Saints vs Swansea - Tuesday 7:45pm

[saintant]

As Flynn Downes alluded to some players, and they know who they are, need to step up to the plate and contribute more to the team. No room for passengers, we need all eleven plus subs at it. Despite the Millwall game I don't think we have clicked yet and continue to look disjointed all over the pitch.

[Saint Garrett]

14 minutes ago, trousers said:

Unless I misheard, Alfie said on yesterday's Total Saints podcast that Tonda has indicated that he'll go with a 3 man midfield to counteract Swansea's midfield dominance... Hence were probably looking at Bragg instead of Matsuki with Azaz, Scienza and Larin as a front 3...?

Ah - didnt hear that...interesting.

[BotleySaint]

We need to get at least a point from this one. If we give them the space we gave Lincoln it could be a heavy loss.

[SouthWalesSaints]

9 minutes ago, BotleySaint said:

We need to get at least a point from this one. If we give them the space we gave Lincoln it could be a heavy loss.

What on earth are you on about... 

[BotleySaint]

12 minutes ago, SouthWalesSaints said:

What on earth are you on about... 

Just playing out worst case scenarios in my head  Our defending from crosses was so poor against Lincoln. And we didn't really create much in the first half. If we start slow and weak again I could easily see us going a few goals behind before waking up. We didn't create that much against Lincoln in terms of good chances in the second half.

Given your "Wales" designation I hope this means you are in the know, and we have nothing to worry about

Edited 3 hours ago by BotleySaint

[sockeye]

55 minutes ago, saintant said:

As Flynn Downes alluded to some players, and they know who they are, need to step up to the plate and contribute more to the team. No room for passengers, we need all eleven plus subs at it. Despite the Millwall game I don't think we have clicked yet and continue to look disjointed all over the pitch.

Tonda spoke about some home truths following our bad run around Christmas/New Years, it may be time for some more.

[Charlie Wayman]

This is likely to be a very uncomfortable evening. We have been very hit and miss this season and it is hard to predict which version of Saints will turn up tomorrow. In contrast, Swansea seem to be very consistent in the way they play, quick and accurate in their passing, creative and energetic in midfield, willing runners at the front and a rock solid back four. On Tuesday Wrexham were partially successful in blunting their momentum by playing a very similar game but in the end lucky to come away with a draw. Trying to emulate Wrexham is a big ask.

Our defence has been woeful this season, THB bogged off leaving a gaping hole while Bree & Manning have not reached their standards of last season. Then there is the enigma of Calamity Jack. It doesn't help that Eckert seems not to know which is his stongest back four. I can't see how they will cope with Swansea's fast runners.

There is always an element of uncertainty with these Saints; rumours of dissent and lack of commitment in the ranks suggests that team spirit is not as cohesive as we imagined. All in all not the best recipe for taking on the league pace setters in their pomp.

Sorry guys but this has the feel of a heavy defeat so going for 0-3

Edited 3 hours ago by Charlie Wayman

[Jack]

8 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

We're 5 games in mate. Without the minus four we're only 3 points behind Swansea.

We also weren't outplayed by Birmingham and Lincoln, they were fairly even games as shown by the results.

Millwalls loss to Wrexham was a symptom of them getting destroyed by us - if you look at their lineup, they changed their formation to a 5 at the back after we beat them and it obviously didn't work. They switched back to their usual formation the game after and demolished Bolton.

 

What we aren't doing, and we need to start, is using Mubama the way we were using Stewart last season. Starting Larin every game and hooking him as he gets fatigued earlier and earlier isn't going to work. We need to trust Mubama to start every other game, or at least every third game.

I think it’s fair enough to be concerned with what we’ve seen so far. Yes we’re only 5 games in, but starting on -4 makes it more imperative that we start well. I didn’t say we’ve been terrible, was just countering the point that we’re better than the teams above us, clearly we’re not. We’ve been coughing up far too many big chances and can’t keep a clean sheet, Birmingham should’ve been out of sight by HT for instance, and at Lincoln we scored a 1 in 50 screamer which papers over the cracks. 

 

We can’t use Mubama the way we used Stewart, he’s shown that he’s not up being played that way. So we’ve either got to adapt the way we play to suit him, or gamble that Larin stays fit. 

[SaintLondon]

I think this is going to be a tough watch and a bit of a wake up call (if Lincoln wasn't already) - we have been poor pretty much all season. Milwall scoreline was obviously excellent but the first 25 mins was rubbish and they shit the bed after we scored so whilst impressive; Milwall gifted that to us. Stoke we won but weren't good. It's been middling at best. 

[BotleySaint]

28 minutes ago, SaintLondon said:

I think this is going to be a tough watch and a bit of a wake up call (if Lincoln wasn't already)

I hope that the player do wake up build that momentum again. What made us so resilient toward the end of last season was this full commitment from everyone on the pitch to win. Some of the characters generating that "grit and determination" in the team are gone. Thinking mainly of THB and Charles popping up with vital goals. Even Stewart played with a certain energy; thinking about his excellent two goals to win the game against Sheff Utd.

