Saints 0-0 Skates - Match Thread

[Pamplemousse]

It's the same away from home, usually you can barely hear the home fans but that's because often their main end is usually the opposite to where the away fans are sitting.

[Galway saint]

2 hours ago, Saintsfan1976 said:

I am at a loss with how the manager set us up against skates. I am also at a loss as to why the skates were the better team all round. We have again spent millions and yet no striker who can hold the ball head the ball and bring others into play. I think we could have got Josh Murphy for 5 million, best player in the park yesterday. 

Why have we not purchased a decent striker, every time it went forward it came back. Spent some much money on attacking players but no end product. Jury out on Still as we wasted the transfer opportunity 

People keep saying we haven’t replaced Danny Ings - the reality is we haven’t replaced Che Adams who would walk into this side.

Dont know if you can blame Still for transfers as we don’t know how much influence he has had. I’d hope he wouldn’t have said I want a small guy up front to feed of the crosses from two wingers so at the moment it doesn’t look to me like he has been given what he needs but that’s the SR way 

[AlexLaw76]

9 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

People keep saying we haven’t replaced Danny Ings - the reality is we haven’t replaced Che Adams who would walk into this side.

Dont know if you can blame Still for transfers as we don’t know how much influence he has had. I’d hope he wouldn’t have said I want a small guy up front to feed of the crosses from two wingers so at the moment it doesn’t look to me like he has been given what he needs but that’s the SR way 

Then surely he has to adapt to how he wants to play?

[The Wyvern]

9 hours ago, tdmickey3 said:

He has learning difficulties, you tosser

Then surely there should be someone looking after him?  And stopping him behaving like this.  Its not a good look for him or the club, so hopefully someone has a quiet word at some point. 

[EssEffCee]

1 hour ago, sfc4prem said:

It hasn't made it worse. When the away fans were behind the goal in the Northam they:

- Regularly drowned out the Northam and Itchen North. The only 'noise' heard from the Kingsland/Chapel corner would be the away fans.

- Every goal scored would be with wild away fans celebrating in the background on every highlight video around

I think it works. The safe standing is great. Its a nice change.

We haven't had a good Saints team performing regularly in this newly configured St Mary's. Give it time. It'll be a positive change when we look back after some good home seasons.

I've never been able to get my head around why people make the second point. Who honestly gives a shit what can be seen on TV? I honestly can't think of anything more irrelevant.

On point one, yeah there would definitely be occasions where the away crowd would drown out our support, but if we were on it then we could also drown out even a noisy away end as the sound could come from both sides.

That will never happen with the new layout. Ever. Because the away fans can't hear the northam and will never have noisy fans on the kingsland side.

What we'll basically always get now is away fans going "they barely ever sing in their main end behind the goal" and fans the northam going "the away support were shit, barely heard them all game" and in most cases neither things being true.

[EssEffCee]

1 hour ago, Pamplemousse said:

It's the same away from home, usually you can barely hear the home fans but that's because often their main end is usually the opposite to where the away fans are sitting.

Depends on the ground. Less of an issue at older stadiums than flat packs like ours.

Can always hear the Holte end at Villa Park for example.

[RedArmy]

I said at the time that they should have moved the away fans to Kingsland North if they wanted the northam to be a home end, and my opinion hasn’t changed. 
 

Would also have made it logistically difficult for yesterday to have been a bubble too which is what everyone wants. 

[Dr Who?]

They made a mistake by moving the away fans to the other end. The atmosphere was brilliant in our promotion season, had not known one like it at SMS, and the club thought by making the northam all home fans it would get even better. Wrong, it is the banter that whips up the atmosphere, and now that has been lost and it is flat. They need to make this right, but with the fan zone it cannot go back to how it was and it is all standing. So the Kingsland or Itchen North is where the away fans should be. 

[Galway saint]

1 hour ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Then surely he has to adapt to how he wants to play?

I understood his style to involve pace and wingers with plenty of crosses into the box. If that’s his style then it would make sense to play a decent sized target man yet he plays Archer. Maybe he thinks Downs and Stewart are shit and he might not be far wrong.

My point was SR employed a guy who plays a certain way and then for the umpteenth transfer window in a row fail to sign a decent CF. What was the point in appointing him if you aren’t going to give him the tools to try and succeed ?

That said he hasn’t looked great so far with or without a decent CF but then no manager has at this club since Ralph 

 

[lambtiss]

4 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

I understood his style to involve pace and wingers with plenty of crosses into the box. If that’s his style then it would make sense to play a decent sized target man yet he plays Archer. Maybe he thinks Downs and Stewart are shit and he might not be far wrong.

