Saints 0-1 Wolves - Match Thread

[egg]

2 minutes ago, OttawaSaint said:

True enough. I feel JWP’s game has gone a bit stale back there with Romeu. Further up he’d be inclined to pick a pass or get on the end of something.

Yep, we're not creating enough and JWP might just give us that spark a little higher up. 

[stknowle]

1 hour ago, Didcot Saint said:

Everyone is blaming Bednarek, but Raul shirt pulled him back big time then pushed him to gain control of the ball and get away. It was right in front of me. Blatant foul.

Hmmmm 6 of one half dozen of other. TOO WEAK.

[hackedoff]

Nothing is going to get learnt from this as far as the manager and club are concerned.

It's Ralph and his sloth,crab football,until the inevitable happens. Get used to it.

[trousers]

31 minutes ago, Winnersaint said:

Here we go again defeat at home to a relative bogey team and the sky caves in. Ralph, get rid. Redmond the perennial scapegoat. Tactics wrong, subs nonsensical. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Shit happens. Dust yourself down it’s only Stamford Bridge next week.  Yes I did watch on Sky.

 

30 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

Trouble is the cycle has been going on for well over a year now. 

 

29 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

Shit is the norm, it doesn’t just “happen”. 5 wins in 2021

If it's about the 'bigger picture' rather than individual games, then why do people only jump on the 'Ralph Out' thread after a defeat? Why not the same clamour after last week's game? It's either about the bigger picture, or it isn't.

[Forester]

Having been greatly encouraged so far this season by picking up points in matches that we lost last season, this feels like a big disappointment and to an extent quite a worrying performance.  By the latter I mean that the fears pre season that, while the squad has been improved, the first eleven has not, appeared vindicated.  Above all else, while we look fairly solid defensively the great concern is “where are the goals coming from”?

 

While being a firm fan of KWP, in a winnable home match it was a mistake not to play Perraud who is more capable of getting outside of an opponent and whipping in a dangerous left footed cross.  It was also a mystery to me why Tella, who I thought looked dangerous midweek, was left on the bench at the expense of Long.

 

Am concerned that Adams looks well short of confidence.  JWP clearly not fully fit which Ralph has confirmed is due to stomach condition.  All in all I suspect Ralph will have a few sleepless nights this week.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

1 minute ago, trousers said:

 

 

If it's about the 'bigger picture' rather than individual games, then why do people only jump on the 'Ralph Out' thread after a defeat? Why not the same clamour after last week's game? It's either about the bigger picture, or it isn't.

I get what you are saying and in reality it shouldn't be like this, however, we have had half decent performances and grabbed points on the road in the past, and then followed them up with really inept displays at home. Certain players shouldn't be anywhere near the starting eleven and it's this that creates the negativity. Am not a huge fan of Djenpo, but he did more coming off the bench than Redmond, even if his end product is lacking. Would rather him create confusion then see Redmond doing the same thing over and over again. 

[OttawaSaint]

4 minutes ago, Forester said:

Am concerned that Adams looks well short of confidence.  JWP clearly not fully fit which Ralph has confirmed is due to stomach condition.  All in all I suspect Ralph will have a few sleepless nights this week.

He came back from the EUROS absolutely buzzing about being involved and RH being RH let him cool off on the bench. Same treatment for Tella, buzzing at being in the team and lauded by Ralph at the end of last season, left to rot this.

RH doesn’t do himself any favours with his bizarre decisions, substitutions, and selections.

[Toussaint]

1 hour ago, trousers said:

 

 

If it's about the 'bigger picture' rather than individual games, then why do people only jump on the 'Ralph Out' thread after a defeat? Why not the same clamour after last week's game? It's either about the bigger picture, or it isn't.

Because this was considered a winnable game, it’s great taking points from City and Utd, but it’s games like these we have to pick up 3 points from. It was a game there for the taking, but the set up was wrong. Had we had a left footed left back that alone could have changed the whole outcome. Consider KWP RB, Peraud LB (radical thinking), and either Tella or Livramento instead of Redmond or Mo or both?
 

We now have Chelsea, so potentially we will have netted 4 points from 21 available. Leeds and Burnley  both have winnable games next week so unless we get a freak result against Chelsea then we could  be in the bottom 3. Then there will be the inevitable draining of confidence. Forgive me for feeling a gloomy.

Regarding the bigger picture question, the picture would have looked a lot different had we one today, I may have felt we were making progress, now it feels like a continuation of last season’s form. 

Edited 26 September, 2021 by Toussaint

[DT]

51 minutes ago, Toussaint said:

Because this was considered a winnable game, it’s great taking points from City and Utd, but it’s games like these we have to pick up 3 points from. It was a game there for the taking, but the set up was wrong. Had we had a left footed left back that alone could have changed the whole outcome. Consider KWP RB, Peraud LB (radical thinking), and either Tella or Livramento instead of Redmond or Mo or both?
 

