NewYorkSaint

Can't believe how critical everyone is. We're playing away from home in the Europa league. i.e.. against one of the best clubs in Europe. There's one goal in it. We had good chances to score. J-Rod had one bad touch early on, but has looked decent since then. Clasie looking super-sharp. McQueen coming through as jewel for the future. Long playing the best he has in a while. Our rotation policy is reasonable, and is building quality throughout the squad. Yes, we could use a world-class striker. Wish we had that. I do. But we don't. So let's get behind the team we have and give them a chance. We'll equalize second half.

Spectacular football being played by both teams. Not a ton of shots, but thrilling midfield battle, and some amazing one-touch football. Game's being played at an incredible pace. VVD and Forster have kept us in it. Promising touches of genius from Boufal, but we need more. Davis understated hero. He's given away a couple times but harassed and won back more than that. Romeu incredible. He had one backward headed flick in competitive situation that took my breath away. All to play for. Goals a-coming. Head says 1-2, heart says 2-1.

Exciting team... despite loss of Tadic, tons of creativity in Holberg, Boufal, Redmond... wouldn't be surprised to see something like 2-2.

One thing everyone seems to forget after a horrible afternoon like this one. It's football. It's the premier league. Every single game can go either way. There's a ton of luck in the game. Anyone watching that would know that Saints by far the better team. If you replayed the game 10 times we'd win 6 and draw 2-3. Yes, we were low on chances today, but that hasn't overall been a feature of our season. You can't create a whole narrative about how feeble our transfer policy/board/Puel are based on one game. If anything, the result shows how hard it is to manage Europa + premier league. Puel and the team have been trying hard to juggle both. It doesn't always work. But often it will. Watch for a thrilling match against Liverpool. We'll bounce back.

It's not 100% clear where the goal scoring will come from, but personally quite excited to see the likes of Isgrove and Reed back in the mix. Also... good luck BOUFAL !

Van Dijk / Fonte / Romeu immense. Ha! Posted exactly the same, a few seconds later. mind meld.

Fantastic performance by saints. made them look v ordinary first half and defended like tigers in second. McQueen was strong second half, and Boufal showing promising signs (though will need to adjust to pace and aggression of premier league). VvD, Fonte and Romeu immense.

Superb effort by Saints. Redmond gets more exciting every game. Our core defensive engine of VVD Fonte and Romeo is unbelievable. I'd sub yellow-carded Clasie for JWP. We're getting a lot of set-plays and could use JWP's guile. Fingers crossed that McQueen can grow in the second half. I saw a great tackle toward the end. Maybe he can breathe and find some more confidence. C'mon Saints. This could turn out a truly epic afternoon.

We're by far the better team. By far! McQueen is wonderful. If we'd just paid $10m for him, we'd prob be happy. And here he is just up from the academy. Hojbjerg so great.... And the Tadic/Martina interplay is often wonderful. Radio commentary mistakenly blaming Yosh for the early bad back pass. It was actually Martina. Wd be robbery if we get beaten here....

I think Puel has the team about right. A rest for some of the older players, including Fonte and Austin... but enough there to be competitive. Would love to see Boufal get a run out and maybe then start on Sunday. Excited for this...

personally, don't think it was a dive. his rear foot is stepped on.

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.