My point was SR employed a guy who plays a certain way and then for the umpteenth transfer window in a row fail to sign a decent CF. What was the point in appointing him if you aren’t going to give him the tools to try and succeed ?

That said he hasn’t looked great so far with or without a decent CF but then no manager has at this club since Ralph 

 

I totally agree. I think our failure to buy a reliable CF this transfer window is a huge mistake. The fact that Still seems to play with wingers makes this an even more glaring problem.

[rallyboy]

I've already run into a pompey fan...

Apparently they played brilliantly and dominated the whole game, their plucky fans outsung us for 90 mins, you could only hear them on the telly, we were silent, and the real revelation - he thinks we won't go up playing like that.

He glossed over the fact that they've not beaten us in 15 years and only four times in 60 years, toothless twat.

 

[the colonel]

2 hours ago, Totton Saint said:

I bet Robinson felt sick not  starting. Being dropped for an untried newcomer must be demoralising Too many newbies picked so soon.

 

 

Agree. Can only think Still didn't want to put an 18 years in that environment. But, Jay having been with Saint since a youth would probably be much more up for the game than newbies. Agree would have liked to see him at least come off the bench much earlier.

[musesaint]

1 hour ago, Dr Who? said:

They made a mistake by moving the away fans to the other end. The atmosphere was brilliant in our promotion season, had not known one like it at SMS, and the club thought by making the northam all home fans it would get even better. Wrong, it is the banter that whips up the atmosphere, and now that has been lost and it is flat. They need to make this right, but with the fan zone it cannot go back to how it was and it is all standing. So the Kingsland or Itchen North is where the away fans should be. 

Totally agree. I was in The Chapel yesterday and the atmosphere in the three blocks nearest the away fans was great. Contrast that with the Northam “Wall Of Sound”. No idea who at the club thought that the stadium changes were a good idea.
 

Another thing they overlooked is that Saints now play the first half of most sunny games straight into the sun, whereas the Chapel end of the ground gets less sun in both the first AND second halves. Why throw away the advantage we always had? Anyone notice that away teams winning the toss haven’t “changed us round” for over a year? Unlike the club they’re not stupid. 

Edited 8 hours ago by musesaint

[SouSaint]

7 hours ago, rallyboy said:

I've already run into a pompey fan...

Apparently they played brilliantly and dominated the whole game, their plucky fans outsung us for 90 mins, you could only hear them on the telly, we were silent, and the real revelation - he thinks we won't go up playing like that.

He glossed over the fact that they've not beaten us in 15 years and only four times in 60 years, toothless twat.

 

He's not wrong. We won't even finish above them playing like that. 

[AlexLaw76]

7 hours ago, Galway saint said:

I understood his style to involve pace and wingers with plenty of crosses into the box. If that’s his style then it would make sense to play a decent sized target man yet he plays Archer. Maybe he thinks Downs and Stewart are shit and he might not be far wrong.

My point was SR employed a guy who plays a certain way and then for the umpteenth transfer window in a row fail to sign a decent CF. What was the point in appointing him if you aren’t going to give him the tools to try and succeed ?

That said he hasn’t looked great so far with or without a decent CF but then no manager has at this club since Ralph 

 

The man himself has said he does not have a particular style. He also said he did not want a striker bright in as we had enough quality already.

Not my words…

but let’s say it is his style. We are in a relegation fight then, if all he has is to launch long balls into small strikers. Do you really believe that?

Edited 2 hours ago by AlexLaw76

[Challenger]

No improvement from last season. The club are still naively scrambling around desperately trying to find the answers to basic problems, and continually failing to find them.

 

[Harry_SFC]

1 hour ago, AlexLaw76 said:

The man himself has said he does not have a particular style. He also said he did not want a striker bright in as we had enough quality already.

Not my words…

but let’s say it is his style. We are in a relegation fight then, if all he has is to launch long balls into small strikers. Do you really believe that?

I think the club expected Downs to come in and be our starting striker but he's clearly not ready. Another fuck up in the CF position. 

[AlexLaw76]

4 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

I think the club expected Downs to come in and be our starting striker but he's clearly not ready. Another fuck up in the CF position. 

Why would they expect that? He is a young kid with no real record to hang on to.

for a club that has bought Fellows, Azaz et al, that seems a strange situation at best, and likely just an excuse

i agree, it is a fuck of but of the manager IMO. He has been with the players all pre season and the best he has is to lump it to a small forward. If this is his ‘thing’ mid table it is then.

Edited 1 hour ago by AlexLaw76

[Football Special]

1 hour ago, Challenger said:

No improvement from last season. The club are still naively scrambling around desperately trying to find the answers to basic problems, and continually failing to find them.