We now have Chelsea, so potentially we will have netted 4 points from 21 available. Leeds and Blackburn both have winnable games next week so unless we get a freak result against Chelsea then we could  be in the bottom 3. Then there will be the inevitable draining of confidence. Forgive me for feeling a gloomy.

Regarding the bigger picture question, the picture would have looked a lot different had we one today, I may have felt we were making progress, now it feels like a continuation of last season’s form. 

Blackburn?

[woodsaint1]

Salisu deserves as much criticism as Bednarek for the goal. Pathetic attempt at providing cover, got caught flat footed. 2v1 and Jimenez mugged them off

[Saint86]

On 26/09/2021 at 16:02, MAY-Z said:

It happens because wolves were allowed to move the ball forward quickly, which puts pressure of defenders

This is utter nonsense. Pony in fact. Wolves' goal came off of a longball from the goalkeeper straight to Jiminez.... 🙃 What do you want our attackers to do from the opposing keepers goal kick?!?!?!

Outside of that goal, they had 1 chance prior to scoring and we totally outplayed them. They parked the bus and won with a very well taken goal from a top class striker. The only real complaint saints can have from today is that our new look attack has the age old problem of not being able to break down a well drilled defence.

Edited 27 September, 2021 by Saint86

[Toussaint]

6 minutes ago, DT said:

Blackburn?

Right county 😉 

[nta786]

12 minutes ago, woodsaint1 said:

Salisu deserves as much criticism as Bednarek for the goal. Pathetic attempt at providing cover, got caught flat footed. 2v1 and Jimenez mugged them off

I'll give Salisu some credit at the end in the 95th minute for good positioning which forced Jiminez to take the near-post shot to be fair.

The goal we conceded today was all on Bednarek, absolutely terrible.

[angelman]

Sh*t team. Pretty cr*p atmosphere. All round, a sh*t day.

[Nordic Saint]

18 minutes ago, angelman said:

Sh*t team. Pretty cr*p atmosphere. All round, a sh*t day.

The Jimenez goal was the only moment of real quality on the pitch. Pity it was against us. The highlight of the day off the pitch was the Saints Brass march along the touchline in front of the Kingland Stand. They really have got their OWTS off to perfection now. They fired up the atmosphere before kick-off and I think they deserve a spot in the Chapel End so they could stir it up a bit during the game as well. 

[Badger]

53 minutes ago, woodsaint1 said:

Salisu deserves as much criticism as Bednarek for the goal. Pathetic attempt at providing cover, got caught flat footed. 2v1 and Jimenez mugged them off

Bednarek looked to have taken the art of using your body strength from the Vestergaard textbook on defending, and when it came to tackling both were left looking at shadows. 

Good job we've got 'The Gorilla' biding his time to sort our defensive frailties out. According to his social media anyway.

[woodsaint1]

1 hour ago, stknowle said:

Hmmmm 6 of one half dozen of other. TOO WEAK.

Indeed. Shearer would have a field day with PL CBs these days. Was always good at getting tight, grabbing the shirt and rolling them easily

[Fan The Flames]

I think Bednarek should just have got into a foot race with RJ and he would have had a better chance of tackling him. The leaning in did him no favours.

[Badger]

2 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

I think Bednarek should just have got into a foot race with RJ and he would have had a better chance of tackling him. The leaning in did him no favours.

Don't think he has the pace, and he probably also realises it.

[SFC Forever]

I may be wrong but was not KWP one of our best players last season?

So knowing that what does Ralph do? Buys another RB and drops KWP. Then he plays KWP as a left back after buying one to replace Bertrand.

I have seen many instances where we are surprised by the decisions Ralph keeps making regarding team selection and and the the subs made when needed.

I have been a Ralph supporter since his arrival but am beginning to feel we will have to let hi9m go and sooner rather than later.

[marshmello]

Attendance 28,002 says a lot 

Chè fitness a concern, looked gone after 28 minutes 

Shane Long should not be playing a single minute or premier league football ever ever again 

our 4 at the back in the main look solid 

jwp not just best of games 

armstrong great work rate, will get scoring soon enough 

[Fan The Flames]

10 minutes ago, Badger said:

Don't think he has the pace, and he probably also realises it.

He keeps up with him ok and is there at the end sliding in. A cleaner run could have given Bednarek a better chance of gettng at the ball. Although just reading other posts maybe it's more of the handful of shirt rather than Bednarek leaning in.

