the_emu

For those in Australia was pleasantly surprised to learn that todays game v Huddersfield is live streaming for free on SBS

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I don't know where this forum stands on ITK posted on other sites, but someone on RAWK (where posts of Saintsweb ITKs info such as Tom28 are banned), claims to have received snippets concerning the VVD fiasco as follows:

 

1. ~ Chelsea are planning on bidding shortly;

 

2. ~ VVD's representatives would rather see him go to Chelsea than stay with Saints;

 

3. ~ There is a conflict between VVD and his representatives because he still really wants to go to Liverpool.

 

https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=335603.12400

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Just wanted to pay credit to Gabbi for his goal which was as simple as it was brilliant. Simple because for him it was a routine tap in. Brilliant because if he's not on the pitch Gomes almost certainly gets away with spilling the ball. A striker who is smart enough and willing enough to gamble on goalkeeping errors is worth his weight in gold and I hope the likes of Redmond and Tadic etc will learn from Gabbi. It's a long time since we've had a striker with such touch, vision and movement and these attributes along with the fact that this guy is a ruthless predator mean we've got some player on our hands as 6 goals (should be 7) in his first four games testifies. He's still getting used to his team mates and vice versa so that is a phenomenal return for a player who, in reality, should still be bedding himself in.

This Gabbi fella impresses me, what I noticed most watching the replay wasn't the goal he scored but if you look at our first two goals he was prowling the 6 yard box like a fox.

He is Charlie Austin with pace.

Point them east.

As if the bright white wheels arent bad enough what is with the pixelated camo? Are they preparing for battle in lego land?

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As much as playing Inter Milan was good for the novelty value this game is in someways more important representing our best chance of Wembley and silverware. I would play Gardos and Rodriguez as over age players.

 

Crawley travel club are running a coach so a decent away following should help the atmosphere.

 

Let's get through and keep our season going on 5 fronts

In no way...

To cover off (from memory) some of my grievances from an old thread about the website..

- Unique user experience (removal of amateurish cookie cutter UI)- tick

- New global (.com) address - tick

- No more being bombarded with tacky adawares - tick

- Integrated multi-media and removal of rubbish Saints TV subscriptions- tick

- Integrated ticketing - nup

- Integrated merchandise - nup

Hopefully (as most new website launches go) the latter points will come in good time, but this is real progress and another sign of us growing up as a club off the field.

That JWP open-play goal is easily the most momentous thing to ever happen in that stadium.

Blimey haven't seen the goal but it was either Ronaldo-esque or very harsh on Mo Farah.

According to beeb, Noble has come out and said it could have easily been 6.

Hammers are in a lot of trouble.

Lets be honest Puels had us playing well in patches his issue is the obsession of making Redmond a striker and IMO it will cost us finishing 8th or 9th if he carries it on, the aim has to be 8th or 9th and a good cup run as I think Man City Spurs Man U Arsenal Chelsea Liverpool and LCFC will finish top 7, EFC will fade off and finish 8th with us possibly finishing 9th.

It's posters on here who think Puel has an obsession without knowing sweet FA about him who have the obsession.

Nothing to see, move on.

Austin isn't unfit and to leave Redmond a non scoring player wandering around the middle of the field is crass. FFS the game is about scoring more goals than the opponent not squandering chance after chance because the player isn't confident he can score. Redmond is a winger not a striker, he doesn't make the runs or see the angles which is why he doesn't score. Austin will get goals as he is showing, play him in the opponents half, we have loads of unproductive journeymen that can run about.

 

We have few outfield players of quality, VVD and Hojbjerg plus Bertrand with Austin a natural goal scorer that instinctively does the right things. He pulled the managers nuts out of the fire today because nobody else was going to, but Puel still backs Redmond as his main striker. I know if I was an opponent I wouldn't want Austin anywhere near my goal. Redmond isn't a problem for defences.

What a steaming pile of horse sh*t this is, but got a few bites. 3.5 out of 10.

Puel, like his mentor Wenger, is as stubborn as can be and will persist with Redmond as a striker. Everyone can quite clearly see our best team is a 433 with Austin through the middle, Tadic left and Redmond right. Except Puel, because he likes to over complicate things to try and justify his salary

1 out of 10.

Should have been 2 and possibly 3 if the pen was given, we controlled most of the game but had a mild switch off on 85 mins. First of many wins down, WMO!

