doddisalegend

Last year we built a team around Lambert some didn't like the style but in the main it was effective. New manager things change Lamberts role seems to have changed, for a striker Lambert seems to spend a lot of time all over the pitch but very rarely up front where he should be.

Really Guly won very little in the air yesterday Guly (and Lambert this season) is **** poor the only thing he has over Lambert is pace (but them my 60 year old mum could out run Lambert). At least Gobern was on hand to show Lambert and Guly how to head a ball properly yesterday.

ummm they played like that for most of yesterdays match and Morgan wasn't even playing thats how the Nigel wants them to play. It must be becuase thats how we play a lot now (Morgan or no Morgan). Yesterday in the second half the players where pressing forward then passing all the way back to Bart who would punt it up to Oxo to win it in the air for goodness sake.

When Nigel came in everyone was saying that his style of football would be a quick passing game, keeping it on the deck and passing our way through teams. Morgan should thrive in that sort of team style shouldn't he?

well if he he goes out on loan in the next week I suppose we will know.

Having been at the game today I can't say I agree two or three injuiries (plus a suspension) today haven't help our squad one bit. Also there was nothing attractive or etertaining about the football we played at todays match at all (apart from the classy Lallana). The football we're playing under Adkins is no different to the football we were playing under Pardew not matter how much some wish it was.

Just like Papa Wagio but without the silly goal celebration really.

Well hopefully

Not if we play like we did today. Got away with it today better teams will punish us.

Not on todays showing he was awful terrible first touch and poor passing I can't believe he is actually Brizilan.

Having been at the game my take is We were s hit today but had enough quaility to get goals Cheltenham actually played some good passing football but lacked decent strikers (at times the netural might have wondered who the team from the upper league were). Our passing was poor it either they went to the opposition, sideways/backwards or we ended up with three players trying to pass it in little triangles in a 6ft square area of pitch. Bart looked good but was never really troubled. I thought Gobern looked pretty good nice to have an aireal threat at corners for a change however his passing was as wayward as everyone elses. Dickson needs to man up the number of times he was strong armed of the ball today was unreal (waving your arms and crying at the ref doesn't cut it Ryan you've got to be stronger). Having said that he looks good going forward looked far better at LM than at LB. Harding looked rusty when he came on but final third of the match looked good got forward well sadly most of his runs didn't get picked up by Dickson the way Lallana does. Much stronger than Dickson in defence to. Oxo should have scored the one on one with the keeper he got better as the match went on started to cuase the oppo some problems at the end. Lallana is f ucking class way above everybody else on the pitch today. At times it felt more like Adam Vs Cheltenham than saints Vs Cheltenham Well done to the Northam and and the away fans for trying to get a very empty SMS to liven up. But I think asking the chapel to give you a song was a bit hopeful considering the chapel was full of mums and children (and two blokes who seemed more intrested in talking about the Prem games than the match going on in front of them) All in all a poor performance, on a bloody cold day in a half empty stadium but a win is a win so on to the next round.

We saw the best from Morgan last season when we played 4-5-1 with Wotton doing the defensive work, in a 4-4-2 Morgan always looks poorer. I don't go with the idea Morgan bottles tackles at all, he picks up far two many yellow cards for someone who doesn't like a bit of rough and tumble the cards do tell you he needs to time his challenges better though. I'm of the opinion that Morgan wants out anyway, leftback (make what you will of that) posted somewhere that Morgan wanted to go in the summer but AP convinced him to stay one more season with certain promises of course then AP was out the door.

Nick now you putting words in my mouth. How many strikers did we sign in the summer even though many of us were saying we needed one? or extra cover in midfield?(Guly prehaps but he's niether a striker or a combatitive mid-fielder that we needed, thank god for Caplow on loan) How many thought we needed to sign an extra leftback in the summer? Right back sure that was a postion we were desperate in. At left back we had a very good one in Harding (second only to Lambert in last seasons player of the season vote) and good cover in Mills. A third leftback wasn't nearly as needed as an extra striker or more cover for midfield. Personally I haven't seen anything from Dickson to make me think he is anything special but each to their own.

yes five apperances for them in 3 years. Mills has managed 4 with donny in 5 weeks says a lot, Mills has also managed under 18 england caps something Dickson hasn't. Like I said it's all opinions but for me Mills and Harding where two good left backs. I'd much rather we had an extra (fit) striker on our books right now than three leftbacks so we could loan one out to a team in a league above us.

Pardew didn't overlook Mills he used him as cover for Harding and Mills was very succsessful in that role last season. Which is why when we needed more cover for midfield and another striker during pre-season getting in another leftback on top of the two good ones we had already made very little sense to me. As for the Lallana/Puncheon thing Adam has already played at championship level so that arguement is a bit moot.

It's all opinions. Personally from what I've seen of Dickson he is very average, Harding is a much better left back. Mean while Mills has proved he can play in a league higher quite comfortably something Dickson hasn't so I would suggest Mills was perfectly good for us.

shouldn't have trouble walking up and getting tickets if I decide to take the kids then.

doesn't say much for our team currently only laying in seventh place in said league.

Well as you're above us in the league (as well as big spenders like Bournemouth and Colchester) and we've spent sh*t loads of money that might not be true I suppose we will see at the end of the season.

I'm not suprised he's a good player can't understand why we bought Dickson in when we had Mills in the side.

Really? I don't see a lot of difference if anything I'd say we're not as good as we were last season. Last year I didn't have an ST so I cherry picked games a bit I only saw us lose twice last season (swindon at home and the pompey match) saw us in plenty of good 3-1s though this season seeing every home match we haven't looked as good (granted that might just be I was lucky last year and missed most of the c rap performaces) . Even when the team is winning this year they don't look as comfortable to me as the did last season. A lot of people said Nigel was bring fast flowing passing football but I really can't see any difference (tranmere game aside) between how we play now and how we played last season under Pardew.

Question is though should we be playing catch up this season? I was rather expecting us to storm out of the starting blocks and lay waste to the teams in this division building a commanding lead and finishing as champions (the last bit still possible granted) rather than chasing the likes of Bompey and Brighton.

Nigel says he's been carrying niggling injuries all this season which has affected his fitness.

With a busy December just around the corner what's every bodies take on the season so far. Is the season going the way you thought it would? Did you excpect us to be doing better or worse? happy with the way things are shaping up or disappointed? What do you give saints out of 10 for the season so far. For me it's about 6/10. We're in the mix for the top spots and there's still plenty of time to push on up into the all important top two, but I'm disappointed. I really expected the way last season finished for us to take the league by the scruff of the neck this season get to the top and stay there. I was hoping to see us put the lesser lights of this league to the sword on match days. Being in seventh at this point of the season is frustating. Coupled with a sense that the team are still not playing to the potential they have is taking the gloss of what I hoped would be a cracking season. Hopefully we can go on a run through December and have a really good second half of the season. Thoughts?

This ^^^ It's not terrible but I expected more this season. Last season I felt we would struggle in the end we did far far better than I thought we would. This season I expected a lot more and we haven't delivered still time to turn it around but i'm still dissapointed that at this stage of the season we're 7th.