HarvSFC

It went a bit sour for Nuno Espirito Santo in his final season at Wolves. They scored just 36 goals over the 38 game season, lost 17 matches and only 3 wins in their last 12. He did finish 13th with them though, so he was their Puel. They just got bored of the football on offer after 4 years. That then wasn't received well at Tottenham, three 1-0 victories over City, Watford and Wolves and 3-0 losses to Palace, Chelsea and Man United. Sacked with them in 9th. Now, in Saudi Arabia, which I think says a lot about where his career is right now. It would have to be an acceptance of the football/entertainment is going to be crap if he was the next guy.

This is correct and my major issue with the season. We used to be a high pressing, high energy team. Yes, it came with a lot of risks, but it also got us a lot of highs. We were top of the Premier League for the first time in our history playing such a way and we were never in a relegation fight playing that way. Yes, we got a couple of embarrassing 9-0s, but losing 9-0 twice over two seasons is better than losing 1-0 nine times over a single season. The 9-0s are also of course better than being relegated. The Championship is brutal, as we've experienced previously. West Brom and Huddersfield make up two of the bottom three this season, two clubs who have been in the Premier League in the last three years. Then you have Middlesbrough, Wigan, Stoke, Hull, Cardiff and Sunderland making up the bottom eight. All clubs we've competed with during our tenure up here. We're just lacking ideas at the moment and the result, should we continue to sleepwalk as we did under Pellegrino could be disastrous. The current board (not ownership) have got a lot wrong, in a much shorter time than Reed and Wilson had. The contract extensions to McCarthy and Stephens, the permanent signing of Walcott on a high wage, selling Romeu too quickly and without a replacement, the contract extension for Djenepo will also probably prove to be a mistake following a handful of good games as a full-back, he's now getting limited minutes again in his actual position, so he'll be taking up a position in the squad for the foreseeable. Then you have the major one. We lost Broja and Adam Armstrong showed he wasn't up to this level as a striker last season, so the priority had to be a goal scorer. We even had big money for such a player, should the Gakpo reports be true. But, we waited too late, aimed too high and went for a player who's above our level and didn't want to come here and didn't have a contingency plan in place, so we went back to Man City and picked up Edozie for little hassle. For the first time Semmens and Crocker had money here and they showed their naivety. Then you have the comments at the fans forum, about how Semmens finds it a chore to get paid to follow us and how it doesn't matter where we finish in the league, how he scoffed at one fan for saying he's tired of following the club away and seeing shit performances because he mentioned Man City, where we got a point from, completely avoiding the point and then the treatment of fans this year has been awful. Not forgetting the farce and how unprepared the club were for fans' return from the lockdown football. I just don't like them really and think they should be under far harsher criticism than they receive. This January we need a Gabbiadini signing. A striker, who's ready to come straight in, hit the ground running and lift a pretty average team and get results. It's a tough ask, but it's a necessity, or we face a relegation.

Good to see good attitudes. Playing with the Under 23s, many rein it in with their billy big bollocks attitudes, but these guys did their job and showed they're a quality above that level. Good to see Mara get a few, and showed he's got something about him. He's just in that awkward limbo position where he's too good for the youth levels now, but not yet good enough to be a consistent performer at senior level. A loan would probably be beneficial to him at this stage in his career, but we don't have the attacking depth to sanction that and we did spend good money on him in the summer, probably promising him some first team football alongside it.

Stark contrast to the man who constantly coached and motivated the team from the touch line during the lockdown football.

Piss poor from those up the pitch. JWP's having another poor game, when will it end? Diallo's having one of his bad games after a couple of good glimpses against Bournemouth and Arsenal. Aribo, well he makes Gaston Ramirez look like a workhorse. Currently a luxury player that we can't afford and the last player you want in a relegation battle. Just looks like he's always playing at 50%. Elyonoussi, an attacker more known for his defending than his attacking. An okay player to have against your Arsenal's, but not against the Crystal Palace's of the world. S. Armstrong, always been erratic and lacking composure, his unpredictability used to cause serious problems to the opposition, but now all he does is give the ball away and cause us serious problems. Adams, no service from those behind, living off scraps once again. Hopefully one of them proves me wrong in the second half. Issue is, we need to get Lyanco off first because he's a red waiting to happen before we then make the changes up the pitch. Edozie, Djenepo, A. Armstrong and Mara (If he can rediscover his Leeds cameo) could all be good options off the bench in that they're all direct and their first thought is to attack, even if some of them are lacking in quality, we just need to ask questions of this Palace defence, as we are only 1-0 down.

