Saints 1 Swansea 0

[St Chalet]

And breathe.....

[Jonnyboy]

Thank you Forster for staying alert and saving the points.

[Waterside.saint]

Phew...

[Pamplemousse]

Well deserved victory, get in there!

[Hamilton Saint]

Very big win. Time to climb the table.

[doc oli]

An excellent second half performance. slick passing and movement, all on the deck, and unlucky not to win by more.

[St Chalet]

Well worth the win. Need to be more clinical.

[farawaysaint]

By far the better team, finishing us the one weak spot right now.

[shurlock]

Cokehead scored. Good lad.

[adrian lord]

We have lift off

[Mattio]

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!

[Saint86]

Yay! Played well second half, stepped it up a notch. And good to see the manager making meaningful substitutions to change the game. I think Puel has the tactical ability to do well and hopefully that will become clearer and clearer over the next couple of weeks.

[CB Fry]

Cokehead scored. Good lad.

Charlie gives us self confidence.

[badgerx16]

Should have been a much clearer margin of victory.

[Baird of the land]

Vital win got. Feeling of relief, hopefully we can push on and go on a bit of a run.

We were the better team but still lots of room for improvement from us. At one point felt like the ball just wasn't going to go in the net, thankfully Austin solved that.

Thought Romeu was man of the match, very good all over the pitch and covering on their dangerous counter.

[Saint Matty 76]

Has to be Austin and one of Redmond/Long now. Can't be the latter two.

[Nexstar]

Good win, good week. But the lack of striker (or lack of playing a striker) means that when we dominate crap teams, like today, they're always going to be in the game.

[SuperSAINT]

Well that feels amazing.

 

Really need to start taking more chances though.

 

An excellent 4 days work!

[stknowle]

We won, it's all that matters. Nathan Redmond as a striker however......................................

[DT]

Woohoo. Scraping past Swansea at home. Thank the Lord

 

 

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[FriendlySaint]

Had enough chances to win by 5. We played very well today (apart from sticking it in the net) in which was quite clearly a 4-3-3 imo. Austin (if fit to play 90) must start every single game.

 

Redmond sadly can't shoot , looked dangerous all game but can't hit a barn door. I do think the crowd got on his back too much today though (I'm at the ground writing this). He's still only young and has a lot of potential.

 

Van Dijk was very good yet again today. Completely and utterly dominated Llorente and Swansea physically .

[BARCELONASAINT]

the only criticism anyone can have about that performance is the finnishing.....apart from that it was a very convincing 1-0 win with some wonderful slick football in the second half. Full credit to Puel for the timing of the second half subs.

[broken spoke]

Not a bad day at the office....

 

[ButtikonSaint]

Dominant display and would have been a stroll had we converted one or two more ... we should have been 3-0 nil and cruising by mid-2nd half...

Still strong display all around, feels like the team is starting to gel again... can't wait for Sofiane to be available.

Happy for CP and his staff...

COYS....

[eddie]

Very pleased. Could let the last 15 minutes affect the opinion of the whole match, but Swansea really didnt look a threat at all until Montero came on. Thought it was clever from Puel to play Austin on the left given the crosses were coming in from Tadic/Cedric on the right. Redmond missed a sitter as did Austin, but it was a composed performance.

 

Thought this demonstrated the highs and lows of the formation. The midfield was very well locked down, with Romeu, Davis, Hojbjerg doing a good job of ensuring their only joy was down the wings. Had swansea had better wide players we might have not got more than a point from the game, but it was a good performance.

 

Players still getting used to where each other is/is supposed to be...but we can work on that.

 

V pleased with this and the midweek win. We certainly wont be going down but going to be tough to get higher than ninth this season.

[Lighthouse]

That'll do pig, that'll do.

[Plastic]

Some poor shooting, some bad luck, but our passing play was very high quality. Think we looked great on the whole. Prefer this to Koeman's constant crossing games.

[FriendlySaint]

Has to be Austin and one of Redmond/Long now. Can't be the latter two.

 

I have a sneaking suspicious it may be due to Austin's fitness. Took a knock and looked knackered at the end. I'd love him to start every game though if capable

[Dark Munster]

Has to be Austin and one of Redmond/Long now. Can't be the latter two.

Yes, but it seems doubtful that Austin can last more than 60 minutes.

[Pamplemousse]

Thankfully we've got West Ham, so we should get plenty of chances against their defence which means we can afford to miss a few sitters and still win.

[Secret Site Agent]

Well done. we are improving I will give them that but we need more of a goal threat up top. Shane needs to improve and Redman is doing his best. Thanks be to Austin, but we could have won that at least 4 - 0 easily. And Austin can't do 90 mins at the minute. Hopefully JRod will get more chances, Boufal will give us more threat and petrhaps Uncle Les will open hios purse and buy us someone.

 

Still, more happy now than last week, so onwards and upwards.

[DuncanRG]

Not quite the 3-0 drubbing of Norwich that kickstarted us last year, but let's hope it has the same effect. Really good performance.

[SO16_Saint]

Was only dipping in and out of the game on live stream but for the 30 mins or so that I saw, we were well deserving of the points.

[Chris27687]

Good stuff - back to back wins and back to back clean sheets.

 

Can't wait to see Boufal in the mix now!

[Dark Munster]

Overall a very good display. 3-0 wouldn't have flattered us.

[striker]

This is a strong team on 2/3 of the pitch. We need Austin out there to become a total team . I also get the feeling that the team wants Austin out there, he gives them confidence. When he is on the pitch they look to attack more.

