Saints 0-0 Bolton - Match Thread

[warsash saint]

Gerald Ashby levels from the corrupt ref today 🤬

Edited 10 hours ago by warsash saint

[Cuddles]

27 minutes ago, SouthWalesSaints said:

Reading a lot of Tonda over complicated it tweets/messages etc. 

I’ll try my best to convey from a tactical view point why he has done this.  Again these elite managers are far advanced from me but i probably see it through their lens slightly more than the average joe. 
 

We’ve lined up today in a 4-4-2 because Bolton defend very uniquely. So they’ve condensed the pitch into a 15 meter pitch and aggressively high playing an offside defensive unit similar to that of the German Flick. I was really impressed with how high there line was, and credit them for that.  I’m presuming because of this Tonda has played strong sided wingers as Bolton wanted us to come inside where there was no room. Fellows and Matsuki from left and Scienza and Azaz at different times from the right.  Playing Azaz as a 10 is the same problem we can’t get three lines into their 15 yard defensive unit and they planned for this.  The other interesting thing was that Scienza started as a striker with Larin but kept getting to wide so they switched that in game but couldn’t work out how, fellows was poor he got caught far to many times.  First half it worked much better than second ironically as we were in complete control but we didn’t create enough clear cut chances. Scienzas aside. 
 

Losing Larin was an issue as we then couldn’t play more direct as the game progressed meaning they could stay higher from restarts and we couldn’t cross the ball late from deep as no one to hit, a big problem for the team and one I’ve called all season.
 

Was the same as wolves v Bolton midweek, no Jimenez and Armstrong the replacement, Bolton stopped them playing.  
 

Interestingly I watched Azaz for Ireland against Austria and he played in a deeper role something we’ve not seen loads of. I’d have preferred to see us start with him in with JWP and have two flying wingers on from the start. Edozie and Scienza with Larin + Dobbin. 
 

The biggest two misses were manning and Downes/Jander. We had no deep runners from midfield to break Boltons high line both Jander and Flynn would do that. And we really missed Manning’s quality to pick a pass.  Having no back up striker is an issue, we need to act on this in Jan.  I won’t stop telling anyone this.  Lincoln, Wrexham, Today - cost us at least 5 points so far this season. 

 

Positives for me - Dobbin and Edozie have had good weeks. Edozie should have had an assist for dobbin. Minus taking his chances I thought dobbin looked sharp. Can certainly play as a second striker. 

 

Interesting, thank you for breaking it down, I was only half watching a stream.

The biggest misses for me weren't Jander and Downes though, it was Scienza, Dobbin and more obviously, Bree 😉

We made excellent chances but didn't take them. 

[Patrick Bateman]

Worst match of the season. Weird crowd, odd atmosphere, awful ref. I'm sure it's all been covered in the thread, but meh. Best thing was half time out in the sun.

[Oisin]

Morning after reflection … I think there’s some unfair criticism going on. If Scienza, Dobbin and Bree do their job it’s a comfortable win.

If Fellows can stay onside it’s a very effective tactic against a very well organised team.

And if the ref gives the two red cards (one straight, one second yellow) and the penalty that all were 💯 clearly and obviously the correct decisions then we have a penalty against 9 men. 

We weren’t great, and I do question some of the subs, but in the view of the above, the design created enough scenarios to win multiple games of football - it was just the execution of the players in conjunction with a 1/10 referee performance that prevented us getting 3 points.

7 points from 9, 3 clean sheets … a good week, just a frustrating end to it. I’m not going to get too upset. 
But I will call the ref a c*nt.

[Willo of Whiteley]

The referees job is ultimately to make the decisions. If he can’t he shouldn’t be on the pitch.

Yesterfay he was that confident it was a penalty, yet wasn’t comfortable enough to give it.

Simply, he’s on the wrong job if he can’t make decisions for himself.

[macca155]

8 hours ago, StrangelyBrown said:

True. And he can't do anything about the Scienza miss (which was arguably the easiest of the lot) or the Larin miss.

But the setup in the first half was wierd - a bizarre collection of players on the left and almost nothing on the right. Massive overthinking and rectifying it meant more players out of position. Tonda tried something, it didn't work. He's proven he learns quickly so let's move on.

Tonda said as much post match, I'm sure he'll learn.

Bolton clearly defend very high, and he was trying to get through that. 

Although a bit weird, it did actually work in creating chances. Just unbelievable they missed so many of them.

The lack of a second striker is really hurting us now. Other teams know that once they've shut out Larin, Saints don't have an alternative.

What is the point of Mubama, he's clearly highly thought of. Pretty stellar U21 career, but if Tonda isn't going to use him then replace him with Princewill. Pointless him wasting a bench space.

 

 

[Harry_SFC]

7 minutes ago, macca155 said:

Tonda said as much post match, I'm sure he'll learn.

Bolton clearly defend very high, and he was trying to get through that. 

Although a bit weird, it did actually work in creating chances. Just unbelievable they missed so many of them.

The lack of a second striker is really hurting us now. Other teams know that once they've shut out Larin, Saints don't have an alternative.

What is the point of Mubama, he's clearly highly thought of. Pretty stellar U21 career, but if Tonda isn't going to use him then replace him with Princewill. Pointless him wasting a bench space.

 

 

Unless we sign a decent alternative CF in January we certainly won't trouble the automatic places.

[saintant]

11 hours ago, StrangelyBrown said:

Thought we looked ok today, just a frustrating day where we didn't take our chances - another day we scored 4 or 5 and get a pen too.

Scienza looked way off the pace in the first half, but much better once restored to his usual position. Matsuki really shouldn't play on the middle - a very confused performance from him good and bad at the same time. We missed a target up front once Larin came off. Also JWP and Bragg are almost identical players so a bit too much recycling and not enough creativity.

Tonda had a bit of a mare tactically - way too much thought went into our setup and it was too complicated. Also we lacked a little bit of tempo to our play but I think that was more down to the combination of players.

Otherwise Bolton looked like the worst team we've seen this year (which I'm sure is more down to us than them).

Bolton were far from the worst team we've played this season and actually played well.

[Maggie May]

I thought Larrazabal was a nifty player. Turns out he’s the son of the Bilbao legend. 

Edited 4 minutes ago by Maggie May

[John B]

Lack of  a striker in the last three matches as Sarin has played about half the time available has not helped the situation 

[Paul_B]

1 hour ago, Harry_SFC said:

Unless we sign a decent alternative CF in January we certainly won't trouble the automatic places.

More like we need to sign another CF to trouble the playoff places.

[Maggie May]

1 minute ago, John B said:

Lack of  a striker in the last three matches as Sarin has played about half the time available has not helped the situation 

Sarin never helps the situation. 

[Jack]

Such a frustrating game. 3 sitters missed, a stonewall penalty not given and a shitload of dodgy offside calls that disrupted us. I didn’t think we played that well and some weird tactical bits from Tonda, but we should’ve still comfortably won. 
 

Matsuki’s through ball to Dobbin was a peach and he has to slot that in. One of those days