striker

Hasselhof has his work cut out for him, especially on D. If Cardiff were even an average squad they would have had 3 goals.

Horrific defending. Any 12 year old could do better

I actually think we look much better moving forward. Lots of "purpose" and guys like Austin, Redmond, Hoj, and Armstrong making good runs. Once the ball crosses midfield things change though, its like we are hanging on by a thread in the back (or Cardiff just stinks).

Austin looks dangerous today, getting on the ball often. Unfortunately our defence looks dangerous too. I see many 4-3 matches in our future

Well we are exciting, I'll give us that much

Thats going to happen when we push up so much. Bednarek great play

the defending looks as solid as normal

Looking good

I don't know, we have now gone through 3 managers in 2.5 seasons. That is not a model for success.

Our only hope is that the Spurs are so down after losing this match to Arsenal, that they mail in their effort

Well the good news is we have any easy match on Wednesday

Why does this thread pop up every week. The guy showed that he wasn't nearly good enough for the PL. I don't care what he does/doesn't do elsewhere

I thought that was arguably our best match of the season so far

We are looking surprisingly legitimate today

I don't get the criticism of Hughes so far here. He juggled up the line-up, putting in some younger guys, and we are much more competitive than most thought we would be.

but 3-2 is still in play

Wait, which kit are we wearing? This can't be the Saints

I like them all. Frankly I think they have been giving top effort, which is all you can ask.

No strikers ever look good on the Saints. Gabbi sucks too, Ing has been so so, Lnog stinks. Maybe its because our mids don't know how to attack and create opportunities. They leave any striker isolated. Until we fix that, we could have Kane upfront and it won't matter. The only time the strikers get involved is when the other team goes into "park the bus" mode at the end of matches. Our attack is basically pass the ball 100 times back and forth, then just kick it up and hope we get a lucky bounce

And just to add one more point for comparison, the last time we had a "team attacking effort", not just kicking the ball around and hoping for a lucky bounce, was under Puel. Remember, with roughly the same players, we had Austin get 6 goals before he got hurt? Then Gabbi came in and got 6 goals the 2nd half of the season without missing a beat. The mids were creating and attacking, and the strikers were getting the ball in proper positive positions. I am not reflecting on either Austin or Gabbi here, but just commenting that this is a team sport and its way to easy to just say our strikers stink year in and year out (paue here for the Puel supporters to chime in). We need to have a team concept to scoring, and if we don't have the attacking mid players to do it (like a Mane) then we need to get them. Hughes needs to modify the lineup to make this happen. No sure there are other teams that play the "lucky bounce offense" too, however they don't have the same crappy defense as us. They would have won todays match. So part two is our defense stinks, especially in the middle. To me these are the two areas where we are Championship quality, and these are two extremely important areas.

One thing I'll say about Fat Sam, he knows how to win matches. You may not like the style, team selection, etc., but he figures out a way to win

Our defence just stinks, you can't give up 3 goals and win. We have no cohesive attack. All of our opportunities come because the ball bounces around and we get lucky. You can't score consistently this way, its 75% lucky. Watch the good teams, they build up and predictably create chances. All our mids are like holding mids (maybe Armstrong aside), and this leaves out forwards isolated (no matter which one). Austin, Gabbi, Ings, Long, etc., none of them look good because of this. They have to come back out of position just to get touches which defeats the whole purpose. And yes I know we looked more dangerous at the end of the match, but this was because Fulham parked the bus for the last 5 minutes. We need a reral attacking mid or two, and a complete rehaul of the central D.

Boy MoEly stinks

Armstrong scored on great individual efforts, off of lucky bounces. Thats not what I am talking about. I am talking about the ability to cohesively build up as a squad and consistently create chances. All our goals are because the ball bounces this way instead of that way, and somehow we end up with it. This is not a sustainable way to score (hence our lousy scoring record). Watch the good teams build up.

Also based on my opinion above, I think a change to a 4-5-1 makes sense. We need a formation that can get whatever we have to create chances, and it looks like a 4-4-2 can't work with out mids