[austsaint]

6 hours ago, Mr X said:

Not saying they won't get better but at the moment we have two strikers in Adams and Armstrong that simply aren't going to get enough goals, which means midfield and defensive players need to contribute more.  We should have bought proven players at this level not future projects 

To invert your first sentence, you could argue that our midfield quartet aren't providing the necessary link to Adams  and Armstrong, hence the shortage of goals.  We are missing Ings though.

[whelk]

Keown’s bs analysis. Pausing highlighting fullbacks not looking saying don’t know what is happening. Both are clearly facing when ball released by keeper.

Jenas fears for us

[Whitey Grandad]

We also lost this same fixture last season 1-2. Over these same six fixtures we lost five of them and only got the one point at home to West Ham, 0-0. So far we have four points so we are three points ahead in comparison.

Yet we do seem to be heading in the wrong direction.

[Saint86]

38 minutes ago, whelk said:

Keown’s bs analysis. Pausing highlighting fullbacks not looking saying don’t know what is happening. Both are clearly facing when ball released by keeper.

Jenas fears for us

Yeah exactly this. Utter nonsense from him. He managed to commentate the entire goal without mentioning or covering Jimenez or either CB.

Unless they were playing at CB themselves, our fullbacks would have had zero bearing on that goal, the longball came down immediately behind bednarek, Jimenez took a couple of touches running almost full pelt at goal the whole time. No way either full back intercepts that goal. It was just one of those moments, complete class from Jimenez, sat down both of our CB's with great control and composure, lethal. Trust him to break a 330+ day duck like that vs saints when he was dog last week as well.

On Jenas, he's fair in what he said in that we struggle to score, albeit i thought both he and Keown were quite disingenuous over how much Wolves just parked the bus for most of the game. Ultimately though, we do have to start focussing on attack. Can't afford to go too much longer without a win or morale will suffer!

Edited 26 September, 2021 by Saint86

[Whitey Grandad]

Bednarek gets sucked towards Jimenez and underruns the ball. Had he just watched the ball and concentrated on getting his head to,it he would have been unopposed.

[warsash saint]

Time to push Timo further forward & get KWP back to his proper position!

[cambsaint]

I would like to see Perraud and Livrimento as backs and see how KWP gets on on the right of a midfield three

He and Livrimeto could interchange at will.

Play 4132, midfield 3 a.n.other (dont see much between any of the presently fit candidates) but Stuart Armstrong asap JWP KWP

I think that KWP on the right would be a better option than Redmond on the left.

Other than that a very disappointing performance, one moment of great skill and a bit of lick won it for them

We are not a very tall or physical side and crosses aren't the way forward.

Also I was very disappointed with crowd support, just where do Sky put their mikes, (in front of he away supporters?)

and on some of the crowd shots I thought we had placed a bunch of stony faced, emotionless gargoyles on the seats.

Regrettably I can never get to matches except for a few away games, due to health issues and no longer having family in the area.

I also can't stand up for long so it's not much point going to away matches unless I can get a front row seat

[Ed Rooney]

24 minutes ago, warsash saint said:

Time to push Timo further forward & get KWP back to his proper position!

Can’t believe he hasn’t done this yet 

[Ed Rooney]

27 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Bednarek gets sucked towards Jimenez and underruns the ball. Had he just watched the ball and concentrated on getting his head to,it he would have been unopposed.

Not the first time Bednarek has got the wrong side and too close to an attacker and got spun and out muscled 

Edited 26 September, 2021 by Ed Rooney

[Dark Munster]

44 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Not the first time Bednarek has got the wrong side and too close to an attacker and got spun and out muscled 

At least he got close to him. Jack Stephens was miles away, just ball watching.

[skintsaint]

6 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Not the first time Bednarek has got the wrong side and too close to an attacker and got spun and out muscled 

or the last time, as near the end of the game a carbon copy happened, except this time the Wolves striker went back to his usual shite self and took the wrong option.

[Lord Duckhunter]

If somebody had turned up with 5 minutes left and didn’t know the score , they’d have thought it was 0-0. There was absolutely no urgency or a change of approach from us. We chucked Shane Long and the big fella on, and then continued to pass it backward square and slowly. Why wasn’t golden bollocks getting hold of the game and the side, pushing them on, driving us forward. Instead he was fannying around pushing up his passing stats. Woeful. 

[Harry_SFC]

Not sure if it's been mentioned as can't be bothered to go through all the posts but how poor has JWP been this season? 

[egg]

30 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Not sure if it's been mentioned as can't be bothered to go through all the posts but how poor has JWP been this season? 

He's been his usual self from open play. Slow, ponderous, limited passing range, little creativity. It's his dead balls which have dropped off. 

[Jeremy Corbyn]

17 minutes ago, egg said:

He's been his usual self from open play. Slow, ponderous, limited passing range, little creativity. It's his dead balls which have dropped off. 

