Saint86

Silver lining. He surely has to go now?

Macca has to do better for that shot FFS, but defending was also terrible. Why oh why did we make that stephens sub? And now the Charles injury. Absolute car crash few minutes tbh

Archer off, as up top? Fraser win good sub if so, strengthens the team.

I am currently watching it on the saints website, from Belgium though... 🤔

He should really have got a goal again right before half time.. he's a pacey striker which poor movement and pretty average finishing even when he's on form. I can stomach him starting when we have injuries / illnesses, but I don't want to see him when we're at full strength. He wastes chances and kills our attacks - and that's when he touches the ball. He's not downs bad, but he's pretty close.

Bizzare how people keep defending archer. Should be 1-0 already

Hoping for a bloody miracle if you think we'll play an anchor man! 😂 (sadly)

In fairness to him, fellows, Robinson, Stewart, wellington, jander, and downes are all our with injury or sickness.

It's surely 5-2-3 with azaz and Charles as CM. Azaz as a deep lying play maker (which is where he should be in our squad - i.e. behind the attackers in space and with more of the ball). If it isn't that then still has utterly lost the plot.

5-2-3... Charles and azaz in the cm, AA right, scienza left, archer up top. It's not the worst, azaz in cm alongside Charles is what I would play (except in a 3 with a CDM behind). Archer up top is just criminal. If we are playing this formation then play the young lad, or play another winger and put AA up top. Downs or archer is 10men - those two and BBD are possibly 3 of the worst strikers we've had in a squad since the heady days of Barnard and Connolly.

Can we buy the other Charles now? Cheeky January acquisition? 😄

Sounds like Wednesday's nightmare is about to come to a head, hopefully they'll be able to start looking to some incredible seasons ahead when they get their inevitable buy out and rise.

Still has a couple of weeks to save his job imo. And he's going to have to sort out the fucking tactics to make us more efficeint and with better protection at the backline. I couldn't care how high our xG is - it doesn't count when the players on the end of the chances are Jander and Charles half the time. Be more solid, attack less, and focus more of the attacking to our plethora of very expensive attacking players. And FFS, play a bloody holding CDM in the midfield 3, and have a deep lying play maker (azaz/jander) who's job is to float in the space in midfield and use the moment of what is on paper a very talented and mobile set of wingers and attackers (in AA, Fellows, Scienza, Robinson etc.). It is absolutely pointless always being pushed right up to the opposition box, with them set in a strong formation, and having limited space to move - as the city manager says - enjoy the chaos of making the opposition team defend whilst you run and break through them - don't just play in front of a set defence.

Odd that that link is in Swizz french about an italian club? Surely sky sports have credible journalists/contacts in Italy?

Ralph?

Almost there. Drop one of downes or Jander and put the remaining one as CDM. Replace the other with Azaz in a floating creative CM role. Defenders are much of a muchness. 2 of THB/wood/Quarshie/Stephens basically - they all have a weakness in one way or another. I wouldn't drop Edwards personally, and wellington/manning are both fairly equald. Our issue has been the lack of CDM anchor - get that sorted and we'll stop being so wide open by balls into the space behind our midfield and we'll start grinding out wins.

Looks a great shout GS!

This is basically what i was getting at - it has an anchor man in CDM - this is what we need so very badly. Hasn't really happened properly since the days of Wanyama or Morgan etc.

AA had one "clear cut chance" last night, and he put it away very nicely. He's actually looked sharp most of the season. He is our best attacker. Archer wasted an almost identical chance. And yet we have people on here calling for Archer to be started over AA - That talk needs to stop from now on, Archer hasn't looked fit to lace AA's boots up for the entirety of his time with saints, that isn't going to magically change now. Those 2 chances are probably a large part of our xG being up to 2 last night. Outside of that, part of the issue is that our XG stats are coming down to players that aren't the strikers - Charles missed a free header last night, jander missed effectively an open goal vs Swansea etc. There were others. And tbf, AA did take one of the worst penalties i've yet seen from a saints player - but we all know he's shite at pens.

Because we refuse to play with a fucking anchor. Does my head in. 3man midfield with 1 as a proper CDM - I would play Downes/Jander there (either of them will hoover up lose balls, harry, and can will recycle possession very nicely), leave Charles as box to box as he has a great engine and all around playstyle, and sit Azaz in a floating CM position as playmaker. Then you feed the likes of fellows and Scienza on the wings, and have AA given a roaming striker role and free to make runs as he sees fit - it gets all our best players on the pitch, puts our attacking players in the right positions generally, and means that someone is actually in charge of defending the CBs from these constant free balls into an otherwise yawning chasm of space between our current midfield and our donkey CBs. And last but not least - actually seek to play counter attack whenever its on. Let the other teams out to come on to us, wait for them to make the mistakes at times. The arrogance of our recent championship managers where they seem to think we should always be high up the pitch dominating the ball is just mental to me. We are not a Guardiola side - be prepared to mix it up.

Absolutely this. People attacking Spors for the Down signing (and yes, that appears to have been a bad gamble)... but azaz, jellert, Fellows, Scienza, Jander and Quarshie are all very good or good players for this level. Even Mads is a decent acquisition for the cost. Generally speaking, the manager has been extremely well backed. He spent pre season with a back 4, then bemoaned not having the players to stick to it and went to the back 5, then signed the likes of fellows, scienza, azaz etc... (any squad in the league would bite your hand off for that level of player) and yet he continues to play a back 5 and benches 1-2 of them on a weekly basis - last night playing an unwell Fellows at fucking wing back in a back 5 when we were chasing the game. He style is inflexible, incapable of breaking teams down, incapable of baiting teams out, and cannot defend. All anyone has to do against us in maintain a disciplined shape, wait for us to tire and make a mistake, and then smash us on the counter - upon which are lackadaisical centre halves are exposed. And Macca may be a good shot stopper, but he's awful at coming off his line, defending vs counter attacks, and/or handling one on one situations - which is invariably what he is being faced with. And god alone knows what he was doing for that rebound last night, looked like a FIFA GK error it was so bad. I am not defending Martin - but i will say this for his tactics - we would routinely stop or walk the ball around at the back... force the other team to come out, set traps for them etc. Still does not do this. We push all the way up, and then are happy to just pass the ball around the opposition box whilst they set up camp inside it. He has arguably better players than Martin, yet his tactics are less effective.

The blame for any major errors lays squarely on Nathan Wood, not only for the awful goal, but also a lot of sloppy decisions and passes that crept in under 2nd half pressure. To go directly after THB is a somewhat harsh narrative.

Ultimately the fanbase can't cry too much. We had a manager that loved the club and had been over achieving with the players he had, and yet the fans booed his team from the very first home game of the season, hounded him out, and were even declaring that "no one could do worse"... In came Nathan Jones, selles, Martin, juric, rusk, and now Still... And the club is now a husk of what it was under Ralph - despite spending hundreds of millions in that time frame 😄

Start downs... 😂 But TBF, I'll give you a 7/10, you almost had me.

If we hire another in post manager from the EFL without first trying to throw money at him, it will just show yet more ineptitude from SR imo.