[saint1977]

Had enough chances to win by 5. We played very well today (apart from sticking it in the net) in which was quite clearly a 4-3-3 imo. Austin (if fit to play 90) must start every single game.

 

Redmond sadly can't shoot , looked dangerous all game but can't hit a barn door. I do think the crowd got on his back too much today though (I'm at the ground writing this). He's still only young and has a lot of potential.

 

Van Dijk was very good yet again today. Completely and utterly dominated Llorente and Swansea physically .

 

That's how I saw it as well, best performance so far building on Thursday. We looked so much more dangerous when Austin was on, glad he argued with Tadic on that penalty as you can see the confidence flooding back.

 

I think Puel was right to bring Charlie on as sub though and I like the idea of Martina playing further forward, worth a cameo today and helped Cedric handle Montero late on. However this dafrT experiment with Redmond - aagh! He will be an excellent winger and rather than fans groaning we should we singing that he plays on the wing. Hopefully Boufal will make a difference when fit and restore Nathan to wide areas. Only having 3 strikers is a huge risk but with Gallagher scoring at Blackburn we may have a recall clause.

[van Hanegem]

Saints beating Sparta and Swansea, Feyenoord beating ManU and PSV... What a great week this was!

[Saint Albert]

What a relief. Saints should have won by 3, but we won. We were relentless at times, and Swansea were poor. I appreciate that we need to rotate players with Euro football but Austin needs to start every game, like Virgil. Austin looks like our best finisher.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Has to be Austin and one of Redmond/Long now. Can't be the latter two.

 

Agree, you can't start a home game without a goal scorer. Poor old Redmond, must be feeling down but he needs to work on his end product, plenty of energetic runs which fizzled out every time. Good to get 3 points but we were lucky Swansea had a poor afternoon. More shooting practice needed too!

[Shance]

I really thought we'd come unstuck in the second half and tire a bit, but we didn't. Not one bit. Hojbjerg was class and so was Austin when he came on.

 

The only downsides for me was Classie and Redmonds finishing. Other than that I think we did really well. Some slick passing and patient build up play.

[redkeith]

Missed the first 40 minutes, as I didn't realise the kick-off time I saw was local time, not GMT. DOH!

 

Played really well, great movement and should have scored more. I was a bit worried about the rotation, but it seemd to work. If we are playing twice a week for 2 months, then you have to let the sports science guys have some input into the team selection. No point in playing someone who is in the red zone and putting him out for 2 months.

 

Proper strickers finish from Charlie, and a good substitution at the end, to provide more help against Montero .

[stknowle]

What a relief. Saints should have won by 3, but we won. We were relentless at times, and Swansea were poor. I appreciate that we need to rotate players with Euro football but Austin needs to start every game, like Virgil. Austin looks like our best finisher.

 

Austin does look like our best finisher. Comfortably. But feck me he's got some weak competition.

[Manuel]

Doubt Austin is fit enough to play 90. Not sure why J-Rod isn't figuring more, him on for a tiring Austin would make sense to me.

[Disco Stu]

Infuriating that every time I watch this team play, I just think we're one class striker away from being a complete team. We've created so many opportunities for ourselved today yet have only won 1-0 (allowing them to put us under pressure towards the end of the game). When will Puel realise that Redmond is not a striker. He isn't clinical enough.

 

On a more positive note, we're starting to play our new system more effectively and at least we're now creating chances as well as have our first clean sheet in the league. Just a shame we have no one to really put games to bed when we have so many chances to do so.

[Batman]

happy with that. pretty dominant display. 75-80 mins we controlled the game

VvD, Davis, Romeu, Tadic and Austin very good

Clasie a bit meh and redmond played well just feel for the lad with the pressure of being the next Thierry Henry placed on him

 

Austin and Redmond miss absolute sitters. Austin then scored a good'un

need to be a massive amount better in the final 3rd or many more points will slip through the net

 

much needed and fully deserved win

[Heisenberg]

Great to get the win, upto the dizzy heights of 14th

[austsaint]

Well deserved result. Midfield pair of Davis and Romeu both had superb games as did VVD. Hojbjerg's appearance and performance underlined that Davis, Romeu and Hoj. are comfortably our best mid combination. Full marks to Puel for good substitutions and an emerging style of play which is easy on the eye. Redmond's finishing was woeful but a lot of his general play was lively - played out wide he's going to be an asset.

[Edmonton Saint]

Thought we played very well today, created some real goalscoring chances and on another day we could have won 3 or 4 nil. Cedric is derided on here quite often, but I thought he played very well today and defended well and got forward well. Redmond just lacks the composure atm, but he got into good positions and his pace is an asset. Clasie was anonymous again. Never seen him do much in a Saints shirt and Hojbjerg has to start in front of him, (or even Ward-Prowse), and like others have said what Austin lacks in pace and fitness, he gives back with his ability in the penalty area, always useful to have a natural goalscorer on the pitch.

[washsaint]

Apart from in front of goal, we played superbly. Redmond looked pretty good - until he got in front of goal where he was totally woeful. You can see that Hojberg is not yet the finished article - but, boy what a player he will be. Strong, surging runs and not afraid to get stuck in.....offers way more than CLasie I think.

 

SOares was good and great move to bring Cuco on to help cover Montero. Tadic was outstanding and cannot wait to see what Boufal adds to the team.

 

For me, Austin or Rodriguez should be starting every game - they know where the net is and Long is having a mare and Redmond could not hit a barn door from 3 yards out.

 

Bit worried when we started sitting so deep - when we attacked prior to the goal Swansea just could not cope with the pace and movement.

 

Very different style from last 2 seasons - much easier on the eye. Hopefully these last 2 wins will kickstart our season now.