it away.

Personally, at the end of the 2020-21 season when matches were being played behind closed doors and the team went on a run of four wins in 21 league fixtures, losing 15 of them it was because the fans just weren't behind the team enough and weren't "into it" enough. We need to look in the mirror.

Especially the one at Old Trafford!

Getting into football and Saints in 2004/2005, Lambert's the clear legend of my era supporting the club. I remember signing him, going to Northampton at home the next day and him scoring on his debut and that was a sign of what was to come for the next five years. Such a good footballer and took the rise up to the Championship and then the Premier League with ease. 15 league goals in 38 in his first season in the top flight, we're crying for that now. We've had some good moments as England fans in recent years, and that goal against Scotland is still up there as one of the most memorable.

Just watching it back and it's interesting from the very first question how Hasenhuttl goes on about how we must always press and work harder than the opposition and that's why we've caused problems to the bigger clubs in recent history. One of the key things I've noticed from the team in the past six months is that they simply haven't worked hard at all. Giving teams too much time and space both defensively when failing to close down opponents and offensively when giving them all the time in the world to setup their defensive unit. Last season the players could fall on the modern day excuse of being safe and having nothing to play for, despite fans turning up every week spending good money, but Saturday's performance against Tottenham didn't give me any encouragement regarding effort levels from our team. Effort's the bare minimum and what I loved about the team under Pochettino and we simply haven't seen that for half a year now.

£15m is peanuts. We got that for Vestergaard in the final year of his contract and Matt Targett in recent years. Forest have been spending money all summer, £18m on Neco Williams, £20m on Awoniyi, £200k a week on Lingard and are reportedly putting in bids worth up to £40m for Gibbs-White. Fortunately, TeamTalk aren't a great source, but if we were to sell Adams for just £15m, it would be pretty stupid.

Was he any good?

Broja, Long and now Adams all need replaced. Mara's not ready, so we definitely need two more strikers incoming, to take the total up to three in my opinion. With five subs depth is very much needed.

So, we're going from needing two new strikers for the season, to needing three! Going to have to see who the replacements are, but it's another gamble. We should be looking at around £30m for Adams. Same price as Ings, but obviously the contract dictated that.

Soon to be a £35m-rated player!

That was pretty miserable, Saints are well and truly back. I feel that the main objectives for the summer transfer window were to sign a starting goalkeeper, a starting centre-back who's ready to come into the first eleven straight away and a quality striker. We've arguably only met the goalkeeper objective and even he struggled to get anywhere close to the Tottenham goals today, not that they were his fault. We've been signing squad centre-backs for years and that's left us with crap like Bednarek and Lyanco filling up the squad alongside the long-serving Stephens. All of which we can't get rid of, and then signing potential like Salisu, who is very much still learning based on all of his performances since January, or is he doing a year long Ramadan? We needed a Lovren, Alderweireld, Van Dijk this summer. Proven quality, but again we've gone down the potential route who can't get in the team ahead of Valery, or Stephens. Then our sole striker signing, who we've still paid good money for, despite his age couldn't even get in the match squad, unless he's injured? I also think it's fair to say that while Aribo could get away with playing as a striker in Scotland, that it isn't his position in a higher quality league. Too often he was playing with his back to goal, when his best attributes are picking up the ball deep and then running at the defence, which he couldn't do today. It would be like asking Lallana to play as a striker. Lavia did look very good though. Really hard to believe he's only 18, as playing in central midfield in the Premier League as he did today usually takes years of experience. Hopefully he keeps it up. My biggest defence of Hasenhuttl was that while we weren't winning matches and going on poor runs, for the most part we were still playing well and causing teams issues with our press. It was just crap defending, mistakes that let us down. But, I know that hasn't been the case for most of this year and it's worrying that it's crept into this season, especially with a new coaching team, which I thought could make a difference. The days where we were dominating matches for 45 minutes and then not turning up for the second half were better than this, as at least we got some entertainment for 45 minutes. Today and most of this year, it has been a chore to watch Saints. Passing it around in defence until we give up possession, allowing the opposition to regroup and not having any quality to break them down, only managing two shots on target, while Tottenham had eight. I remember when we were full of energy, forced the opposition into mistakes and didn't give them any room to breathe, Bertrand taking a quick free-kick against Arsenal, passing to Ings and getting a goal from it. But, for some reason those days have gone and we're slow and laborious now. That's when it becomes difficult to support the manager. It's becoming, or has even became what it was like supporting the club under Pellegrino and Hughes. The 4-2-2-2 formation has seen us go on some miserable runs, but it's also seen us go top of the league for the first time and flirt with a European place for a period last season. I would like to largely put the poor runs to a lack of squad depth/quality, and I'm not sure why we've just discarded it and gone to a pretty stale formation that was as dull as dishwater throughout pre-season and now sees us getting pummelled in the Premier League, while we've hardly laid a glove on the opposition. Forster must have been sat on the bench in glee this afternoon. Additionally, our strongest line-up consists of S. Armstrong and Adams. Lord knows what they were doing on the bench today, or why Adams was left as an unused substitute, while we brought five others on instead of him. Crap decisions. We MUST do better next week.