Sub Lyanco before he gets a red.

When Reed left central midfield wasn’t a problem position for us and we needed to raise every little penny we could under Gao to bring someone in. Central midfield is now only a problem because we didn’t replace Romeu in the summer. It’s self inflicted. But, I still believe we have two better central midfielders in JWP and Lavia, so again, Reed would have remained a squad player, which wouldn’t have aided his development at all. Fundamentally, when Reed left, he needed to drop down a level to help his development. The same way Schneiderlin and Lallana did when they were first breaking through and fortunately we got to see those develop here because we also dropped down. He just joins the likes of Gallagher and Obafemi who got glimpses of Premier League football, but to play at this level you need to be a consistent performer and that’s a very difficult ask for a teenager. Shaw, Livramento and Lavia are incredibly rare, top talents and we had to bring two of them in for senior fees. It’s a similar thing with Targett. He’s forged himself as a Premier League squad player, the same thing Reed would be if he left Fulham. But, we had a better left-back in Bertrand at the time. If we had replaced Bertrand with Targett, then we knew we’d have downgraded, so we took a punt on somebody else. If we replaced Hojbjerg with Reed, then again that would have been a downgrade, so we took a punt on Diallo, who is also lacking consistency. At the end of the day, Reed is 27 now, so he’s well into his prime, but he’s only made 55 Premier League appearances and 17 of those were with us, while he’s also never even been mentioned in the same sentence as an England squad. Simply, we need to be aiming higher than Reed and if we still had Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Davis and Cork, which is what good recruitment gets you and what we should be hoping for then we’d never be mentioning Reed.

PSV looking really good tonight. Xavi Simons looks a great talent at 19, shame PSG have a buy back on him. Gakpo had one good finish disallowed for offside and setup a goal from a corner. Van Nistelrooy schooling Arteta with 20 minutes to go.

His teammate Dele Alli has 1 goal and 0 assists in 6 games. We dodged a massive bullet there last January, one thing we should be grateful to Everton for. And Besiktas will never sign an English player again.

Indeed, just from current highly thought of Brazilians in the Premier League, Alisson went to Roma, Antony to Ajax, Casemiro and Fabinho to Real Madrid, Coutinho to Inter, Ederson to Benfica, Firmino to Hoffenheim, Fred and Willian to Shakhtar, Jesus to City, Gabriel to Lille, Martinelli to Arsenal, Guimares to Lyon, Moura to PSG, Richarlison to Watford, Thiago Silva to Porto. None had a little jaunt in the MLS, where the not so good South American's get picked up. A lot did however go to elite clubs at first opportunity, clubs that we can't compete with on paper. However, if we can be seen to be a Premier League pathway for these players then we might be able to pick some up before they go on to the elite clubs, similar to what we're doing with young European talent now.

Watched Burnley vs Norwich. Certainly wasn't a classic. Tella's probably had better matches for them, wasn't really in the game tonight despite a lot of running. Rodriguez scored a penalty against Gunn to win it and Cork was named the man of the match in the stadium, so quite the Saints reunion. Kompany's doing a very good job there, they don't even play like Burnley anymore, so considering the transition and they're now top of the Championship.

Bournemouth made West Ham work for that victory, as they did us. They're just also missing a goal scorer, and while Solanke is shit, Kieffer Moore is a big drop off in quality. Seems to be the theme of the season and they'll also be glad the World Cup's around the corner with Solanke out.

Would be good to get some expertise on the South American markets, as that's one we haven't really explored before. Although, again, you'd have reservations regarding whether he could manage as well in Europe, or at a smaller side than River Plate.

Indeed, I suspect many of us on here have sat in the wrong end watching Saints during our lives. I was in the Stoke end when Begovic scored against us due to being in Uni up there at the time and I was in a hospitality box at Millwall when Lambert scored two late penalties to give us a 3-2 win as my dad knew some Millwall fans. So, similar to when you get away fans in our boxes these days. For my own safety I never made it clear that I was a Saints fan and acted as though I was a home fan, as is the expected etiquette if you are to go in to an opposite end. Guess it's for a few more likes on social media, if they make themselves known and think it looks cool if they're mouthing off in a home end.

