Saints 1-4 West Ham - Match Thread

[Saint86]

10 hours ago, saintant said:

Tonight was an accident waiting to happen. We started the game with a midfield that included neither Downes, Jander or Charles - the latter two for obvious reasons. These 3 guys were the mainstay of last season's midfield. With none of them on the pitch and a defence marshalled by the hapless Capn Jack the result and performance was inevitable.

Its exactly like at times last season under Tonda where (at times) he does unfortunately show us how green he is as a manager tbh. I mentioned on the transfer window, but we field a side with none of its spine and then expected it to play well. No larin, no azaz, no jander, no downes, no THB... That is walking into a cock up with his eyes wide open (like at times last season before the run started). Its very frustrating and disappointing as ultimately the west ham side was there for the taking if we had gone just a little bit stronger. I'm willing to forgive it this time, but needs to learn from it and not do it again. Should have started2 of Downes, larin, and azaz and taken them off at 55min etc. and made sure we had enough core players on to drive the team an maintain control and standards. 

He does also need help with the squad - The jander injury and Charles sale has left us horribly exposed. Ditto THB being unavailable. Thats 2 of our best 4/5 players and 3 very good players for the champ, whilst at the same time we've been nursing Larin and Azaz's fitness coming back after the summer.

Edited 1 hour ago by Saint86

[saintoaks]

My thoughts for what it's worth.

Started with the club charging me £27 (including the booking fee). Do they actually remember what they put us through the back end of last season and where is this so called fans group to bring this up ?

Started ok, West Ham looked weak and there for the taking, Leo scored a good goal then didn't see him for the rest of the game.

Shocking goalkeeping for there goal and let them back in it.

Played sideways and backward football for the remainder of the game, no ideas, forcing the centre halves to give the ball away numerous times.

West Ham subs way to good for us, Wellington ruined by Bowen.

Dragans quote "the team that will take you out of your seats" will seriously be tested if the correct signings dont come in by the end of the window.

Do i feel the club owe us from what happend at the end of last season and have i continued to spend my money watching Saints home and abroad, the answer is maybe yes, i do want something back and i'm still angry, we will see by the end of the window i guess.

 

 

 

[Wade Garrett]

51 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

We didn’t achieve what we did because “he cheated”. The unbeaten run was down to getting the most out of the players available, plus some luck. You are another one who has fallen for Gibbo’s guff. 

Got no clue what the fuck you're talking about.  If Tonda didn't send a scout to spy on Boro, we would have been in the play-off final.

I haven't fallen for anything.  Strange thing to say,

[Saint86]

10 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

Tonda doesn’t deserve any credit.  Cost us the chance of Premier League football because he cheated.

Equally, there was essentially no chance of premier league football before he came in 🙃

Edited 1 hour ago by Saint86

[SW5 SAINT]

9 hours ago, gallaghert366@yahoo.com said:

I'm not convinced that SFC had any interest in progressing any further in this competition,

Saints were about the only Championship team to field a basically A team, most of the others fielded entirely B teams…!

Edited 1 hour ago by SW5 SAINT
Edit

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

7 minutes ago, saintoaks said:

Played sideways and backward football for the remainder of the game, no ideas, forcing the centre halves to give the ball away numerous times.

West Ham subs way to good for us,

Yes, this sideways and backwards crap is creeping noticeably back in to our style of play. Not just yesterday but also in our other league matches and carabao cup game. Much more positivity is needed.

And what's of concern is that their subs were up (apart from Manning) arguably our first team. Our guys looked like they couldn't be arsed so hopefully some rockets will be fired up some of them!

[Saint86]

19 minutes ago, SW5 SAINT said:

Saints were about the only Championship team to field a basically A team, most of the others fielded entirely B teams…!

We were missing 6 of our 7 best players... That is hardly the "A-team" (THB, Jander, Azaz, Larin, Manning, Downes) - People should be pissed off because we rotated so much and because the squad is not good enough currently.

We also had Akachugwu making his first senior start, and Wellington's first minutes of the season.

We'd have struggled to go with a significantly weaker starting 11 given the available players (who we aren't trying to ship out).

Edited 1 hour ago by Saint86

[Saint NL]

50 minutes ago, Football Special said:

Scienza took his goal well but I worry he's slowly morphing into Ryan Fraser (both in appearance and dribbling style) 

Thank you, I couldn't put my finger on it but you've nailed it there 

[Doctoroncall]

50 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Then why did we play 10 first team players. West Ham absolutely did not

Fitness and game play for the first team?

I can only think that end of last season, players were worn out so speculate a slow build up to protect the players from injury???? Only the coaches can give the definitive answer. 

[Baird of the land]

32 minutes ago, saintoaks said:

 

Dragans quote "the team that will take you out of your seats" will seriously be tested if the correct signings dont come in by the end of the window.

Does people getting up and walking out count as 'getting people out of their seats', if so we're well on track

[saintant]

Not sure why we've decided to return to playing Russball. Far too many passes going sideways and backwards.

We are much better driving forward and playing vertically rather than horizontally.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Dreadful. 
 

Second half as bad as anything under Will Still. The worrying thing it was the performances of the senior players  & players who will feature quite a bit, first team players. Stephen’s & Wood the obvious ones. But Bree is nowhere near where he was, Bragg seems to be going backwards ( or fucking sideways), Leo woeful again,  Tom F shows nothing that indicates he’s going to step up this season. Dobin is fucking pony. The lad up top minced around. Edozie weak as piss. I guess you can forgive Wellington as it was his first start, but the others. Dear God. 
 

It really was men against boys at the end of the game. 
 

No urgency, no fight & no passion. I thought we were going to stuff it down the EFL’s throat this season, use what happened as the trigger to drive us on. Instead of that we look like a load of show ponies sulking about it. Tonda needs to knock it out of people, and Spors needs to bring some real men in, blokes who weren’t affected by it who can impose their personality on the club like the keeper and Larin did last season, 

 

We’ve shown less passion, less determination & done more mincing about since that “injustice “, you’d expect more to put it right, not fuckjng less. 

Edited 24 minutes ago by Lord Duckhunter

[Lee On Solent Saint]

26 minutes ago, saintant said:

Not sure why we've decided to return to playing Russball. Far too many passes going sideways and backwards.

We are much better driving forward and playing vertically rather than horizontally.

We've been found out. Or rather Eckert has. Makes you wonder just how many teams we managed to get a look at training sessions etc before getting caught out. 

[Greedyfly]

14 hours ago, Saint Scott said:

Akachukwu has looked really good in the middle so far. 

Dobbin having a bit of a stinker

I think he was one of only a few that came out of that game looking half decent.  Good player there.

[trousers]

3 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

We've been found out. Or rather Eckert has. Makes you wonder just how many teams we managed to get a look at training sessions etc before getting caught out. 

I'm not sure if 'watching a few training sessions' suddenly turns a poor manager into a really good one, or visa versa... Surely the benefit from such an activity is more about the fine margins rather than altering someone's fundamental aptitude?

[andrew7610]

It doesn't help that teams have noticed that if you spend the first 10 minutes of a game all taking turns to kick the shit out of Scienza, he totally fades out of the match.

[stfrancisofbenali]

12 hours ago, Osvaldorama said:

Have the club ever explained why we only played a couple of German farmers for pre-season?

 

We looked lethargic and unfit again tonight, as we have done since the season began.
 

I can’t help but feel like our preparation was completely undercooked. 

Did anyone else hear Manning’s post-match on Saturday where he said that it takes the first six weeks of the season to get going? Very strange comment from a highly paid professional sportsman whose team are starting with a -4 deficit. Watford certainly got going straight away.