Baird of the land

Makes sense given he's third choice left back but you do wonder how much he'll play at middlesborough. Hopefully Hesketh is next out.

McCarthy Cedric vestergaard yoshi Bertrand Romeu Lemina Davis Redmond Gallagher Ings Subs Gunn, bednarek, Armstrong, elyounessi, Austin, gabbi, targett

A win’s a win I suppose. Hardly sounded at all impressive. At least sounded like gallagher made an impression. Will Hughes be brave enough to play him in the league. Also good to see yoshi playing.

Get gallagher on.

When saints(that’s supposed to be youth focused) get to the stage that opposition playing u23’s in league cup is seen as a sign of weakness you know we’ve lost our way.

Nothing to do with hindsight. Potchettino was brilliant in hindsight. Bielsa is a world famous coach known for the attractive attacking football, inspiring the likes of potch. Yes things may yet go south at Leeds because he’s certainly on the madness/genius Line but Leeds fans are going to be far more entertained than they have been in years of stagnating averageness. I’d happily see saints take a punt over horrid scraping survival football.

Annoying that gallagher is only on the bench. Hope hesketh complete absence means he’s in loan discussions somewhere.

Would have loved to seen Bielsa shaking up our squad. Instead we are lumbered with Hughes https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/aug/28/marcelo-bielsa-leeds-united-myth-assembled-real-time

Yet these players we buy look average creating a bloated squad. Why not offload all the junk we have bought first. The younger players have suffered from the club failing to back up their pr spin about development pathway with real opportunities. Gallagher broke through under a manager (potch) who valued youth development. Give them the opportunities the likes of long etc have been given first I say before deciding their only value is to be flogged.

Gunn Cedric vestergaard yoshi targett Romeu lemina Redmond Armstrong jwp Gallagher Subs McCarthy, Stephens, Davis, hesketh, gabbi, Bertrand, Elyounoussi

Terrible start to the season continues. Bizarre selections, basic mistakes, poor football.

Terrible start to the season continues. Bizarre selections, basic mistakes, poor football.

The only bright side of this atrocious ness is that it will eventually lead to horrid Hughes getting the sack.

Odd lineup. Annoyed long is still getting picked whilst gabbi & gallagher don’t even make the bench. Equally can’t quite see what hoedt’s doing in training to justify his selection. Also surprised that Elyounoussi is starting given all the noise regarding his fitness. Happy hojberg is back in as thought he was one of the better players last season.

Being played out of position is often the lot of loan players by the very nature of the impermanence. Also it could equally mean they considered him the best option for right back, not necessarily that they considered him not good enough for midfield. I still think it's crazy both as a NI fan and a saints one(for different reasons) that Davis is being kept as 6th choice centre mid rather than being loaned out.

Didn't he start something like 36 games for Norwich last year. That seems a majority.

Agree. I’d be interested to see Stephens alongside someone like vestergaard partnership might work at some point.

Yeah i do find it odd what some count as having had his chance.

Vestergaard thus far seems to make a difference as while i'm sure we'll find out he's not perfect either over a longer period of games, he does seem to actually be able to communicate/lead the backline which since fonte/van Dijk haven't appeared good on that front. Vestergaard Yoshida Stephens Bednarek Hoedt

Slightly odd move as wide men is one area we aren't particularly well stocked. Hopefully he can play regularly there and build on the very promising limited appearances he had for Saints. Hope Hesketh is the next to get out as i don't see him having a hope of featuring under Hughes.

Would rather he wasn't. Never liked him as a manager. I think the level of atrociousness of other teams was more why we stayed up last season. The results were hardly inspiring. With the caveat that its only 2 games, so far this season its been dirty ugly football(especially on Sat) without even positive results to mitigate it I think we'll probably stay up(especially as we seem to have gambled next season's transfer kitty on Ings) but can't see us troubling the top half.

So if he had taken off the goalkeeper to add an attacker you’d describe that as an attempt to 8mprove our attack. Throwing countless attackers on without maintaining any kind of possession of the ball is a sure fire strategy to lose. Replacing a striker with a history of scoring goals with one who has barely scored in 2 years. Not sure what Armstrong did that couldn’t be described as static if that’s your description of jwp’s display. Probably the least bad of the three but equally bad because Hughes had seen how badly his first 2 moves had gone and this one did nothing to attempt to corr3ct the problem.

..... the subs offered more in attack. I needed a good laugh. How anyone could think the inept substitutions made by Hughes had that effect is beyond me. Maybe meant Everton offered more in attack.

I think I & Mark Hughes have a completely differen5 interpretation of what entertaining entails Spending more time kicking the opposition coupled with hump ball doesn’t do it for me.

Yeah tv highlights were massively flattering, glossing over our thuggish approach and showing both moments(Pickford kick and attack when whistle blew) when these were pretty much only times we had possession after the idiotic tactical moves of Hughes.