saintwbu

He was brilliant before his injury, Manning had been terrible and our uptick in form started with Welington coming in for him. However, fortunately, Manning has looked better than ever since getting his place back. Was really impressed by Welington on Saturday, he handled Cherki in particular brilliantly.

For all that they’ve got wrong, Sport Republic do seem to have an eye for a good central midfielder; Lavia, Alcaraz, Fernandes and now Jander.

Incredibly composed for someone who’s probably barely into double figures of senior appearances

Lack of midfield control whenever he plays - i’m sure someone will have some stats to say otherwise, but it feels like we often don’t play that well in games he starts, even back to the last Championship season.

I am surprised he’s been charged only on the basis that the referee saw it and gave a free kick at the time. Wasn’t aware that underestimating the severity was grounds to get involved, otherwise you’d think there’d have been tonnes of these intervened on every season.

Completely agree that’s the only element up for debate. Wood has been the FA Cup CB, but really hoping Stephens is fit and is played.

To be honest i’ll be happy if they come and park the bus, we’ve not struggled to break teams down recently - Oxford and Blackburn in particular were well dealt with. My memory of Bristol City is them completely outplaying us at Ashton Gate the last two times we’ve played there - at least Mehmeti has left now, he tore us apart earlier in the season.

Has Downes ever actually been sent off for us? Can’t recall. He also did brilliantly to avoid a 10th yellow for a 2 match ban, he was at risk of that for about 6 games! So he clearly can control it when needed, most of the time, but yesterday was the first time I can remember thinking he looked like he would get sent off at some point. Good management to take him off, they were desperate to get him sent off.

Bragg has played every FA Cup game so far, would be surprised if he dropped out. Could see it being a Bragg/Jander/Downes midfield like the Coventry game possibly. However i’d like Fellows and Scienza both on in this one to be able to break like we were against Arsenal.

Surely Gabbiadini? - whoops just seen ‘unlikely’, guessing a striker scoring wasn’t ‘unlikely’, although that’s up for debate with some of our recent ones!

Does anyone know if these games count as an away credit on your account?

It won’t be Saints setting the price, and likely not setting the fees either

On Stewart, he’d just scored twice against Sheffield United but then did his hammy a few days later against Derby. He probably couldn’t handle two starts in 3 days. Tonda has had more game time out of him than anyone, but has managed him very carefully - perhaps Still/medical team overdid it, whilst Tonda/medical team are being much more careful now.

Real shame to have no Matsuki and particularly no Downes for this - Bragg and Jander midfield feels right for me.

I think this last week has really shown his credentials - we’ve played three different ways against three different levels of team, without our two best attackers, and we’ve taken 9 points with no goals conceded from open play. Pretty impressive stuff, regardless of how good you might think the squad is.

Tonda’s first 5 games as a professional manager were all like watching a different sport compared to Will Still’s efforts. I can’t remember a single game where we genuinely played well for a whole game. He spoke all August about waiting for wingers to arrive before changing to a back 4, then played it for two games and went back to a 5. I can’t remember which home game it was that he basically left us with one midfielder in order to bring on more attackers, and then brought on Aribo to switch back about 5 minutes later - bizarre stuff.

You can think Tonda is a better manager, and still think recruitment last year was embarrassing. Tonda hasn’t been able to make Cameron Archer useful even in the league below, but he was brought in to be our centre forward in the top division. We were doomed before we began, really.

He looks like he’d smell great to be honest, great hair

For all their crying about time wasting, we seem to be the only team to have actually been punished for doing it all season. Players being made to go off at the nearest point (never happens in our games when opposition do it), Peretz booked for time wasting at the first opportunity, ref adding 7 minutes on and then nearly 2 extras. So not like we got away with anything, and guarantee next time we’re on the receiving end the above rules won’t be enforced.

Didn’t Tonda say recently that teams don’t mark him? Won the header unmarked for the first corner of the game, leading to Larin’s good chance.

Koeman’s team would beat Poch’s team

Maybe they can do something about defenders going down when under pressure and getting an easy free kick out of officials, when barely touched. Worst part of the modern game imo.

Was lucky again last night I assume

Almost every single result has gone our way since the Leicester game, our position has completely transformed since half time last Tuesday!

The only academy player he started was Bragg, who’s already started first team games already this season. He was able to field a complete second 11 of senior players, that’s how big our squad is. He’s gotten through in the cup whilst giving our entire starting 11 a complete rest, and giving a host of academy lads the opportunity to come on and win the game for us. To me, yesterday was brilliant management. Some people will never give him any credit whatsoever because they didn’t know who he was a few months ago.