 

No improvement, perhaps we've even gone further backwards, some of us tried to have a reasonable discussion on that but the 8/10 transfer window brigade were having none of it. 

I've seen points like "we were a Premier league team , the gulf in class to the championship is massive, we're still better than the rest" , laughable and irrelevant, our 12 point embarrassment of a season probably the equivalent of dropping a mid table championship side into the Prem for a year, no indication of quality. 

"Our players cost X amount, or we've spent £X more than them" , again irrelevant until they've shown they can actually perform for us as part of a cohesive team fans need to pack away that complacent arrogant mentality that I believe also exists within the club. 

Still does need time but should be getting the basics right. 

Transfer window for me did not address our most glaring weaknesses, I'd say games so far show more streetwise managers know just how to play us. Easy to defend against, playing short lads as lone  strikers with little support. Missing a ball winning disruptive midfielder and GK has proven in past seasons to be insufficient so we're relying on a big improvement there. 

The pieces of the puzzle just don't seem to fit together. 

Hopefully Sports Republic sell up soon as that's probably the one change that will improve the direction of the club 

Edited 56 minutes ago by Football Special

[Football Special]

21 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Why would they expect that? He is a young kid with no real record to hang on to.

for a club that has bought Fellows, Azaz et al, that seems a strange situation at best, and likely just an excuse

i agree, it is a fuck of but of the manager IMO. He has been with the players all pre season and the best he has is to lump it to a small forward. If this is his ‘thing’ mid table it is then.

Will he score more goals for us than Sekou Mara did in the last championship season? Unlikely I think. 

Archer and Armstrong our best natural goal scorers but need a more physical player alongside them to create space, hold the ball up , Stewart might be able to do that if he gets involved more 

[Thripp87]

By far the worse derby match I have seen both on and off the pitch, and that includes when we lost 4-1 at home. 
Stadium layout clearly doesn’t work and that proves it. Ironically the last game we had with the old layout (West Brom) was by far the best atmosphere I have seen generated at SMS. 
The bubble completely ruins the game, just more overkill from the state. Fortunately we aren’t going up and costing of policing such overkill won’t be allowed in the seasons to come. 
Utter shite, no different to playing Blackburn or Preston.

Ive read through all 33 pages on here, best point I’ve seen made was the link to Russel Martin. Yes, he is utter shite but he had a style and had his side implementing it on day 1 at Sheffield Wed. Still is utter wank, 7 games in and no clear tactic at all, monotone as fuck and looking out of his depth.

Put it this way, I’d swap him for the man the other side of the M27, but he wouldn’t come. That’s where we are now. 

Edited 53 minutes ago by Thripp87

[Dr Who?]

I have said this in many posts and been shouted down. We have to many ‘fancy’ ‘creative’ players and we are missing the key fundamentals of any team, the core. A good strong keeper, that we have not had for years. A reliable strong centre back, and great communication between the 2 mentioned. I do not think either have confidence in each other back there, and this lack of communication nearly led to the skates taking the lead on Sunday, but hitting the bar instead. Forster always had great communication with his back 4. You do not hear a pip out of Gavin.
 

We also do not have a strong ball winner and have never replaced Romeu, and it is that sort of player we miss, a case, Hurlock kind of player, nothing fancy, but someone who is going to win you the ball, or stop the opposition attack so you can regroup. We get cut through the middle often.

Then another position we have failed to fill is a great striker that does not mean great in the number of them we have. We need a player who can pop the ball in the net, we have players we think should be able to, but they are never going to get you the number of goal we as a club are looking for, with our expectations. 

When the majority of the fan base are getting all excited about our fancy wingers and creative players we were signing at the end of the window, for me this was not the positions we desperately needed, but the club just pleasing the fans with flashy signings all nice and glittery. Something also did not sit right with me, that they would leave promotion rivals to come to Saints or more to the point why their clubs let them leave so easily? 

We need to address the core of the team, and we did not. We are not a ‘team’ and not playing like one. We do not have a proper team leader that I have confidence in. Someone who has the balls to call someone out, or to pick us up and drag us to 3 points and be respected. I don’t see it, and this worries me, and this is why I think we will miss out on promotion and at this rate outside of the playoffs. We are just not that great all over! 

[trousers]

This stat surprised me:

"Scienza was fouled three times during his cameo against Pompey, more than any other Saints player, despite coming on with eight minutes to go."

Doesn't that underline how passive our tactics and/or players were? We should have been drawing fouls all over the pitch but only a newbie during an 8 minute cameo was able to achieve that. 

Still needs to put a rocket up their collective arses, but does he have the managerial acumen to do so? Time will tell...

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/25467189.southamptons-still-delivers-early-verdict-scienza/

 

 

Edited 7 minutes ago by trousers