tajjuk

I'm not ignoring them but he had surgery on his knee and has since returned to full first team action, therefore he isn't 'crocked'. I would presume Sunderland didn't offer him a new contract because they don't need 3 international goalkeepers? So the one that has been out with an injury, is probably on the highest wages and who's contract is expiring is the obvious one to release. He's currently fit and wants to re-build his career, it's clear he's talented and would challenge KD for a place in the team.

Biggest rag tag collection of also rans, has beens and maybes. The transfer fees also don't indicate anything about the wages. Granero is not 'world class', he's Real Madrid's version of Darren Gibson, he is only rated purely because he played for Real Madrid. Cesar was maybe 'world class' 3 years ago, clubs like Inter Milan don't let world class players go for free. Diakite is a 'who', 41 career games in total for Nancy, a few for you and a handful of international appearances. Nelsen is an old 'has been', he had a good season a few years ago and is now 34. Same pretty much goes for Bosingwa, he has been on the decline for ages, hence his release by Chelsea. Hoillet is a good signing, so is Mbia for the price, Park I would say is an unknown, again he is getting on especially for a player who relies on workrate and mobility, Ferguson is usually pretty shrewd about letting players go. Your signings bar maybe Hoillet are short term panic buys, ours whilst don't cover every position are for the long term.

100% Agree, Adkins could be our Ferguson, plus I doubt he would universally hated. However, there is a possibility Adkins will be sacked, I don't agree with it, and hopefully it won;t happen but you can't completely rule it out. Benitez is a far better replacement than Redknapp. One side thought, maybe they aren't speaking to him to replace NA, but instead to help him? Some sort of consultancy role?

To be fair to him, he broke his arm twice, don't think that indicates anything but bad luck, but it certainly doesn't indicate he is injury prone. Unless you think Petr Cech is injury prone for being kicked in the head?

It's a far more realistic link than Harry Redknapp that's for sure.

If you look at the keepers we were linked with in the window, for example Butland, they were young 'future' keepers. I honestly believe that the management team were confident that KD would be good enough. So far from the first 4 games it seems like he isn't. If there are 'free' keepers out there who at the very least would be challenging KD for the no 1 jersey then I personally can't see the harm in signing them. Boruc and Gordon both fall into that category to me.

I mainly agree, similar to away at Man City the whole team was set up to defend deep, yet this leaves Lambert isolated and the midfield far too much to do between supporting him and closing Arsenal down, so essentially we just let them have the ball easily in front of us with no real pressure. Against Man Utd our defensive line was much higher and this allowed us to press all over the pitch, when we regained possession form Utd we were in their half, even their third. Against Arsenal when we did get the ball back we were always in our third with few options, especially as we don't have the ball over the top option with RL up front. Another point is that as far as I could tell we had no width, both AL and JP played very narrow and got involved in areas where our central midfielders were, see the first goal for example were Puncheon is in no mans land, makes a half aresed takcle in central midfield and leaves the whole left hand side of the pitch for Gibbs to attack. We conceded 6 goals, that's a lot even against a good team. To defend well you have to always be on it, 6 goals conceded showed in the large that people weren't doing their jobs. It;s not also about one or two errors but a catalogue of them. Arsenal's goals were not from great play, they were not made to work for their goals but instead gifted the openings due to several errors from several players. Against Man Utd I think we had tired minds, we had been franticly closing them down all over the pitch. Against Arsenal however these errors were early in the game, and as pointed out at several occasions our midfield is standing around letting Arsenal play the ball about, this is in the first half so they can't have been tired. Again the situations where people let runners go un-tracked is in the first half and again is laziness not fitness

See Saint Charlie's post below about 'good goals'. Arsenal are a top team in excellent form. They have very very clever midfielders in the likes of Arteta and Corzola who will trouble most midfields and teams in this league. However Arsenal didn't score any 'good goals' in my opinion (neither did Utd), we made things too easy for them through a combination of lazy pressing/tracking, poor positioning at times and individual mistakes. That 3rd goal was a mess from start to finish and ANY team in this league would have scored that. Set up is one thing, execution is another. The shape and formation of the team is set up correctly, in fact it's a very good formation to counter most teams in this league, as long as players do their jobs and we have the right players in the right positions.

I looked particularly at the goals, yes Fox was partly to blame for the 3rd goal IF Gervinho was his man, however Yoshida could have directly stopped the goal had he stayed goal side of Gervinho, there is no good reason for him to run past him towards the ball. You can have a witch hunt against Fox all you like and he certainly has his failings, however you can't blame him for that goal. You can't blame the midfield for basic defensive errors, and I looked specifically at the goals. I mentioned on several occasions that the midfield despite being in good positions weren't pressing well enough, were standing still too often and miss their tackles. Davis and JWP were included in this, but the midfielder who should be primarily defending in that formation is Schneiderlin, hence why I think Cork would be better suited to this role as he is a better tackler and is more disciplined. The central 3 were over run at times and didn't win their tackles, but only in the first goal did this lead to something, it was Puncheon who missed his tackle for the 4th. Puncheon should have also been tracking Gibbs, him being free down the left directly led to two goals. Didn't see it but can't personally see the blame for Fonte. Yes maybe he and Clyne should have been closer to Yoshida but I doubt that would have stopped the goal. You could also argue (as some here have) that Fox was way too far left and that pulled Yoshida across. I'm pretty sure Gervinho should have been picked up by fox.

