NewYorkSaint

By the way, some questioning the McQueen penalty. But it looked to me like he had his rear foot stamped on. May have been accidental, but it took him out, and therefore a clear penalty, surely.

Agree. Redmond MoM. Fantastic. And so exciting to see McQueen shine. I love, love, love that we're using the academy again this year. Puel continues to truly impress me. The first half may have been relatively bland (although we deserved to be up a couple goals) but what I think we achieved first half was superior energy management. We kept the ball, began tiring them out. Second half we reaped the benefit, turning up the heat with an amazing amount of retained energy. Commentators here in US were marveling at how much pace Saints retained right through into extra time. 34 shots to 6 says it all.....

We created a ton of chances. Tadic, Redmond looking awfully dangerous. Goals are coming... McQueen promising debut so far...

Really exciting first half. Despite our travels, we look the better team. Worth thinking about. We look better than last year's champions, playing at home, off extra rest. Our rapid passing game is a joy to watch. Davis, Hojbjerg, Romeu superb.

Worth noting that while a draw is usually a poor result in the premier league (often better to gamble and go for all 3 even if it means you lose), in a small group competition a draw is much more valuable. Although you still only get 1 point, by holding the opposition also to just 1 point, you really increase chances of qualification.

Puel's away strategy seems to be to play it cool first half. try to control the game, keep it tight, don't waste all our energy. then dial it up second half as the opposition tire. we've seen it work well the last few games. let's see what happens now. My money's on 1-1, Long to claim a late equalizer after they score from a set-piece.

What a fantastic performance. first half took all the sting out of WH, owned possession. brilliant move for a goal. Second half, thrilling. To be fair, they maybe should have had the penalty, but I think we win either way. Our set up is now allowing so much creativity at the peak of the diamond. 7 or 8 beautiful little through balls from Tadic, Hojbjerg, Austin, Redmond and Davies. Gorgeous to see. Oh and a big shout out to the defense. VVD and Fonte imperious today. After leaking goals for a dozen games, suddenly four clean sheets in a row. We're heading up, friends!

really exciting game now.... heart thumping here.

C'mon Shane!

Would love to see 10 mins of Hesketh. He was so beautiful to watch on Weds... But first, let's wrap this up!!

That works just fine if you're mid-town. Down town there's the Red Lion in Soho. http://redlionnyc.com. All the games are on cable TV, so I usually just watch at home. Like now. The premier league is becoming a big deal in US these days....

Disciplined, effective approach to an away game. Control possession, don't make mistakes. It's up to the home team to try to open it up, which they woefully failed to do. I suspect the second half will be a lot more dramatic. I can see a couple more goals. They'll throw everything at us and may equalize. But after exhausting them, supersub Shane Long will sneak a winner!

"He's recognized that when you have two otherwise equal teams, the one whose players have more energy available to them is likely to win." Utter rubbish. Prove it." I said two otherwise equal teams.... In which case, what other theory do you have? That a magician occasionally swoops down from outer space and gives one team superpowers? "While I broadly agree with this, Puel has himself (again repeatedly) made this point. It is not therefore innovative of you to repeat what has been said before several times. Indeed, had you listened (along with others) there would be no point in your repeating the obvious." So on the one hand it's utter rubbish, and on the other hand I'm repeating the obvious. Love it. I do agree Puel has been saying this. I'm just not sure we've yet given him adequate credit for what seems to me an interesting strategy for trying to eke out advantage. What Saint Albert says above about Spurs is relevant here. For Puel, this is not just an individual player strategy, or a formation strategy that will conserve energy over a game, or a busy-week-with-multiple-games strategy. It's a season long strategy. I love the way he's focusing on all four of those elements.