4 if you include Redmonds assist incorrectly given for offside.

A solid display by all.

We are improving each game, which for me is the biggest positive I am taking away from this game. It tells me the players are responding positively to Puel and the new formation, even if this forum isn't.

We need to be more clinical but I sense the players have been working on the system that they are over thinking the finish. I think as things improve as a team, the finishing will become more instinctive and the goals will come.

My key take aways..

- Back to back victories will breed confidence.

- Another clean sheet.

- Fonte didn't give away a penalty (although not through lack of trying)

- For all of Redmonds knockers,

- don't underestimate the value of a player who has the confidence to run at the opposition.

- he is still only 21 years old. He is never going to be the finished article.

- Admitingly he does have a tendency to lean back on his shots. Puel should (I hope) knock that out of him.

- Is it just me, or does Austin need to work on his fitness. For all his ability, I'm not sure at the moment he has the ability to last out 90 minutes (diamond formation or otherwise)?

More positives than negatives but halftime substitute required - someone on for Batman please!

A few quick brain f@rts...

1 - Tadic and JWP have a similar spat v West Ham at Upton Park for a set piece a couple of years ago. He has priors but doesn't seem to have an impact beyond immediacy, as we kicked on to win that game and had a good season.

2 - Tadic statistically scores his penalties, but they don't inspire confidence.

3 - I might be wrong with this one, but didn't Austin miss a penalty that resulted in QPR getting relegated?

4 - I might be wrong with this one, but isn't Austin on a goal scoring bonus? Wonder how much this was an overriding factor over "passion".

That is all.

Reed misses target from the spot... dooh!

Can't even register on saints player ��

Great early save by McArthy....

On other news - Bevis Mugabi equalizes against the Skates

Now we have four attacking MF / strikers ...who are all over 25.(JayRod, Austin, Tadic and Long) not sure what /where Redmond will end up playing, but somehow I still find myself still looking for another striker (?) with a good goalscoring record on his CV, but maybe we'll have to pass on that one for now.

 

However, we are " back to square one " (what good old fashioned football phrase that is) with regards to the RB spot.

It looks like Cedric has got the role at present, but otherwise it's back to Coco Martina (if he's still here-come Thursday morning)...a difficult call that.

 

There is no obvious 3rd choice ...and no-one in the youth squad (at present) who looks like becoming another Chambers or Shaw... (please no-one say Yoshida again). Maya has always DAJFU when called upon to cover LB or left-sided CB, but he's also down the list for those slots and always gets himself into trouble when he plays at RB.

Errrr Yan Valery looks mustard and technically better than Cuco.

If anyone can help him develop into a great player, Puel can!

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If you are an LOSC Fan

And you want us to buy Tallo and not Boufal.

Because Tallo is better in your eyes

Yeh right.

It's like us trying to convince Liverpool not to buy Mane but buy JWP because he's 'better'!

"stone wall penalty..." which pretty much everyone says these days

"almost done enough to..."

I am sure there are plenty more..

Unfortunately that was scripted!

 

I was lucky enough to meet Cuco and cannot speak highly enough of him as a person. He's not your usual egotistical footballer, not many of our guys are (most have left now). He talked about training, saying mane, long and VVD were nightmares to play against and were the fastest players at the club over 100m, after him! He absolutely loves playing for his country and said the locations of most of their games are unreal paradise settings but very hot to play football in. Of course we talked a little about his goal... It was his favourite moment in football and talked about never forgetting how all of the fans stood up and clapped him when he took a throw in just after he had scored. He's a big fan of basketball (him and tadic are basically pros) breakdancing and fifa (I asked him if he would try to recreate the goal at home and shoot every time the ball was 35 yards out) he was literally in stitches for most of our conversation (a few red wines were had). He also said that most of the plays of his goal on youtube were him! I'll be sad to see him go. Football needs more Martinas and i hope he's replaced in our dressing room.

Nice story.

He does come across as a well grounded lad, just keeps his head down and has done/does a job for us.

With one year left on his contract he may be surplus to requirements, as I have a suspicion before the season ends we could see the rise and rise of Yan Valery.

Do you really think there's a system where every single player ever bought will be a success?

 

Gaston clearly could have and probably looked very good on paper/screen.

I suspect he/she is like many, questioning that the black box system/process was ever undertaken for these players

It (specifically the club) analyses between 100-200 players every single season.

