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Palace v Saints - Match and Reaction


John Boy Saint
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There is no doubt we are in strange times - Tuesday before the 20/21 Season kicks off  and unless my mince pies have developed a fault, no build up thread! 
I guess with nobody having an away ticket in their pockets for potentially the crappiest view in the Premier League it’s a bit surreal that footie is back on Saturday.

So here we go - I’m guessing Ralph will be picking the team that finished the season v Sheffield United as long as JWP and Ings return from Denmark unscathed. 
Back to 3 subs and no tea break in the middle of the halves, unless we have an Indian summer and the mercury hits the required temperature.

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If we were mid season I'd predict a saints win every time, but first game we're normally poor.

However it does feel different under Ralph...

"Usual" team so:

Mccarthy; KWP Bednarek Stephens Bertrand; JWP, Romeu; Armstrong Ings Adams Redmond.

Fingers crossed we can start off with a win. The lack of pre-season minutes worries me, but I'm expecting us to be fitter than most other teams to start with.

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Seen some chat about clubs / the league doing some sort of U-turn (as is the fashion at the moment) and allowing all games to be televised in someway until fans are allowed back in on-masse. Not seen anything that looks very official on this subject however, just the usual untrustworthy guessing and bollocks from the Sun etc. 

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1 hour ago, Saint_Jonny said:

Seen some chat about clubs / the league doing some sort of U-turn (as is the fashion at the moment) and allowing all games to be televised in someway until fans are allowed back in on-masse. Not seen anything that looks very official on this subject however, just the usual untrustworthy guessing and bollocks from the Sun etc. 

Believe this will be true and that all September games will be shown live on TV.

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1 hour ago, adriansfc said:

Looks like they'll have Batsuhyi. Him, Zaha and Eze suddenly makes for a really good attack. 

Famous last words but... between the three of them last season they scored 5 Premier League goals in total. The same as Stuart Armstrong! 😛

(Yes I know Eze was a Championship player and Batsuhyi hardly played)

Edited by Matthew Le God
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3 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

The Liverpool first XI pretty much picks itself. Is that telling?

Yep - good first 13 or 14 and then they would struggle if they got injuries in certain positions.

I wouldn't say Saints have a lot of competition for places and I think the same is true of Liverpool, certainly in defence and attack.

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Palace struggled in the last few weeks of the season. They rely heavily on that home support in their "old fashioned" ground, and with no crowd I think they will struggle. On the contrary our form was excellent and in particular away from home. I know Saints are slow starters but I'm going for a 1-2 Saints with Redmond and Adams to score.

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4 minutes ago, verlaine1979 said:

Same starting 11 as ended last season, but our bench will look stronger if Salisu and Djenepo are both fit to take part. Midfield bench very light though - no close-out-the-game type player will be available.

Ralph doesn't tend to make those type of subs anyway as he knows we are better going forward than sitting back. Two of his three subs are usually to take off Ings' partner and Armstrong to get fresh legs in the press.

Romeu does tend to need subbing sometimes with 20mins to go as he occassionally struggles to keep up with the pace and just resorts to fouling.

We will have an extra option there when the window shuts.

Edited by Dusic
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12 hours ago, Dusic said:

Ralph doesn't tend to make those type of subs anyway as he knows we are better going forward than sitting back. Two of his three subs are usually to take off Ings' partner and Armstrong to get fresh legs in the press.

Romeu does tend to need subbing sometimes with 20mins to go as he occassionally struggles to keep up with the pace and just resorts to fouling.

We will have an extra option there when the window shuts.

Hope you are right about the extra option for midfield.....crucial!     Disagree about the characterisation of Romeu struggling to keep up late in the game and resorting to fouls....that really is a lazy stereotype which needs challenging.   When given the chance post-lockdown Romeu looked fit and played out games strongly....

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We know that momentum can be carried over from the end of one season to the start of the next (see Leicester) and with Saints apparently treating this period as more of an extended break than a preseason you would hope we would come out all guns blazing on Saturday. On top of that the team is settled, our record at the ground in question is excellent, and with the League Cup being played over consecutive weeks there’s a real chance to build a serious head of steam for the first couple months of the season.

On the other hand, it’s the first day of the season and it’s Southampton FC. 
 

With all that in mind I’m going for a dominant 1-1 draw.

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Not sure how this one is going to pan out, just hope that Chey gets off to a flyer which will give him confidence for the rest of the season, will take some of the pressure off of Danny as well.

Optimistically 0 - 2 Saints - a brace for Chey.

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22 hours ago, Ado said:

Assume we’ll be in the white kit for this one?

Did you read in the Telegraph today about MU's apallng third strip looking like zebras . The article then went on to invoke the day MU played us in a GREY strip and said they lost to us  6-3 because they could not pick out one another in grey their strips. MU even changed into a different strip at half time

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Palace look to have lost their 3 first choice centre-halves (Cahill, Tomkins & Sakho) for the game. They are likely to play Dann and Kouyate instead, although Kelly is another option.  While most of those players aren't top notch and some have left their best days behind, that is an impressive amount of premier league experience for 5th & 6th choice centre halves (I recognise that Kouyate mostly plays in midfield). They also have injuries to their full backs. 

When you compare that strength in depth to our own at centre half, it is fairly frightening to think what would happen if we lost our 3 first choice centre-halves (or even more terrifying our 3 first choice centre midfielders (do we have 3 ?)). It does highlight that a few key injuries and our season could be blown off course very quickly. Fingers crossed.

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32 minutes ago, Totton Saint said:

Did you read in the Telegraph today about MU's apallng third strip looking like zebras . The article then went on to invoke the day MU played us in a GREY strip and said they lost to us  6-3 because they could not pick out one another in grey their strips. MU even changed into a different strip at half time

I'm sure the changing shirts at half time and 6-3 score were 2 different matches!

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4 hours ago, Totton Saint said:

Did you read in the Telegraph today about MU's apallng third strip looking like zebras . The article then went on to invoke the day MU played us in a GREY strip and said they lost to us  6-3 because they could not pick out one another in grey their strips. MU even changed into a different strip at half time

Never mentioned the score. So he got it right as both games were in 1996.

"Still, this United get-up is on the bad. Not even Beckham, himself, could make it appear acceptable and he once made an MLS shirt seem trendy instead of entirely desperate. It rivals the infamous United third kit of 1996, that pitiless grey one which Sir Alex Ferguson blamed for a defeat at Southampton because his players could not pick each other out."

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13 hours ago, JRM said:

Missing 3 centre backs and both their full backs? If that's true worth a bet on Palace keeping a clean sheet. 

Will this be the first ever league game to be televised live on a Saturday 3pm in the UK? 

I don’t think so- I feel like during the post-lockdown restart there was a 3pm game televised on a Saturday.

If we’re clutching at straws you can say first ever live 3pm televised on a Saturday in September!

However, as the norm on this forum these days, we will need MLG to confirm or provide a pedantic analysis on the matter 

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4 hours ago, saint97 said:

Hopefully see Djenepo start this one as Stu's out

Ralph said in his presser Djenepo is behind in fitness as he had to quarantine following his holidays in Mali.

No sign of Boufal in training pics so it will Smallbone in place of Armstrong with Djenepo and Tella on the bench. 

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