eelpie

How come our famed Academy is performing so badly nowadays?

England should use Saints training ground and staff. Then they might even get a full team on the pitch.

We don't now need a larger squad (unless a bargain player comes our way in January). During our best historical seasons we always had small, united squads. Our squad will naturally grow in any case as young Academy players come through, all playing the Southampton Way. When we plummeted through the divisions we had added quite a few disparate players, and with little common purpose. If on the other hand we find ourselves in European football next or another, season MoPo will have to address the need for rotating a larger squad containing selected QUALITY additions, otherwise we might be overstretched with two demanding matches in some weeks. Rotating players will be a new challenge that hasn't been done since the days of Adkins's teams (with good but mixed results).

Gaston is not camp

I count 15 Saints players in different international squads (including Lloyd on international standby) this week. Is this a Saints record?

I don't but good call. It's always a long wait since we are never in the early slots on Saturday either. I find the preceding matches of no interest since they are not Saints and by the time we are on I've fallen asleep, lol.

I don't think we should be interfering in other teams problems. Just let them destroy each other.

Four observations. This defeat means that out youngsters are not going to be able to continue their development at competitive level in company with leading squad players at least until the FA Cup rounds. This is unfortunate, but not disastrous. That our mainly reserve squad was unable to defeat a poor Sunderland side means that we are not yet strong enough in depth to be able to maintain both European football as well as Premiership football. This is not disastrous either. It is simply a reality check. We are getting there, but not there yet. For this to happen MoPo would have to be confident he can rotate players so that all are capable of slotting into the team and doing well at any time. We have been fortunate so far to have had few serious injuries, but we are where we are because only a small group in the squad are capable of achieving a top ten place this season. The manager dare not make too many changes to the first team. On the plus side, both future opponents Chelsea and Sunderland might feel the stress of extra games, not us. And Saturday's game against Hull will be the first opportunity for the team to prove their quality. So I am not too disappointed, and I am very proud of all our players.

ok, with Saturday's game against Hull in mind, what is preferred if it came down to extra time: go all out for a win with our first teamers on the pitch? lose rather than go to extra time?

So should we be prioritising CL league or Premiership matches when we have two matches a week? Would the best players play in CL at the expense of our league position? How much more might our seat prices rise? Could we get into financial trouble by signing expensive CL quality players who we might not be able to afford once we are out of the competition? The historic tragedy of Leeds Utd and Ipswich before comes to mind. I'm not dissing European football for us which would be momentous, just pointing out some risks. (The same applies equally whichever European competition we might find ourselves in) Meanwhile back to the thread, I would give game experience to Chambers, Maya, Ramires, Cork, Lee, Davies and Fox, the remainder of places (but not full 90 minutes) to first team players. Rickie and JWP must be on the pitch towards the end in case it comes down to penalties. I think that if our fringe players can't do enough to beat Sunderland then European football is not yet a realistic option.

But if we achieve Champions league competition by resting players midweek to get there, we are not going to get far in the two matches a week competition, are we?

Yes, but did Artur not even attempt to score likewise in the second half, or did the wind die down? Poor response if he didn't, lol. Seriously, every keeper is going to encounter flukes like that. Artur is truly King between the the posts.

I thought we should HAVE won too.

Yep. Good point. I am confident that with my mere 4.5 thousand posts at a maximum of three a day, I will get to May without feeling any effects. Seriously, an interesting OP.

Well, at the Fulham game Saints covered miles more turf than lazy Fulham, and at speed too. So I shall be watching other games to judge if we really are causing teams to chase us more and exhaust themselves more than we exhaust ourselves.. I doubt it.

Surely you are not referring to the ones above?

The most it can ever be a realistic stat will be when we have played all teams once at the half way stage (even though we are unlikely to have played everyone home or away exactly as last season.) And we have the toughest part of the half yearly programme of matches to come, including against some of the top clubs. Also we have been lucky with injuries to date and it would not be unrealistic to expect our fast tempo style to eventually take its toll (but I hope not). So probably (imho) an eigth end of season position is not an unrealistic proposition. We may well climb the table to even higher than 3rd for short spells but I still consider eighth the benchmark to beat.

Clyne has now featured in Garth Crook's team of the week for two consecutive weeks. Roy must surely take note.

[quote=Bexy;1803679} The 'tater on the stream I was watching said that it would be hard to pick a MOTM because you could make an argument for every player in a red shirt, and I'm inclined to agree with him. I can't bring myself to pick one player out of what was such a complete TEAM performance tonight. This is one happy Saints fan right here. Agree, but I've gone for Lallana as on top of producing some sublime football, he also demonstrated excellent captaining skills as he led the whole team to over 60% dominance.

Guly has been great for us and has scored some crucial goals since he joined, but not recently. I now see him more as a holding midfielder when we are under siege than an attacking threat.

I hope that the only wonder goals will be from us. 2-1 Saints

There must be a good reason why all of our strikers are finding it difficult to score freely at present. Defending deep when necessary and pressing quickly to the front has achieved much, but is not providing the goals. Perhaps the strikers do need a fraction more time on the ball, and a bit more creativity and supply from midfield might achieve this. VW is a massive midfield defender but I don't think he yet provides the same quick-witted clever forward thinking and inter-passing of the Cork/Spiderman partnership, and we are lacking a playmaker. Perhaps Jack - or Ramires -should be coming off the bench to provide more midfield creativity and better service to our forwards if scoring continues to be a problem.

Daily obsession with all things Saints. But when we win and are doing well I think of what it would mean to my departed dad and also my grandad (who was born two years after the first St Mary's football team was founded). They took me to my first games at The Dell as a lad.