captainchris

Fonte is not good enough for this team shouted very loud indeed. Having said that nor is Davies who was a million miles from the middle of the goal and about two hundred people in the pub were screaming at him to cover the goal more central but he didn't, very poor goalkeeping indeed he musty be dropped it happens continuously poor poor goalkeeping very poor - drop him from a great height. So really really annoyed with the bad performance by the back line. The defence is very poor indeed ............

oh you beauty just as we had lost our way a little lol.........

Why the acceptance of very average or below players as being 'good enough'......................????

Fantastic start but oh dear Fonte is now a libility..............

Blatently not true.......Chaplow has different skills and does show for the ball and influence the pressure on the opposition players much more. We were not nearly as dominant when Chaplow went off. De Ridder does not effect the control of the game and Chaplow does.............

A slight disservice to Tom Jenkins perhaps......

100% correct...........Steve De Ridder is not up to it!

This is so obvious - can't see why the coaches have not dealt with it???? What did we pay for Fox - I just cannot see the value in him. If we'd brought him for say 300,000 then fair enough but we paid a small fortune for him and he's not dramatically different to Harding and hardly picks himself.........

Sorry ...........We dominated until Chaplow came off....In contrast DeRidder - I can't even be bothered to type the response to his ineffective performances - consistantly very below average.....

Poor as Fonte was and he was 'again'. Has Fox been actually instructed not to close down to prevent crosses coming in ??? I only ask as it seems to be the case - he actually stood six feet from the winger and watched him cross it in for the first goal!! God, lets get the basics right....

Plus the Blackpool game but overall his game has been drifting downwards for quite a while........No longer the player he looked in Div 1....Sorry but it really does look as though his time is nearly up. Personally I would drop him as the final teams we have to play will be playing it over the top and putting tall mobile guys up against him.

Yawn........

Correct.........De Ridder is always looking for the perfect pass and doesn't 'show' to affect the build up play. Hence he is rarely involved and not good enough.....

We are seriously lacking in midfield there is no doubt about this. We either require 5 in midfield which is my preferred solution or, we need players that can get forward. In fact we do need 5 in midfield with at least one that can break forward. What we have is not working and we are continuously in every game for past 3 months being compromised in midfield. For crying out loud we cannot go on like this repeating the same struggling method or we won't go up - simple!

Well put .......

Will we continue yet again against Palace with exactly the same formula which is clearly not working. We are NOT controlling games and haven't for a long time. As we have no pace we remorselessly try to play through the middle with no pace. IF we are going to continue with this predictable tactic we need five in midfield so that we have a spare man to get beyond our forward line and break the predictability.....Chaplow is the only guy who seems to be able to do this. NA we are running out of steam and have been for a long time - we need to address this...

You can't decent balls to the front men if you don't control the midfield and too often away from home we don't..........Two up front doesn't work for us away from home, this is further made worse when the opposition have pace...

You are pinning all the fault on the defeat at the hands of certain players when there wasn't a hairs breath between the lot of em. Obviously they were all really poor. However we should look further into this. The performances for a good while have been well short and in more than a couple of games we have been down right lucky. Look further, this is a larger issue not just performances of certain players in one game..... Preparation in away games seems to need attention and certainly tactics which for my money have been well short of the mark too. NA needs to have a good look in the mirror over our away tactics which look predictable and lacking in cohesion considering our strengths and weaknesses with the players we have. Really think it's time for NA get things sorted...!

Brilliant analysis - spot on. Adkins has to see this - it is staring him in the face....We need five in midfield and deny the opposition the space to play. We have decent players which will win out in the end as long as we are controling the game.

An excellent post and spot on with the analysis of the Donny game at St Mary's and some quite fortunate wins which have papered over some average to poor performances. One of the reasons we generally play better with Lambert in the side is that he plays with so much energy dropping into midfield to collect the ball and start up passages of play. However when playing away even with Lambert in the team we struggle. We cannot continue with two up front. We are continually out numbered, out muscled and out fought in midfield because two up front is like playing with ten men. We can't get the ball to them because we are not in control of midfield so why have two of them up there like man marked statues. Without Lamberts willingness to help the midfield out we are stuffed and even with him the other forward is basically a goal hanging statue. We have a back four with no pace - every one knows this and there is no protection for them. We need five in the middle with a 'sitter' to allow us to do what we are best at, passing our way up the pitch. We have to play this way because we have no pace and Puncheon and DeRidder are average at the very best and not good enough for this team. We insist on rearanging the deck chairs in the same inane way with out affecting the problems. We are not controlling games these days. Closing down yesterday seemed to be something from the dim and distant past and not part of our game - we continually stood off them - perhaps this all part of the same sympton that the midfield are knackered and need help....

Errrr ....buries head in sand......

Your very accurate and well made point about our midfield being too far advanced is one that few have picked up on but so very true. This was also happening in the Donny game last week - fortunately they were not good enough to exploit it. This is a big issue with our formation tactics and not ensuring a midfielder protects that wide open space we leave on the attacking 10 yards side of the centre circle. When we are attacking this area is completely free of Saints midfielders. As happened to day - too many of our players are too advanced when we are playing out from the back too which means even if we do play long we haven't dragged any of their defensive midfield up the pitch or on the other hand neither have we exploited the area behind their attackers who are advanced to close down our playing out from defence. There is an imbalance in the midfield which has been developing as the season has progressed - too big a gap between players supporting strikers and the area in front of the defence. With our slow build up play we need to flood the midfield a little more and can't help thinking we need more of a 4411 or even 4131 where the midfielder really does 'sit in' as our midfield is to often being over run..

Good summing up except Fox who was skinned by Ince all game and was no where to be seen a couple of times......4 DeRidder doesn't hunt the ball and hence ends up with the game passing him by......3 Chaplow along with Lallana were the only players with any energy in the whole team..... Desperately poor perfomance and you have to say the players were not 'up for it' - perhaps our away preparation needs a good look at and I'm not basing that on one performance.....

Whilst you may have a point, nervous players can still work hard and we haven't.....