Saints 1-1 Boro - Match Thread

[trousers]

2 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

No way is this shambles of a team going to get anywhere promotion. 14th at best. 

 

[The Kraken]

Oh crikey, the negative one has got the login again 😪

[OttawaSaint]

8 hours ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

I think I am correct in saying after only 7 games only one player has started all 7 , namely Shea Charles. Sort of tells its own story.

Our best and most consistent player so far. 

[trousers]

...

Edited Sunday at 17:39 by trousers

[Saint86]

7 hours ago, LaptopSaint said:

I’m not sure I buy this ‘we’d have all taken a point at the start’ line. I wouldn’t. We should be winning at home. We have better players.

Walking back up the Avenue I was thinking I just want to win a game of bloody football. Like someone else said earlier the pounds spent on watching/points gained ratio since the beginning of last season doesn’t really bear thinking about. 
 

Biggest mistake IMO was taking Fellows off when he was running them ragged and we should have gone for the jugular. I like Ross Stewart but he desperately needs a couple of lucky bounces. Jander is going to be class, and Azaz had a couple of good moments. Centre backs look promising. 
 

Time for Still to make it all gel. 

Yeah agreed. Its weird. I expect us to be beating boro at home - i'll accept a draw because i know we're struggling to gel and get going at present... But we were (and are) the better side - we need to be turning these draws into wins for most of the rest of the season.
 

[Saint Fan CaM]

4 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Yeah agreed. Its weird. I expect us to be beating boro at home - i'll accept a draw because i know we're struggling to gel and get going at present... But we were (and are) the better side - we need to be turning these draws into wins for most of the rest of the season.
 

If we were the better side we wouldn’t have dropped deep and allowed Boro the opportunity to play and score. Still is close to identifying the best team at his disposal, but it’s far from being better than Boro who are, let’s not forget, top of the table unbeaten. We’re 19th for a reason.

[Scummer]

Have we just resigned ourselves to the fact that the refs are going to be crap every week? Not seen any complaints about the one on Saturday but he was awful.

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Scummer said:

Have we just resigned ourselves to the fact that the refs are going to be crap every week? Not seen any complaints about the one on Saturday but he was awful.

Or you could just resign yourself to the fact that these refs are neutral and unbiased.

Throw away your red and white striped glasses.

[Scummer]

8 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Or you could just resign yourself to the fact that these refs are neutral and unbiased.

Throw away your red and white striped glasses.

I didn't say he was biased, just that he was awful

[Whitey Grandad]

3 minutes ago, Scummer said:

I didn't say he was biased, just that he was awful

In what way was he awful? 

In any objective view he was doing his job well.

[OldNick]

11 hours ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

If we were the better side we wouldn’t have dropped deep and allowed Boro the opportunity to play and score. Still is close to identifying the best team at his disposal, but it’s far from being better than Boro who are, let’s not forget, top of the table unbeaten. We’re 19th for a reason.

Theirf midfield was mobile, I felt Jander should have been taken off after 70 mins and bring Flynn on to add a bit of bite.

The ref was just ok, should have booked a couple of theirs earlier and that would have helped, as they fouled consistantly.

Azaz was ok, and I felt Fellows was unlucky to be taken offas he still was causing them problems.

Luck is against us, that goal was such a fluke, Wood so unlucky

[skintsaint]

22 hours ago, saintant said:

Swap the wide players over so that Fellows can cut into the box and shoot right footed. 

😅

You want to take an old school winger who created, I think 15 assists last season, and switch him to the other side?

On top of :

[saintant]

9 minutes ago, skintsaint said:

😅

You want to take an old school winger who created, I think 15 assists last season, and switch him to the other side?

On top of :

Yeah because we don't score from crosses so no point putting a stream of them in with nobody to get on the end of them. For us to get the most out of Fellows we need him to score some goals because he aint getting many assists in this team. He'll have far more opportunity to score by cutting in from the left and shooting with his right. Liverpool do it all the time from both wings and it can work for us because we get nothing out of crossing as we have no dominant centre forward and mainly short forwards.