We don't know yet if we've replaced that with these new guys. We need to start seeing something more from them.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

Our lack of squad depth is already hurting us IMO. Last season we would have made some changes for this one to freshen up but there's no one we can really trust.

Larin, Scienza, Bree all carrying a heavy load

Edited 1 hour ago by Ex Lion Tamer

[vectraman]

1 hour ago, Jack said:

 

We can’t use Mubama the way we used Stewart, he’s shown that he’s not up being played that way. So we’ve either got to adapt the way we play to suit him, or gamble that Larin stays fit. 

This is exactly the issue. Mubama is clearly not a big ‘target man’ in the Larin style. He is a forward who wants to run into space onto through balls (as per his goal v Stoke). He has pace, and can finish if he gets a decent chance.

Tonda needs to adapt the way the team play to suit his playing style. Azaz and Scienza are more than capable of threading through balls into him through the defence. We shouldn’t be writing the young man off just yet, play to his strengths and you never know, he might just be decent. Punting long balls up the pitch to him with his back to goal is never going to work, so no point in trying it.

If we wanted another Stewart/ Larin style player we should have signed one. Clearly Spors didn’t, so signed Mubama. Not what I think we needed but I’m not the sporting director and he is!
 

* as a footnote, I don’t really understand why we loaned Archer out as we have no real back up striker if Larin or Mubama get injured. 

 

[sadoldgit]

29 minutes ago, vectraman said:

This is exactly the issue. Mubama is clearly not a big ‘target man’ in the Larin style. He is a forward who wants to run into space onto through balls (as per his goal v Stoke). He has pace, and can finish if he gets a decent chance.

Tonda needs to adapt the way the team play to suit his playing style. Azaz and Scienza are more than capable of threading through balls into him through the defence. We shouldn’t be writing the young man off just yet, play to his strengths and you never know, he might just be decent. Punting long balls up the pitch to him with his back to goal is never going to work, so no point in trying it.

If we wanted another Stewart/ Larin style player we should have signed one. Clearly Spors didn’t, so signed Mubama. Not what I think we needed but I’m not the sporting director and he is!
 

* as a footnote, I don’t really understand why we loaned Archer out as we have no real back up striker if Larin or Mubama get injured. 

 

Archer plays more like Mubama than Larin.

[saintant]

2 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

This is likely to be a very uncomfortable evening. We have been very hit and miss this season and it is hard to predict which version of Saints will turn up tomorrow. In contrast, Swansea seem to be very consistent in the way they play, quick and accurate in their passing, creative and energetic in midfield, willing runners at the front and a rock solid back four. On Tuesday Wrexham were partially successful in blunting their momentum by playing a very similar game but in the end lucky to come away with a draw. Trying to emulate Wrexham is a big ask.

Our defence has been woeful this season, THB bogged off leaving a gaping hole while Bree & Manning have not reached their standards of last season. Then there is the enigma of Calamity Jack. It doesn't help that Eckert seems not to know which is his stongest back four. I can't see how they will cope with Swansea's fast runners.

There is always an element of uncertainty with these Saints; rumours of dissent and lack of commitment in the ranks suggests that team spirit is not as cohesive as we imagined. All in all not the best recipe for taking on the league pace setters in their pomp.

Sorry guys but this has the feel of a heavy defeat so going for 0-3

Demonstrates we've fallen quite far considering the way we demolished them 5-1 at their place last season. We need to get at least somewhere near those levels and quickly.

[Mr X]

2 hours ago, SouthWalesSaints said:

What on earth are you on about... 

What are you not understanding? What he said made sense to me 🤔 

[SouthWalesSaints]

14 minutes ago, Mr X said:

What are you not understanding? What he said made sense to me 🤔 

Lincoln didn't have loads of space. We had 60+% of the ball.... 

Lincoln play so differently to Swansea, it's not even worth comparing the two games. 

[Whitey Grandad]

1 minute ago, SouthWalesSaints said:

Lincoln didn't have loads of space. We had 60+% of the ball.... 

Lincoln play so differently to Swansea, it's not even worth comparing the two games. 

That's a meaningless statistic which doesn’t apply when discussing space in your own defensive area.  You have to consider what they are doing with their 35% of the ball. 

[Mr X]

36 minutes ago, SouthWalesSaints said:

Lincoln didn't have loads of space. We had 60+% of the ball.... 

Lincoln play so differently to Swansea, it's not even worth comparing the two games. 

I think he's referring to giving lincoln attackers way too much space to get their shot away in the box and not closing them down quick enough or with enough commitment .... A thing we're possession statistics are totally irrelevant