St Neel

Little Armani, Wood Will?

Posters on here have debated Pelle's and Mane's talents and shortcomings all season. Both are decent players, but both have their faults. Pelle does some great link up play but is clunky and offers little movement. Mane has fantastic pace and has moments of brilliance but is so random in the way he plays that his team mates usually have no idea where he'll be or what he'll do next. I think the individual failings of these two are compounded when they play together - i think they just dont understand each other's game. So many times this season i've seen pelle do a step over expecting mane to pick up the ball, or mane chase down the wings and cross thinking pelle will be there, and its just not happened. Its a shame because they have both played brilliantly for us at times this season, but overall i think they just cant play well together. Maybe they can be coached to understand each others game better, but I suspect not. So what to do? My opinion is that we should sell mane this summer. I think he's too random, despite his occasional brilliance. I also get the feeling (though its totally unfounded in any evidence) that he doesnt give much of a toss about The Team.

Always like watching the italy. They're a clever team. Well, cleverer than england, atleast.

Steven Davis had a great game today.

This. Unfortunately he lost the plot after that. But i guess the while team lost the plot during the game. Hugely relieved we finally got a goal and a win, maybe we can turn a corner after this. But that was one of the worst performances i've seen from Saints in years. We really need to change the way we play.

JWPWTF

Apalling football from saints

Our whole attacking strategy seems to be horrendously ponderous and devoid of creativity. Time and time again, Mane, Tadic or Elia recieve the ball with their back to goal and shunt the ball out wide for Clyne or Bertrand to overlap, put in a cross which is easily defended. Ad infinitum till 90 mins are up. No one ever seems to make a run from central midfield. Guess thats just Koemans strategy, and to be fair it has worked brilliantly most of the season, but with Pelle of the boil and opposing teams working out they just need to defend narrow, it makes for tedious and ineffective football. Surely a different strategy can be used? Dare I say a "Plan B?"

Trollhunter!

Trollhunter!

villa 1-2 win (on the lawro logic they have to score eventually and we have to let one in eventually) city 0-2 loss arsenal 1-2 win united 1-1 draw

Come on saggychops. want to be 2nd by 5 clear points!

Poor old Vic. He keeps just getting nudged off my MOTM award by strikers, but I've got to go Long.

This

Awesome. Cant really pick a man of the match. Pelle or Tadic or Clyne? Tadic's pass for Corks goal was brilliant. The second half was so easy everyone looked top drawer. Special mention to Davis though, thought he had a great game. The penalty decision? Had a crap stream, but I thought the sunderland player had already sent the ball wide before Forster took him down. Probably a penalty then, but not a red card. Irrelevant anyway!

couldn't put it better myself

oh and Mane!

Great result, and to be fair QPR made us work for it in the 2nd half. No brainer for MOTM, got to be Pelle - his link up play was brilliant, and that goal to cap it off! Bertrand, Tadic and Clyne had great games too

Great start, and i do agree that we have a better squad than last season, but its way too early to get a couple of vertebrae removed. I also dont really know if Koeman has a plan B, let alone Plan C,D or E. We seem to be playing plan A all the time, but with different levels of competency. Plan A comprises get the ball in midfield, get it out wide, and stick in a cross. Its working very well, but i dont think its rocket science

I think i saw him come over and applaud the away fans at the end of the game. Can anyone else confirm? He didnt have to do that, esoecially after the boos he got during the game. We shouldnt boo him anymore, he's a good young player, he's moved on and so have we.

We really struggled 1st half to get the ball out, Swansea were all over us in midfield. Although the defence still looked fairly solid, apart from Dyer hitting the bar and Bertrands clearance off the line I cant remember that many clear chances they had. Bony's sending off was fully deserved and we controlled the game from then on. However we struggled to make many clear cut chances, we were putting lots of crosses into the box but Swansea were defending the box well and our crosses weren't that great. Wanyama totally changed things around when he came on: Swansea were sitting back but he rampaged through them, always winning the ball back. I was amazed to see him running through for the goal! Totally used to see him sitting back as a DM. I wonder what Koeman would have done if JWP hadn't got injured, to be honest I wasn't impressed with him today, offered very little and I was surprised that Davis came in for Cork, not JWP. All in all I think things fell fortunately into place very nicely today, but hey, games are like that sometimes. We're 2nd!!! COYR

Turkish is a ****. Move on.

it has been speculated (by Adam Blackmore no less, amongst others) that the anger directed at the board following the sale of Chambers led to the Board to harden their stance with regards Morgan and J-Rod. As any 5 year old will tell you, bed-wetting gets attention!

I couldnt make my mind up all summer whether the board had a plan, or were incompetent, or purely cashing in. At the end of the transfer window i reckon the boards have done a great job handling a very tricky situation. Happy with the squad, am am starting to hope that we can match or even improve on last year. I still wonder if/when we will find out the full storey on why last seasons team fell apart. A lot of players were clearly unhappy with the board at the end of last season. Where the players just being selfish? Or was there serious problems with the management of the club? Anyhow, here's hoping thats all behind us now.