[redkeith]

2 minutes ago, saintant said:

Yeah because we don't score from crosses so no point putting a stream of them in with nobody to get on the end of them. For us to get the most out of Fellows we need him to score some goals because he aint getting many assists in this team. He'll have far more opportunity to score by cutting in from the left and shooting with his right. Liverpool do it all the time from both wings and it can work for us because we get nothing out of crossing as we have no dominant centre forward and mainly short forwards.

We don't score because nobody makes near post runs to meet the crosses. 

[saintant]

1 hour ago, redkeith said:

We don't score because nobody makes near post runs to meet the crosses. 

Or maybe it's because we have short players competing against giants.

[saintwbu]

6 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

In what way was he awful? 

In any objective view he was doing his job well.

Thought he was pretty crap myself. A good 4/5 handballs seemingly missed and allowed Azaz and Fellows to be fouled every time they got the ball without any cards until late in the game.

[Saint86]

On 29/09/2025 at 08:28, Scummer said:

Have we just resigned ourselves to the fact that the refs are going to be crap every week? Not seen any complaints about the one on Saturday but he was awful.

Actually thought he was a pretty decent ref. Have done both times we've had him this season.

[Whitey Grandad]

21 hours ago, saintwbu said:

Thought he was pretty crap myself. A good 4/5 handballs seemingly missed and allowed Azaz and Fellows to be fouled every time they got the ball without any cards until late in the game.

Thanks for giving an answer. I'm not looking to cause a slanging match but as a, retired member of the refereeing fraternity I am interested in what people expect of their officials. 

When you say "seemingly missed" I think you have nailed the point. There are a number of reasons why a foul may not be given including that it wasn't considered foul or the desire to keep the game flowing by allowing advantage. 

A foul does not of itself warrant a yellow card and there are several criteria that should be met before one is issued. Persistent misconduct is one of them and some teams will deliberately spread their offences amongst several players. The criterion used to be "at least three" and you will sometimes see players who get cautioned holding up one finger signifying that it is their first offence. 

Are you sure that Azaz and Fellows were actually fouled and just not strong enough?

[BarberSaint]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Thanks for giving an answer. I'm not looking to cause a slanging match but as a, retired member of the refereeing fraternity I am interested in what people expect of their officials. 

When you say "seemingly missed" I think you have nailed the point. There are a number of reasons why a foul may not be given including that it wasn't considered foul or the desire to keep the game flowing by allowing advantage. 

A foul does not of itself warrant a yellow card and there are several criteria that should be met before one is issued. Persistent misconduct is one of them and some teams will deliberately spread their offences amongst several players. The criterion used to be "at least three" and you will sometimes see players who get cautioned holding up one finger signifying that it is their first offence. 

Are you sure that Azaz and Fellows were actually fouled and just not strong enough?

 

They got clobbered all the time. Fellows actually runs very cleverly: body down, slightly forward, ball close to his feet so it's probably very difficult to tackle him.  They decided otherwise, however.  They did seem to want to target Azaz but he did give a couple back.

[saintwbu]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Thanks for giving an answer. I'm not looking to cause a slanging match but as a, retired member of the refereeing fraternity I am interested in what people expect of their officials. 

When you say "seemingly missed" I think you have nailed the point. There are a number of reasons why a foul may not be given including that it wasn't considered foul or the desire to keep the game flowing by allowing advantage. 

A foul does not of itself warrant a yellow card and there are several criteria that should be met before one is issued. Persistent misconduct is one of them and some teams will deliberately spread their offences amongst several players. The criterion used to be "at least three" and you will sometimes see players who get cautioned holding up one finger signifying that it is their first offence. 

Are you sure that Azaz and Fellows were actually fouled and just not strong enough?

He was giving free kicks for the fouls so clearly he thought they were being fouled, but he wasn’t showing cards which meant they could carry on and rotate who would foul all game. On the handballs, I say seemingly because there was one that no one could work out - it looked for all the world like their player handled it in their penalty area in the first half, but the ref gave them a free kick, so no idea what happened! Would love someone else’s view on that one.

I can confirm 3/4 definite handballs not given, other than that. 

[davefizzy14]

Really annoying we couldn't get all three points but its something to build on. Class goal from Adam Armstrong 😊 good play from Fellows in the build up 😊

Edited 19 hours ago by davefizzy14

[captainchris]

Bloody lucky 

[skintsaint]

Just now, captainchris said:

Bloody lucky 

We've played another game since.