Posted this in the 'Kelvin Davis' Thread but I was going off topic a bit so I thought I would start a new thread. This post is to highlight some of the key defensive failings from the game on Saturday to illustrate that it's not simply just one or two individuals at fault. I have higlighted player names in bold when I felt they have made an error. Against Arsenal. First Goal - Starts with poor tackling in the midfield, Podolski easily gets away from Davis and Schneiderlin seems to get 'done' in the process, leaving space in front of the defence for Podolski to run into (question - is he supposed to be sitting? The 'anchor man' role? If he is then he shouldn't have made a run forward) - Puncheon makes little effort to help out (even though he is quite close and was the one who failed to tackle him in the first place). - Puncheon is then out of position and not tracking Gibbs. Defensive shape is pretty good, Fonte goes to close the ball but Clyne is ball watching and doesn't pick up the run of Gibbs on the outside. (OR if the players are marking Zonally, then Gibbs has left Puncheon's Zone and is now in Clyne's Zone and he should go out to meet him) - Gervinho gets ahead of Hooiveld and is goal side even though he started behind him (Hoiveld). - Gibbs shoots instead of crossing it and KD deflects it into play rather than out, but then Hooiveld doesn't react and the goal goes in off in when he probably should have cleared it. Pretty much everyone at fault there, Puncheon, Schneiderlin, Davis, Hoiveld, Clyne and KD. Second Goal - KD's poor positioning nothing more, This was pointed out on 'Goals on Sunday', he gave up more than half of the goal and the shot was a good metre inside the top corner. Third Goal It was part Yoshidas fault, part Lallanas fault and part Kelvin's fault. (and possibly part Fox's fault) - Lallana didn't press Arteta, he was allowed loads of time to very carefully play the ball through. (whoever passed to Arteta as well wasn't pressed) - Yoshida was ball watching when he should have been marking Gervhinho, he gets sucked in and then is wrong footed by a fairly simple run from the attacker. - KD shows Gervinho far too much space at the near post and doesn't come out to close the angle down. I don't rate Gervinho at all, all KD had to do was come out quickly and stay on his feet until the last minute, I don't Gervinho think is good enough to score in that situation, but he (KD) just made it too easy for him. - Overall our midfield is standing off far too much, in fact several of them are actually just standing. If you watch the goal you will notice Podolski just runs past Puncheon and none of the midfield pick him, despite Fonte clearly pointing it out. - The gap betweenFonte and Yoshida is huge as well. If Yoshida was closer to Fonte he would have had Gervinho in front of him not behind and made stopping him getting to goal a lot easier. - Fox certainly doesn't help Yoshida, he doesn't seem to be marking the wide player or marking Gervinho, and also seems to get sucked forward. However it's far more Yoshidas fault he need to be goal side of Gervinho and not ball watch,unless Fox is supposed to be marking Gervinho? Fox was poor in this game, he didn't ever seem to press players, nor does he track runners, (also see Gervinho's second goal he just let him run past him and get free in the box and I'm sure at that point Gervinho was playing on his side of the pitch. Lack of quality is one thing but he's a pro footballer and a defender, not marking and not tracking your man is just laziness. ) 4th Goal - Pretty much like the first, Puncheon fails to tackle Gervinho who goes past him easily, Schneiderlin kind of just runs along side Gervinho, no pressing. No one is marking Gibbs who is wide left completely on his own. The whole team are inside our half and are very narrow. - The actual goal off Clyne is unlucky but the situation shouldn't have happened. Something was off on the right hand side as no one was picking up Gibbs and Clyne seemed reluctant to go out to him, he is just marking some space. 5th Goal - Again standing off in Midfield giving time to pick the pass out. Clyne is too narrow and gets done easily by Ramsey (who runs form deep and isn't tracked by anyone) (Who was playing wide right at this point?) - KD should do better from what is a very weak toe poke shot from Ramsey. - Fox just lets Gervinho run past him and get free in the box. 6th Goal - Ramsey gets inside Clyne too easily. - KDparries back into the middle too easily, and the rest of defence should have cleared the rebound. Overall From a lot of the goals it looks clear that we have no idea where some of the Arsenal players are playing and thus our players weren't sure who to mark. Their (Arsenals) formation had Podolski up front on his own, Gervinho/Chamberlain wide and Corzola playing behind Podolski. It would be logical (seeing as we played a pretty similar formation) for both full backs to pick up their respective wide men, one of the centre backs to pick up Podolski and Schneiderlin to pick up Corzola. Leaving the other centre back free to sweep up or pick up other midfield runners. However Arsenal's movement confused our players. For the third goal, Gervinho is on the right hand side of pitch, presumably he had swapped sides with Chamberlain. Fox presumably didn't think he was the one to pick him up, thus Yoshida goes out to him. Zonal marking going wrong? Certainly the two goals that come through Gibbs on the left highlight this problem, he is completely free both times to cross, now is Clyne supposed to be picking him up as he is in his 'zone'? In which case he should go out to him, OR is it Puncheon who failed to track him? (if we are man for man) We didn't allow that sort of space or free runners against Utd, (except maybe the last 10 minutes, tired minds and bodies?) but this was all in the first half so they can't have been tired. I'm not sure if the way they have been told to play is wrong or some of the players aren't doing their jobs correctly. If we were marking man for man then too many players didn't pick their runners up. If we were zonal players weren't picking up players in their zone. The Players My piece though was to highlight that basically several players were at fault for most of the goals and all of them, bar maybe the 6th which was a very good, quick counter attack, could have been avoided with some hard work, some simple defending and some better goalkeeping (and even then if KD had palmed the shot AWAY from the goal they wouldn't have scored the rebound). Though I would advocate changing some of the personnel, I think more it's more getting them all to do their jobs correctly as a unit. An experienced Defensive coach to work with them would be my suggestion. - Fonte defended pretty well on Saturday, you can't fault him for any of the goals. - Yoshida made a very basic error, however he had only been on the pitch 7 minutes, when everyone else had been on for 30 mins so he probably wasn't up to speed in the game, it was his debut and he was partly let down by Fox. - Clyne's positioning was poor on Saturday and has been in previous games, he great going forward and has plenty of pace to react to situations, but his starting position at times lets him down. I also think he was let down by Puncheon on Saturday. - Fox is not tracking runners and is reluctant to close the ball down even when players are in the last third. Either he is worried about being done for pace if he gets to close or he is frankly being lazy. There is no excuse for not folowing the guy you are supposed to be marking. - Schneiderlin is in the wrong position in my opinion. He is not tenacious enough in the tackle and getting the ball back. He is also too inclined to go froward. In this formation he should be sitting in front of the defence, picking up the oppositions AM and breaking up play. He should barely cross the half way line, especially away from home. Think Makele or Scott Parker. Whilst I think he is an excellent player he is not suited nor disciplined enough for this role. Cork might be a better option. - Puncheon purely defensively he let down Clyne on Saturday, Gibbs was his man and he let him go free down the right side twice which directly led to two goals. In the formation we play, it should be a 451 when we don;t have the ball and the wide players have a big role to play helping out their full backs. Puncheon didn't do this on Saturday, Lallana was slightly guilty of it was well. - Kelvin Davis Simply he could have done better with every single goal. His best attributes last season were shot stopping and he is not doing that. His distribution has been poor, he doesn't come out to close attackers down, he has flapped at crosses, he is getting beaten at his near post and his positioning has been poor. I don't want to overly pick at him but you can't ignore that facts.

