TWar

Thought we played alright, City are just City unfortunately. Against a lot of teams we could make the mistakes we made and still win with our overall quality. Against city you do that and lose 4-1. Three big errors from Stephens, Salisu, and Adams cost us when we were playing well and had good momentum. When chasing the game City's pure quality won out unfortunately. Also thought we got a bit unlucky at times and against a team like City you need luck with you.

Are you taking the piss? Armstrong was a "pile of shite" because he didn't score against the best team in world football? He only hit the post? He did a tonne more than Broja who I don't remember getting a touch. Armstrong had multiple chances and made good runs but couldn't finish, hitting the post once, Broja did nothing. Neither were to blame though, we lost due to two silly mistakes from each of our CBs and then were overwhelmed by City's quality when chasing the game.

Probably what I would have picked minus Long and plus Adams. Lots of subs though so Adams and/or Broja will be on pretty early I imagine.

Adam Armstrong

Looks like James is out too. Could be a good argument that KWP and Livramento are England's best two available rightbacks. Walker is out too, Lampety hasn't looked so good this season after an injury hit last season.

What a glorious man that would be.

JWP called up for England. Trent Alexander-Arnold is ruled out so KWP has a reasonable at a call up.

Yes it was definitely ineffective. I think Ralph probably felt pressured to do something different given his strategy hadn't worked in the last two. It may have been better if we hadn't conceded a stupid goal so early but who knows.

I mean, I'm sure I can find something, but I'd rather watch the football Saturday and then go home.

I think the idea was Watford have a decent midfield but poor defence so we can get away with an extra body deeper and one fewer strikers (similar to how we dealt with west ham in the league). Problem was our def made a massive error early on meaning we had to press up and chase the game and they could just ping it long and bypass the midfield entirely. An annoyingly effective strategy given neither Bednarek or Salisu are very good in the air. We changed it at half time and were right to but unfortunately a number of our forwards are out of form so we couldn't break them down.

Can't speak for others but I have work Monday morning so wanted to get back early Sunday to sort out stuff for the week. Supermarkets shut at 4 on a Sunday and I need to get a family food shop in. Plus I'm having a night out in Brighton on the Friday so now I just have to fuck around on the Saturday with nothing to do. Those are two reason, not sure how universal they are.

I discussed the quality of a football manager on a football forum.

Do you only say positive things about those who you think will do something for you? What a weird transactional way to live. And clearly not too busy a life to dredge up long finished conversations to start arguments on the internet.

This was over 5 days ago? Why have you come back to this to argue?

I think this is the way to go.

Getting Deja vu from last time we played City and the time before. We did alright in those two.

Jankewitz is another great example. I remember some of the same people treating Broja like he is above criticism whining that Ralph was an idiot for not starting Jankewitz, a player who has spent his 2022 on the bench for St Gallen.

I'd keep Valery, he does well enough at CB to justify his modest wages. Add Bednarek and Redmond to that list for me.

The midfield did protect the defence, just not enough to account for how dreadful the defence were (when they weren't just passing the ball to watford in our own box). As for making opportunities for the strikers, thats supposed to be mainly the attacking mids. JWP did create the most chances in the game though.

Tough patch of form is generous, he has one league goal in 2022 and has been in bad form now for longer than he was in good form. I don't think saints fans are very good at spotting young talent at all, I remember the clamour a couple of seasons ago to play Obafemi over Adams and to start Sims and Hesketh over Redmond, Boufal etc. We just have to look at where they are now. We massively overhype young players as guarenteed to improve. Some do, some don't. I hope Broja does as 6 goals in 25 league appearances is nowhere near worth the money it would cost to get him in permanently if rumours are to be believed.

JWP was better, his FK lead to the goal, he had multiple times where he picked out players who couldn't finish. I think KWP looked decent too. Most were poor, some were woeful, those two were fine. Moi scored a goal put on a plate for him by a great FK by JWP and a great flick on by Che. Aside from that he looked very poor.

I agree, and said as much in my original post. He and Moi were least useful though.

I didn't single him out, I literally mentioned all four of our forwards in my comment (both strikers, Moi and Stu). People just noticed Broja because he is wildly overrated so critism of him stands out.

Heh, Heh, nice one 😂

We dominate possession but we lose. Our midfield has been doing it's job giving us a position to build on but our forwards aren't scoring and our defenders are making obvious errors. It's incredibly frustrating.