Nice to have some proper centre-backs again and not Salisu plus an egotistical bellend, who epitomised everything that was wrong with the team in the last few months of last season and couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. The team is weird though, a few weeks of turning up meekly against Aston Villa and Wolves, losing 1-0 and you're wondering where the next point even is going to come from. Then we face West Ham, Bournemouth and Arsenal in a week, finish unbeaten and taking 5 points from the three. Maybe this is the start of one of those good runs we've enjoyed under Hasenhuttl through the years. Every point counts, we only won 9 matches last season and stayed up as comfortably as the rest of the teams above us, while Everton won 11, finished below us and for a period were very much shitting themselves. 15th in the league, still better than five others. Wolves and Leeds are struggling a lot more than us without a goal scorer. Up the Saints!

The treatment of Adams is bollocks and baffling in equal measure. If there were any doubts regarding our best forward before the season started then he’s definitely answered them this season. At least we know the ball won’t stick up top. Attack vs defence. A long afternoon at St. Mary’s.

Wolves need a goal scorer with only 5 goals in 11 games to their name. Raul Jimenez looks to be riddled by his injury and then they spent big on attackers in Guedes and Kalajdzic in the summer, while you'd imagine Costa's picking up a nice wage. So, you wouldn't think they'd have too much to play with in January. They've also committed to another Terry Connor situation, so you'd like to think they're going to struggle from this point forward. Forest didn't have a plan in the summer, got overly excited by the names and lights of the Premier League and it's now showing. One of those sides who many say won the transfer market, but perform terribly when it counts. 1 win in 11 and 3 points adrift, got to get their act together soon. Leicester, score plenty of goals, the most in the bottom 10, but can't defend. You'd imagine if they get a competent goalkeeper in the winter window then they'll move to a comfortable mid-table position. Aston Villa, have big issues even without Gerrard. A lot of money spent on dross/unmotivated players. Coutinho and Ings aren't motivated by football anymore, hence why they ended up at Villa Park in the first place. Watkins and Mings are poor Premier League footballers, Buendia, Bailley and Traore have all flopped and Martinez and McGinn are having bad season's. Wonder if they can do any better in the manager hunt. Leeds, also missed out on Gakpo and are also now struggling for goals, even with Bamford back. They can't rely on their defence either, as seen in previous seasons. We'll hopefully and probably be competing in January with them for an attacker, though. Everton, poor manager, who for whatever reason has full backing from the deluded over there and long may it continue. Also struggling for goals with two less than us, but you'd imagine Pickford and their defence could grind out the required results. Bournemouth, still persisting with Solanke, should probably go down. So, I reckon we've got to do better than three of these and so far after 11 games we're doing better than 6 of them, so it's not all bad!

I reckon we lost to Villa because we couldn’t face Bednarek. How he manages to jump out of the way of every shot is a skill in itself, would never have made a block like Lyanco’s last night.

Three points is three points. Wasn't pretty, but over the last few years we've had really shit spells of form mixed with great runs of form. Hopefully tonight is the start of the latter with some confidence getting back into the team. 4 points from West Ham and Bournemouth was key. So far this season we're doing well to be better than three other teams in the league and may it continue. Adams was very good tonight. Good header and bullied their defence on occasion. Was well up for the fight, which is very much needed in our current situation.

Last season you could excuse the second half performances as our players being knackered. This season, we don’t press and we don’t dominate the first 45 anymore. I just don’t get it. We don’t have any control at all. Bournemouth should be the side looking tired after the first 45. And great. I know KWP’s not having a great season by his standards, but him joining Lavia and ABK in the physio room is just what we need.

This ref is really poor.

Blackburn play high pressing and either win or lose, no draws this season, 9 wins and 7 losses in 16 matches. Sounds quite similar! Although, they're top of the Championship, so it's working for now. I think we need someone more solid, someone who knows how to grind out results, not it's either good, or bad.

As said a few pages back, Pompey claim to win the league and that they'll be playing us in the next after two games with each passing season and by the end they get nowhere near. Plymouth are this year's runaway side. We're bad, but we're not losing 3-0 away to Charlton on Sky in League One bad. 4 of their players on the pitch tonight started against our B team last week and two more were unused subs, so at least they got their big day out for the season.

On the topic of Djenepo, what's happened to him? Done alright as a makeshift left-back in a time of desperation. Signed one of those charitable contracts we like to hand out and then hasn't got near the pitch since. I know it's picking the best of a bad bunch, but surely he should be ahead of Walcott in the attacking pecking order with reports of him starting yesterday and his moments are better than anything Elyounoussi's produced. Seems like we've tried everyone in attack, but him.

We're all Charlton fans tonight.