 

In the last 3 seasons alone over 500 players have been through it, we certainly have not signed 500 players, so that is

testimony to the accuracy of the system.

 

It holds every single statistic that can be measured (probably including everything that can't aswell) and that is

cross referenced against current players to find potential new ones.

 

Literally every "in play" stat is stored and cross referenced against whoever it is we are looking to replace, hence, the calibre of

players that have been brought in.

 

4 people have access to that room which has 4 screens inside it with a visual Database on each screen, nobody else gets in there,

unless you happen to know someone well enough to authorise you to.

 

When bringing in a player, the Black Box believe it or not, is just a rough starting point of a VERY long process, beyond just whether the player

has the ability to kick a ball or not.

 

The club takes a keen interest in the person aswell as the player, most importantly the representives of that player too, you can take it as read every player who gets into the club has been well and truly put through the mill.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not doubting your figures or what you've said as it sounds like you are pretty close to this. Your comment in bold is also interesting.

However, the numbers don't actually sound impressive. Wyscout for example accumulates stats from every player in 1800 matches around the world every week? Is it that the detailed analysis is richer?

Also who/what determines the 100 who are monitoring and how quickly is analysis turned around? There must be some exceptions where managers favourite players aren't on the 100 being analysed, but still wants him in. (Osvaldo springs to mind). What happens then?

As an IT Geek, I'd be interested in knowing how much data is stored and what platform it runs on. Anyone have any info on that, or is that considered commercial in confidence.

As I understand it, it takes the vital metrics of every known player from a vast array of different data sources, and presents it in a way that we can compare every player based on what we need.

 

Whereas most other teams have scouting software, ours is bespoke to be able to use several different data sources, and we seem to have been pretty good at making the data we have more accurate than most other teams have, as well as being perhaps able to compare players based on a combination of stats that other teams would find it tricky to compare, because we have it in the one system. Also we seem to have a little bit of an advantage in figuring out what we need from a player in recent years.

 

At least, that's what's been made public in interviews. Maybe it does some other stuff that they're keeping to themselves?

 

It's not magic, or even particularly secret, what we've done, but how we've done it is what's given us a little bit of an edge over other teams in the time we've been using it so far.

Yep, pretty much how I understand it.

One other thing, which you didn't touch on that I think gives us an edge is, we start capturing data and tracking players at a very young age (not just within our academy), and over time what has evolved is not just a lump of data capturing vital stats, but a system that is becoming predictive. (ie a 17 year old with x attributes now will have y attributes by age 21)

I guess the big clubs don't need this edge as they are top of the food chain and trade players for a slightly different agenda - but it's valuable for us.

We have changed it through the groups. I still don't know why people think "the Southampton Way" has anything to do with a specific formation. It's about doing things like ensuring the whole club ethos is geared to a particular style or set of styles. Having one formation and only one formation is a ridiculous idea which leads to a team being completely predictable and easier to defend against, whilst having the whole club set up to play the same way is eminently sensible if the goal is to deliver players to the first team, whether on a short/temporary or long term basis, even if that "same way" changes to stay ahead of formation changes throughout the division.

 

One thing Les Reed is very on the ball about is identifying trends in how teams play and planning appropriately, it's been his role for years and he's written books on the subject.

I find this quite surprising.

I've always been led to believe (through I think a Saints promo video with Les) that 433 was the clubs chosen staple formation through the age groups. Not because it matches the first teams favoured formation "of the day", or because it's considered tactically supreme but rather because the end products are more well rounded and versatile players who, once entering senior ranks are more adaptable to play in any given formation.

Romeu was rubbish Saturday, but very good plenty of times last season. He's not vic level, but not THAT far behind. Be interesting to see how he does in 15-20 starts. Definitely need him playing with Hojbjerg though.

I tend to agree, except the whole "not same level" as Wanyama is a bit flawed and tedious as although they play same position have different qualities.

The other thing is, we've always seen Wanyama as part of a two man defensive screen which made things a lot easier for Wanyama to play the battering ram. I reckon if he was the midfield base of a 442 diamond he would be blowing a gasket by half time.

I didn't see last weeks game but could Hojbjerg (sic) do a job for us at the base?

Romeo isn't close to vic standard.

For clarity, is this the playing like a brick wall Vic, the doesn't give a flying f*ck Vic, or the not playing because of bookings Vic?

I'm pretty sure Romeu is better than the latter two, which was Vic about 75% of last season