Saint86

Living in a world where THB wins defensive headers are we? 😂🤣

You're on the match thread slating him for "not saving anything", yet completely ignore the fantastic 3 saves he made back to back that had the commentator waxing lyrical about him. His ball play at the back is tactically very important to how we draw teams on to us and led directly to the first goal where we broke away, and the first goal he is utterly unsighted for. The 2nd goal he could command the box better, but equally it's about 6 saints players Vs 2 west brom attackers, and once again a case of 3 cbs that cannot win headers. Ditto we seem unable to effectively stop crosses even with a 5 man back line. He has weaknesses for sure , but he is the best keeper at the club. And ultimately the PPG doesn't lie compared to macca.

A CB who wins headers would be a fantastic addition. But it doesn't resolve the glaring tactical issue. We try to defend games we're dominating, with a 5 man defence tasked with dropping deeper and keeping possession - I would imagine the entire forum can see it's terrible. We can't keep the ball, we have no outs, we get deeper and deeper, the full backs get overloaded and no one can stop the crosses, and our cbs can't win the headers - and baz ain't the best at commanding the air either. This tactical setup is untenable and someone needs to have strong words with him. But fundamentally, carrying more threat and more bodies up field, with more width in the middle 3rd, would resolve much of the threat. His 2nd tactic (the defence mode) is just appalling.

Yup, it's all on Ekert, he gets ahead and then decides to defend it. It's Southgate level stuff. I desperately hope he learns from this quickly.

Imagine this 2nd half crap being played at fratton park... 🤮🤮

Who does he have around him for support? Trollope has gone and lallana is with the u21s? (Not that they are by any means brilliant). Ekert deserves credit for getting the attackers playing so well, but then when he changes it to all out defence its appalling. Real jekyl and Hyde stuff.

Ominous. Don't think he's got it on recent games. He blows teams away with the best attacking players in the league, and then tactically morphs into Southgate likes he's actively setting us up to let the other team come and beat us. Needs to learn quickly. But I don't think he'll get us through the playoffs with these tactics.

Reckon they made a difference today! That was shocking.

Like, if he wants to sit and hold possession, he needs more bodies in midfield. 5 defenders ain't keeping possession anywhere other than our own 3rd. This is delusional.

2nd half we came out and were told to sit on this. And so we end up trying to keep possession whilst playing a formation that has 5 defenders and limited ability to retain possession up field. And so the other team can easily push up on to us and we get deeper and deeper. He's basically a German Southgate with hungry eyes and no waistcoat - is he getting away with it because we frankly have the arguably the best front 4 on the division? He has one style of play, which is the same as Southgate for England basically, and he has awful game management.

What's the fucking point if we let them cross at will and can't win headers....

This is shocking. Another cross there and no one even closing him down as he crosses FFS.

We aren't winning this.

We gave tonda this job to soon imo. We have a bunch of defenders that can't defend crosses - and sitting on leads is not an option. He has to learn this asap. This is entirely on him.

Tonda cannot keep playing like this FFS. It's utterly unnecessary. We already lost Vs Millwall because of this.

3 fantastic saves by baz there. Any chance of our defence actually defending?

Behave, he is utterly unsighted.

That goal is on tonda for me. Needlessly stopping attacking and inviting pressure once again. Just stupid that we do this every game.

I think we need to sign another Attacking Mid / winger (subject to formation). Fellows, Azaz, Scienza are good, but after that the quality reduces significantly to JayRob and Fraser. Its evident already that we are protecting Scienza in matches circa 65min, at which point are attacking play suffers significantly and we end up inviting the oppo on to us a lot more - and i dread to think what this will look like if he gets injured. Attack is the best form of defence, especially for us... so yeah, i want another attacking mid/winger.

But you need to remember that we're all hardened 1970s football hooligans out to cause trouble and start a fight, and therefore the police must make sure we're all treated like the criminal scum we are... Failure to do so might result in more violent wig robberies and social media banter when the two fanbases meet, and that really would be terrible 🤯.

Especially with the bad weather - a superb leveller for WBA. Prepare yourselves imo. This has all the makings of an extremely annoying result.

It was still free to watch though... Suspect the FA Cup will outlast the BBC anyway, soon as we get a change of government the BBC is getting hammered.

I reckon we're getting Oxford away....

The cup draw itself really should be maintained as free to watch.

I think tactically there is an issue with the late game deep defence - we simply sit there and do absolutely zero to prevent the crosses - and its an issue, becuase we also can't then defend them when they arrive in the box. He needs to work something out. When we're attacking its fine - the other teams can't live with us. But when we let them come on to us we are just set up quite poorly and no one seems inclined to stop the crosses, or to know who should be rushing out to pick up free players suddenly getting the ball.