True, though it hasn't helped that we sold our strongest two aerial threats in Ings and Vestegaard.  Our current front two don't do much in the air and the whole side isn't great at winning headers.

[DT]

8 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Can’t believe he hasn’t done this yet 

You could say this about any number of tactical cluelessnesses/selection oddities/too late subs from Ralph

Time for a change

[angelman]

11 hours ago, Nordic Saint said:

The Jimenez goal was the only moment of real quality on the pitch. Pity it was against us. The highlight of the day off the pitch was the Saints Brass march along the touchline in front of the Kingland Stand. They really have got their OWTS off to perfection now. They fired up the atmosphere before kick-off and I think they deserve a spot in the Chapel End so they could stir it up a bit during the game as well. 

Absolutely. Dire match played out by 2 Championship standard teams. 

[Fabrice29]

14 hours ago, trousers said:

Actually, now you mention it, on the occasions that Livramento drives forward he does remind me of Stuart Armstrong a tad. So, good call I reckon, especially if SA is destined to be out long term.

Find the calls to push Tino higher slightly bizarre tbh. His two best attributes this season have been his defending and the driving from deep past players. His final ball hasn’t been great and he’s played every game facing the goal. If you move him up he won’t be defending, he won’t be able to drive from deep and he’ll have to play with his back to goal more and find an end product.

Not saying he can’t do it but it’s a strange clamour to move our best performer so far into another role. 
 

Our biggest issue right now is being predictable in our build up. Just after they scored we created our best chance when Romeu played a lovely through ball from deep. Sadly that deep through ball was totally out of character. We’re slightly too concerned about attacking in patterns in my opinion. There’s not enough ‘randomness’ (I’m sure there is a better word). 

Edited 27 September, 2021 by Fabrice29

[Teddeer]

9 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Can’t believe he hasn’t done this yet 

It's clearly not in the play book Ralph wrote. If it's not in there you can't do it. No deviation allowed.

[Lighthouse]

16 hours ago, LGTL said:

The choice was we sell or we keep him and let him go for free next summer. Relegation will cost us a lot more then £20million so it was actually a big risk. Yeah he might have sulked but ultimately he would have got on with it. 

If we didn't sell him, our business would basically have been selling Vest and buying Perraud in summer. Then Ings would have left next summer and we'd be trying to replace our top goalscorer for free. Sounds like a much better recipe for relegation to me.

[Shroppie]

Having seen MOTD I'm surprised VAR didn't check to see how Jiminez got past Bednarek by holding his arm and pulling him back. Surprised we didn't complain.

 

[Billy the Kidd]

1 minute ago, Shroppie said:

Having seen MOTD I'm surprised VAR didn't check to see how Jiminez got past Bednarek by holding his arm and pulling him back. Surprised we didn't complain.

 

It also looks like Bednarek has hold of his shirt. Bad defending in my opinion, whilst still being good play by Jimenez.

Certainly not a foul in my opinion.

[Shroppie]

8 minutes ago, Billy the Kidd said:

It also looks like Bednarek has hold of his shirt. Bad defending in my opinion, whilst still being good play by Jimenez.

Certainly not a foul in my opinion.

Bednarek didn't have hold of his shirt. It should have been a foul, but Bednarek wasn't very strong and should have just hauled Raul down. Would have been a yellow, no more.

[Billy the Kidd]

7 minutes ago, Shroppie said:

Bednarek didn't have hold of his shirt. It should have been a foul, but Bednarek wasn't very strong and should have just hauled Raul down. Would have been a yellow, no more.

Pretty sure that looks like he has his shirt...

[Whitey Grandad]

37 minutes ago, Billy the Kidd said:

Pretty sure that looks like he has his shirt...

Isn’t that the referee in the foreground with a clear view of it?

[Billy the Kidd]

48 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Isn’t that the referee in the foreground with a clear view of it?

Yep, it sure is. Almost like he made the the right decision, based on using his eyes.

[trousers]

2 hours ago, Billy the Kidd said:

It also looks like Bednarek has hold of his shirt. Bad defending in my opinion, whilst still being good play by Jimenez.

Certainly not a foul in my opinion.

Given Jiminez is holding Bednarek's arm and Bednarek is holding Jiminez's shirt, doesn't who should've been awarded a foul depend on who grabbed who first? (I've no idea who grabbed who first btw)

Edited 27 September, 2021 by trousers

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Billy the Kidd said:

Yep, it sure is. Almost like he made the the right decision, based on using his eyes.

Personally I though that Bednarek was fouled but  there again there were plenty of other incidents that I thought were fouls too. 

Edited 27 September, 2021 by Whitey Grandad