Patches O Houlihan

Was listening to The Rest is Football podcast the day before yesterday - their reaction to the news of Tuchel. Lineker name dropped RM as one of the young up and coming English managers (Of which there are very few at a good level). The argument seems to be that in Germany Bundesliga managers get promoted from running the Under 23 side, or recruited from a lower tier: This almost never happens in the PL. The PL hires proven managers from other big leagues because they have the money and pulling power to do so. As Russ stated in the Leicester press conference; in order to get a PL gig as an English manager you have to get promoted from the Championship as manager. This automatically means that any English manager trying to prove themselves needs to do so with one of the weakest teams in the league, and as the contrast in resources of PL teams gets ever more stark it will only ever get harder for English managers unless something changes. My thought is that if we short-sightedly fire RM now, we may be questioning why we did that in 18 months when he is successfully managing a bigger team. Part of the reason Southampton can't have nice thingsTM is because we don't fight hard enough to keep them, not just because they are taken from us. Maybe I'll feel differently after we get humped by Leicester this afternoon, but right now I am still RM in.

I watched that game sat outside Hogans Bar over looking the huge marina in Palma de Mallorca. Comfy seat, numerous teles so no one sat between me and the game. Sunny, but no reflections on the screen, and not excessively hot. No work to think about that day. 4 pints of Estrella, Saints flying high in the league with Koeman as our manager and we stuck in 8 goals. After the game I had a definite thought of "I should really saviour this experience. It probably won't be repeated very often." 😁 I do remember being pissed off about the one we gave them though!

RM stated in the Leicester press conference that it's not a bad injury, and he expects him to be available again soon, and miss relatively few games because of the International Break falling after the Arsenal game.

Football sucks arse on nights like these. Spawny cheating fucking Bompy

It is odd but; Lots of attackers in the squad to try to keep happy Do you really see Wood or Edwards coming on? Far more likely to bring on KWP and swap Taylor to LCB. Omni-Stephens is still suspended Maybe Cornet can hit a cow's arse with a banjo? Lallana to manage the last 35 mins of the game?

Taylor can cover at CB if required. KWP can play both FB positions. Not ideal but I can see why the subs bench is as it is

There is a precedent for this of course 😁 But if you look closely we had no one in the D on that occasion either... Everyone was back defending because we were in injury time and were effectively 1-0 up.

I agree numbers on their own mean nothing. But in this case it does allow us to compare the number and quality of chances we are creating in comparison to the rest of the league: Something that would be tough to do without watching every match unedited, and even then you'd probably start to loose track a bit and start generalising or applying an unconscious bias.

No doubt Whitey will hate it but I'm going to post some stats: So look away now if you don't like this sort of thing PL Table sorted by xG - ie the chances we create, we are 8th - ie we're pretty good at creating chances - the players and Russ's methods work. BUT the forwards aren't finishing them PL Table sorted by xG against - we are 17th - we give up lots of chances. We are newly returned to the league. No real surprises there. PL Table sorted by xPTS - ie how many points we should have if our results had matched the xG - we are 12th. Pretty good for a newly promoted side. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If our strikers can find some form we could do ok. Signing someone handy in January would probably be too late to save us though if our current forwards can't get it together.

14 sides with an xG rating. We are third highest, but only one goal. It's not lack of chances, its not taking them

I see the usual gang are back on this thread. This is my thought If we replayed that game with a Lambert, Ings or Pelle as our striker we likely win 2-0 or 3-0 Striker recruitment, not team selection and tactics was the issue today.

Dibling, Ramsdale, Fernandes, Downes, Lallana were all great today. Haggrid messed up a couple of kicks, but made some excellent saves that no keeper we have had in the last 5 years gets to. Absolutely no chance for the massively deflected equaliser.

Nessie does seem to be missing a little sharpness right now, which to be fair seems reasonable after the best part of two years out and no pre-season. What he does give us is the big target man to hold it up, which we were all calling for at the end of the transfer window. It is really frustrating though; it feels like there is a glass ceiling for strikers when you are a club of our stature. SR went all out for Gakpo and missed out - fan base pissed off (quite reasonably) felt like he was probably out of our league SR have tried to hold onto and promote a promising young forward (Dibling - doing OK so far, and signed a new contract in December) SR tried to sign an injured player who would be out of our league if fit (Stewart, similar to Ings) SR tried to sign Championship strikers who seem like they might make the grade (Archer, BBD - also Arma and Che previously) SR tried to bring in a high scoring experienced foreign striker from an unsexy league (Tall Paul) When you're our size it feels like you have to get promoted with a Lambert or Vardy in your team, because you are unlikely to sign a James Beattie, Son Heung Min or Richarlison nowadays

Because the players are having to play at 100% capacity just to make the grade; they get tired, and mistakes get made. Was the same under Ralph

There was nothing wrong with the tactics or team selection: Play out to encourage a 4 or 5 man press - then play it over them into space for Archer and Fraser to run on to. Way way too easy to try to pin that on Martin. Archer missed one after doing well to enable it BBD missed a couple of opportunities Stewart could have done better getting on a couple of crosses.

He's been good, but Ramsdale's saves have been superb

You know the answer to this - so you'll need to try harder to get a rise out of me 😉

I was specifically responding to this statement from Dark Helmet: "He could end up with a record even worse than Nathan Jones." Even if he was fired after losing 10 PL games in a row he would still have a better record than the Welshman with a chip on both shoulders.

WTF?! RM managed us to a promotion, winning The Richest Game in Football™ for many fans one of the most enjoyable days following Saints they can remember. Nathan Jones wasted the World Cup window, lost 8 of 9 PL games and was sacked after just 95 days. The cup wins against Lincoln Town, Everton plus the genuinely unbelievable match against Man City must be doing a lot of heavy lifting in your head!

Men against Boys 🤔

Benarek will have been knackered Saturday lunchtime - not a long period to recover for this game, and hence would be risking injury. An injury to Bednarek, and Stephens suspended wouldn't be ideal against Ipswich & Bournemouth.

😉

At least it was on target. This one pissed me off quite a lot

Adam Blackmore's interview with Russ suggested a few changes, but that he will be taking it seriously. We can't afford to get humped, and then try to win a six pointer against Ipswich with no momentum whatsoever

There's not much wrong with this, although I might delay Tall Paul for a game or two yet, and I thought Fernandes and Big Les showed good potential starting their first PL games for us.