Too slow still, watching Fulham taking the game to Liverpool is a stark contrast to watching our centre backs pass it amongst themselves before losing possession. Take Valery off for Adams at half time, move Aribo into the 10 position, so that he can pick the ball up deep and run at them, rather than playing with his back to the goal and hope he wins a free-kick. On a more positive note, Lavia looks like this summer's Livramento. A real composed, easy to watch central midfielder at just 18. Ryan Sessegnon with his first ever Tottenham goal in three years, losing points from a winning position. Saints are back.

Where’s the booking? Royal on a yellow would be a good advantage.

Weirdly, he did look okay again at Brighton last season after flopping at Celtic and performing badly for Brighton previously. Didn't recapture his goalscoring form, but he couldn't have it all. I don't think Brighton fans are too happy, either. As a depth option, Duffy's okay. Colwill's the delayed Dan Burn replacement, but letting another centre-back go, like us, they feel they're short of experience and now depth there. As for Coady, I know we've experimented with playing with a back three this pre-season, but I wouldn't like it to be the long-term plan. Same as Wolves are now moving away from it and they know that Coady can't perform as well in a back two, hence why they're moving him on. For us to go for him, we'd need to commit to the three at the back formation. But, anyway, Everton, as close to his home as they are, we never stood a chance, so no complaints here.

So, if Will Smallbone does well at Stoke, does he become a £35m player?

And Alan Nixon thought Everton would get him for £15m.

KWP being front and centre of the third kit announcement. That's promising.

Harry Kane being the example from last summer.

Adams was our second highest league scorer last season with 7 goals and is pretty much guaranteed 5-10 league goals a season. We already need to replace Broja's 6 league goals from last season. Now, we could replace Broja's with Broja himself, if we were to sell Adams. But, I also couldn't see Broja adding the other 7 to his goal tally at this stage in his career considering he got 6 in 32 last season. Undoubtedly, Broja does have the higher career ceiling and will likely hit 15 a season at some point. However, we have so many youngsters coming into the team this summer, that are unlikely to hit the ground running and need bedding in that we need the more senior known talents of players like Adams and KWP for this season. Next summer, should the outfield youngsters of Lavia, ABK and Mara grow into the players we're hoping for, then we can probably afford to sell one, or two players within our first eleven, as we did in the summer of 2014. But, for now, given there's so many questions over the current squad, we need to play safe. £20m to Nottingham Forest isn't a good deal, either. I've posted before all the striker flops, who have transferred for around £20m and more.

If they can put £50m down on Cucurella, you'd hope we'd expect them to do the same for KWP, especially given the English price boost.

Leicester suffering the loss of their owner will have had a big impact on their financial flexibility as well, as it did us.

Damsgaard was very impressive at the Euros, but his stats in Serie A are pretty poor. Sampdoria have done well to get £20m for him and again is another one with many question marks over his head.

Vestergaard was signed mid-August with Leicester panicking that all of their centre-backs were out injured. We might need to get through a couple of matches before a club begins to panic and looks to Bednarek, an experienced Premier League centre-back and international for an answer. Unfortunately, Everton don't seem to have a lot of money these days, as they'd be the club you'd bank on making a panic signing.

Would be very useful combined with our 70 minute drinks break + JWP too.