I think it's becoming clear where Claude Puel's brilliance lies. He's recognized that when you have two otherwise equal teams, the one whose players have more energy available to them is likely to win. And he's built his entire strategy around that. With Poch, we often had the amazing sight of teams better than us being terrorized by Poch's high press hitting them with blitzkrieg right from the opening minute. It was exciting to see, but all too often we'd lost our edge by 60 minutes, and in so many games the last 30 mins cost us dear. Of course. Because it's physically impossible for a team to go all out for 90 minutes. Indeed over the season we suffered a fair few injuries that may in part have been due to the strain of Poch's regime. That's one reason Koeman deemphasized the press, but it's not clear to me that he replaced it with an alternative strategy for intelligently maximizing the use of energy, although we did stay stronger in the second halves of games. But with Puel, I think he's really studied this issue at depth. I was struck by a comment just made by Reed as reported in today's Echo: "“I speak to the manager after every under-23s game. One thing that came out after the last game was that he wanted me to be more disciplined, and preserve my energy more so I can be more aggressive and win the ball back, rather than making long runs forward." Similarly his justification of the diamond, and of squad rotation is all ultimately linked to energy preservation, both during a game, and during a fixture-intense week. You might think this is a quirky basis for a management strategy. But I actually think it's quite brilliant. Why is it that in the premier league teams that cost a fraction of their opponents can some times beat them? There are only five explanations. - the money spent by the rich team was spent stupidly - luck - the poorer team are physically fitter - the poorer team has outwitted the rich team on formation strategy - on the day, the poorer team's players put more into the game. they try harder, and win more 50/50 balls, etc 1 is sometimes true but can't be main explanation over the long term. Luck is a huge issue, but probably balances out over the season. Most training regimes in the premier league deliver similar levels of fitness. So it's down to the last two factors. Puel believes he can organize a team to be really smart on energy usage, retaining possession, and allowing it to spring in to creative action as the other team tires. He's coupling that with smart rotation of the squad so that many players come to each game physically fresh. On the evidence of the last few games, I'd say he's really on to something. I'm excited to see how this plays out.

Well, among other things made a key pass to JWP to set up the 2nd goal...

We trashed Puel on here for the changes Thurs, and now trashing him for changing them back? Can't we accept we have a strong squad? Goals will come aplenty at some point from Long and Redmond. He's been clear in his strategy and to me it makes a lot of sense. The guys who gave it their all on Thurs may not quite be at the same level today. Having the pace of Long and Redmond together may be exactly what Swansea don't want......... Personally, love seeing Reed and Isgrove on the bench. Think they both have huge potential...

If football doesn't introduce video replays soon.... it will destroy itself. From Arsenal sending off to unfair penalty. It just kills your faith in the game.

Lots of strong takeaways. Most of all, I'd just highlight the confidence of the players in the first 15 mins. If you saw that, you'd say all the talk of diamond probs, player disquiet, etc, is utter nonsense. Davis strong this half. And great having Bertrand back. C'mon Saints. we can nick this.

I really don't buy blaming everything on Puel and the diamond. For one thing you could just as easily call our system 4-1-3-2 - as we've played many times before. Romeo playing ahead of the back four... We were by far the better side, and on another day win by a couple goals. It's completely self-destructive to start turning on Puel. Any individual match can go wrong. He's trying to create a strategic advantage for Saints. Give him a break. I predict that over the next four matches it'll start to come good big time. Thought Davis had a terrific game, and completely thrilled for J-Rod. That could prove a huge boost to his self-confidence and recovery. If he comes back to his best, the season suddenly looks a whole lot better. JWP had an impressive cameo too, I thought. A yard different on his free-kick, and we're all celebrating Puel's genius substitution.

If he joins, I wonder how much down to Puel?

Ease off guys... There's much to like in this performance.

Imagine that exact same first half, but with just one second of it working out differently and Long scoring as he should have. Then how do you feel about Saints performance? Bloody great, right? So don't judge 46 mins and 59 seconds by the standards of 1 second. There was so much to admire in Saints performance. Confident passing, terrific skills, all in the face of the most intimidating build up you could imagine. This season's going to work out just fine.

No meltdown necessary. Frustrating not to win…. But I’d say plenty of positives there. Redmond, Hojberg and even Pied looking super-promising, and Tadic and vvD could be in for epic seasons. Way too soon to be on Puel's back. Let's give the new system a chance. There were moments second half with electric fast conversion of defense into attack right down the middle of the field. We might just surprise ‘em on Friday.

Frustrating not to win…. But I’d say plenty of positives there. Redmond, Hojberg and even Pied looking super-promising, and Tadic and vvD could be in for epic seasons. We might just surprise ‘em on Friday. Way too soon to be on Puel's back. Let's give the new system a chance. There were moments second half with electric fast conversion of defense into attack right down the middle of the field.

When you try a new system, it's not going to work in the first 10 minutes. Give it a chance! Tadic's little penalty area cameo was incredible....