Saint86

Their keeper currently has statistically more "goals prevented" this season, than any keeper achieved last season - 14 games in 🤷‍♂️

Feels like that for a reason!

In our 14 games, we've played 9 of the top 13 teams - excluding us that's essentially the top half. We are unbeaten across those games. This includes WHU, WBA, and Brum away - i don't think there will be many sides that take 5 points over those 3 away games. By any measure, that's a very strong start to the season by saints, and its on the other teams to better it. We've also then played the current 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th (3 of those away - which include our 2 defeats). Putting this another way, i've asked CoPilot to put the following together - its based only on the current league position, not the league position at the time of playing. Spygate is done and dusted, we look to have gone up a gear, and we're moving into a period where squad depth matters and we will be playing more of the struggling bottom half sides than our rivals. It looks to be a good position to be in, we are beating or drawing with our rivals. We do need to make sure we stop dropping points against the weaker sides - but i would say this is ominous for our rivals.

Truer advice has rarely been spoken.

The keeper positioning was very very good for that 1-1. He had a very short window to poke it past him into the bottom left corner, and after that the chance was always slipping away from him. I like the look of Dobbin, think there is a good player in there and he's useful for us across a number of positions. He's a good player to have coming off the bench for this league.

I had forgotten just how good he was in his prime for us. Very unlucky what happened to him - the levels he could have hit. The pace, strength/bravery/determination, and finishing in some of those clips was special.

Never in doubt with JWP imho. Tremendous fitness and stamina (almost like he's worth 2 players in the squad with this level of reliability - the minutes he's come in and clocked, after not playing much football, is impressive. Calm and aware on the ball, rarely gives it away. Good defensive awareness and positioning, and lost count of how many dangerous attacks/shots where he's been there to deny the opposition. And he carries his set piece delivery - which when paired with manning must make us a proper threat to face and defend against. We sold Charles and THB for circa £60M, and I think schlotterbeck and JWP have come in for around £5M and improved us - albeit without age or resale value on their side.

Not a bad point all things considered. Could have won, could have easily lost. And after that first half we had no business being in the game. Fantastic game for the neutrals for a 1-1.

Hard to pass good balls forward when there is nothing (Mubama/edozie) in front of you making food runs to hit.

If WBA can run through us like this, Middlesbrough will absolutely murder us.

Manning poor, edozie appalling (so bad he may as well be in a WBA shirt so far), and Mubama is equally killing our attacks. Wellington and Dobbin on for 2 of edozie and Mubama at halftime for me.

Is edozie on the take tonight? Should be Yanked now based on this first 30min... Certainly shouldn't come out second half.

Just thinking exactly this.

Goal is manning's fault as much as Stephen's tbh. What was he doing, that pass was telegraphed a month in advance.

Terrible start from us though regardless.

Is that not a dive? He felt the (minimal) contact, and then a split second later throws himself down. Silly from Stephen's to give the ref a decision though - but still, that's more of a cheat than spygate 🙄

Good point, well made 😄

Interesting appointment with respect to how that will turn out. The locals won't be happy with his football. Could have an interesting impact on Middlesbrough - he'll have the international break and then a run of games culminating in boro at home - works out as about 7 matches. I wonder what state they'll be in then - Boro will struggle vs teams that can defend well and are dangerous on the attack. Not the nicest run of games for Boro when they get back from the international break either: Bristol City won't even play football with Boro, they'll just sit there and go long, by pass the midfield, and get at their defence (which is very porous). Long away day as well. Then a run of 4 games that includes Swansea (who they should beat lets be honest), then us, then the west ham game. If they drop points there and we close the gap, will their fanbase and dressing room feel the heat from last season's bottling?

Doesn't surprise me, i was making the point last season (re spygate and people wanting him sacked), that since he adopted the 4-2-3-1 with peretz and Larin, Tonda was delivering circa 2.46pts per game. That is absurd. I know i certainly waivered on him somewhere along the lines - fluctuated between thinking he didn't have it and him needing support / to learn quickly... Well on that last point, he smashed it out of the park 😄🤩

A bit like a young intern going up to watch boro's training a day late and getting Hackney's fitness status wrong?

That only tells half the story as well: Young inexperienced manager stepping into his first job. Picking up a club that had just finished in the prem on an embarrassing 12points and was staring at a relegation scrap. Not his team / signings - so had to adapt to suit the squad.

United need almost a complete dressing room reset - akin to what Spors has done at Saints following the 12point relegation. They seem reluctant to take their medicine on that front and never do it properly - and so they'll continue to circle the drain until they either get relegated or have a spurs style escape. IMHO, its going to take one of those two things to happen the way they're going. A relegation scrap is on the cards this year unless they improve drastically... and honestly, if they sack carrick and then the players all "magically" decide to start playing again, it only reinforces the need for a complete dressing room overhaul..

Struggled with the games after they became too complex circa 2015 onwards. They just add more and more bloat every year and life gets too short to play a game that only ever becomes heavier - its long since ceased to be something you can casually pick up and play. And yes, i understand you can dedicate various roles to staff - but if you are a lower league club that means your staff are bad and they will do those roles poorly. So you just end up getting a worse experience regardless. Rather than giving you the opportunity to automate certain features, they'd have been better off allowing you to toggle them on off - at the end of the day, pre match, half time, full time team talks are all just glorified modifiers in a spreadsheet. Ditto press conferences. Just give players the option to turn those bits off and set the modifier to 1 etc.

You lot of little faith! Never in doubt!!!

Did you watch the game? Time after time bolton's defenders simply switched off and let multiple boro players in behind. was laughable.