Minty

http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/9019128/high-flying-saints-great-for-hodgson

Added Hulls stats to the opening post... passing is obviously way ahead, but look at the crosses... cross completion is obviously a combination of accurate delivery, movement of the attackers, and agility/positioning of the defender, so credit all round to our players to dominate such a stat.

249/342 completed (73%)

Well just for the record his pass completion today was as follows: First half: 27/32 (84%) Second half: 5/6 (83%)

A quick summary from the Opta stats (via Squawka.com) Attempts: 15 (10) On target: 7 (2) Crosses attempted: 17 (15) Crosses completed: 9 (2) Cross %: 53% (13%) Dribbles attempted: 22 (5) Dribbles completed: 11 (2) Dribble %: 50% (40%) Passes attempted: 542 (342) Passes completed: 454 (249) Pass %: 83.7% (73%) Headed duels contested: 33 Headed duels won: 22 Header %: 66.7% Interceptions: 19 (17) Clearances: 40 (14) Fouls committed: 10 Fouls suffered: 15 Bookings: 1 On an individual basis, while Lallana’s goal understandably took the plaudits, Morgan Schneiderlin’s performance was statistically awesome: a goal, 93% pass completion, 3 interceptions, 4 clearances, and 2 out of three dribbles completed. JWP deserves a mention too – 91% pass completion (incl. 2 key passes), two successful crosses and 5 attempted tackles, 3 more than any other player, demonstrating how well he put himself about. Clyne will have impressed Hodgson too, completing all 3 of his crosses, 86% pass completion, 2 interceptions, 3 clearances and no fouls conceded.

Over half way to the magic 40-points mark now. ;-)

Oh no, they fit just fine, and everyone else thinks they look really good, but because I'm not used to buying and wearing expensive shoes, it's taking me some time to get used to the fact that I look good!

Garth Crooks on the BBC - "Southampton goalkeeper Artur Boruc caused all the problems for Hull's goal. Why did he pass the ball to Victor Wanyama, when he had his back to him and had a man closing him down?" What an idiot... we play that way all the time and Vic should've laid it out to Clyne, no question.

He's got away with a couple of similar things in other games. Lets hope that he learns from this one. He has improved the team without doubt, but if we have ambitions to be at the top, he must eradicate such simple mistakes.

I've now had 4 different trials... just used different email addresses each time. They don't actually require you to verify your email address or 'activate' anything, so you can have ans many free trials as you like *****il they realise...!)

Yes, his Dad is Spanish. It's mentioned in a few of the articles/interviews with Jay since the announcement.

Such a good week so far - gonna lose to Hull aren't we?! lol

There's a fundamental difference however between picking players because of what they contribute to the whole team, and purely whether they score or not. Jay and Adam especially contribute a huge amount to our pressing game and forcing the opposition into mistakes - while their running with the ball and movement off it could work really well alongside the likes of Sturridge or Rooney who are excellent players, no doubt.

That's an interesting choice of words... I wouldn't say it was obvious to us that he'd pick him at all! But great news for all of them.

Wouldn't say that was 'out of character' as we didn't *know* their character (or rather, their ability) at that point... Most of the other examples are pretty good though, because we'd seen plenty of the player and would not have expected it from them.

Fair comment. Would be good to hear an official response (accepting that it'll be spun to some degree), but with something like this, where we can be compared directly to the other clubs, it seems a bit silly to invite criticism so easily. Even if we are a club that isn't bothered what others think of it, to wilfully act as we have done seems a bit silly to me. But hey, I work in two business where we DO care about customers, so I guess I'm not cut out to run Saints. :-D

It is unlikely, but not impossible. It would be good to hear from the club more... as much as I agree with the fact that what the club have done is not very good from the point of view of our away fans, it does strike me as a bit strange for the club to have done something which would clearly attract criticism in light of what other clubs have done... it would be pretty silly to make a conscious choice to do something so different to the other clubs. What benefit is there to the club of doing such a thing?

Yes, on the face of it... but as I said, I'm just putting out a theory for others to debate. That is the point of this thread isn't it?

Wanyama needed that bit of skill, cos his first touch for that particular move was Carlton Palmer-esque.

I get that, and it doesn't make us look good... I'm just putting it out there for discussion.

This is not a defence of the club, but could it be that someone at the club simply misunderstood what the fund was for? If the fund is 'to assist away fans' then it doesn't surprise me that some club or other (just happens to be us!) has interpreted that as improving our clubs facilities for visiting away fans. I would hope there would've been some communication from the FA to go with the money, to ensure consistency across the board and that all clubs do something to assist their OWN fans, but if that clarification was not there from the FA, then the fact someone interpreted it differently wouldn't surprise me...

Key thing he needs to sharpen up on is his ball retention when challenged, and awareness of players around him. On Saturday he didn't get much of a chance to show what he can do with the ball because too many times he was caught in possession. It seems to be a combination of thinking he has more time on the ball than he actually has, and not being aware enough of those around him. It's difficult therefore to judge his creativity when he didn't have many opportunities to do something with the ball because he was losing it too cheaply. It's fair to say that coming off the bench it can be harder to get up to the speed of the match, but if he's going to get a chance to start, he has to start showing something from the bench. I still think he has a lot to offer, but he will never do himself justice until he protects the ball better or uses it more quickly before he is closed down.

And more seriously - if people are willing to stick their necks out and makes some predictions, it is clearly going to be based on a lot of gut feeling and guesswork. To ask for in depth justifications in what should, really, be a light-hearted prediction thread, is all a bit silly IMO. Who f*cking knows what will happen? Personally, I think we'll finish about 7th or 8th, but IF MP can get us creating and converting a few more chances then there's a chance we'll sneak into 6th, as that is my main area of concern ('concern' being a relative term... it's the area we can currently improve the most). But hey, it's far more enjoyable so far this season, so go with it, and who knows what we might achieve?

So presumably the conclusion we can come to is that: we will probably perform as expected in some games, do really well in others, but not as well in the rest; we'll get the results we deserve in some of those games, and get results we didn't deserve in others; some other teams will perform better than expected from now to the end of the season, whilst others will do worse, with more than one or two fluctuations for most sides along the way; and that we'll ultimately finish anywhere between 1st and 20th? I think that covers all the bases.

I was probably in about the same starting spot... I knew the pace I wanted to do and stuck to it pretty well, and was quite surprised at just how many people went off way too quickly but then not at all surprised as I overtook lots of them. It's easy to get wrapped up in the event and lose sight of the fact that, if you've been training, the last thing you should do is suddenly ignore your training pace, and try to keep up with those who go off quicker than you. To be honest, to start with even I thought 'Hang on, loads of people are overtaking me, is this right?' at the start, but quickly realised their folly and that, no, I'm doing exactly what I need to do... although the size of the event does help, you still need to make sure you do your own thing and I was really pleased with how disciplined I was at keeping to my desired pace.