I had a response for this but I have decided to start a new thread as what I found myself writing has gone off topic as it isn't particularly about KD.

Against Arsenal. First Goal Starts with poor tackling in the midfield, Podolski easily gets away from Davis and Schneiderlin, Puncheon makes little effort to help out (even though he is quite close and was the one who failed to tackle him in the first place). He is then out of position and not tracking Gibbs. Defensive shape is pretty good, Fonte goes to close the ball but Clyne is ball watching and doesn't pick up the run of Gibbs on the outside. Gervinho gets ahead of Hoiveld and is goal side even though he started behind him. Gibbs shoots instead of crossing it and KD deflects it into play rather than out, but then Hoiveld doesn't react and the goal goes in off in when he probably should have cleared it. Pretty much everyone at fault there, Puncheon, Schneiderlin, Davis, Hoiveld, Clyne and KD. Second Goal KD's poor positioning nothing more (flapped at a corner shortly before that as well) Third Goal It was part Yoshidas fault, part Lallanas fault and part Kelvin's fault. Lallana didn't press Arteta, he was allowed loads of time to very carefully play the ball through. (whoever passed to Arteta as well wasn't pressed) Yoshida was ball watching when he should have been marking Gervhinho, he gets sucked in and then is wrong footed by a fairly simple run from the attacker. KD shows him far too much space at the near post and doesn't come out to close the angle down, I don't rate Gervinho at all, all KD had to do was come out quickly and stay on his feet until the last minute, I don't Gervinho think is good enough to score in that situation, but he just made it too easy for him. Overall our midfield is standing off far too much, in fact several of them are actually just standing. If you watch the goal you will notice Podolski just runs past Puncheon and none of the midfield pick him, despite Fonte clearly pointing it out. The gap between Fonte and Yoshida is huge as well. If Yoshida was closer to Fonte he would have had Gervinho in front of him not behind and made stopping him getting to goal a lot easier. 4th Goal Pretty much like the first, Puncheon fails to tackle Gervinho who goes past him easily, Schneiderlin kind of just runs along side Gervinho, no pressing. No one it marking Gibbs who is wide left completely on his own.The whole team are inside our half and are very narrow. The actually goal off Clyne is unlucky but the situation shouldn't have happened. Something was off on the right hand side as no one was picking up Gibbs and Clyne seemed reluctant to go out to him. 5th Goal Again standing off in Midfield giving time to pick the pass out. Clyne is too narrow and gets done easily by Ramsey (who runs form deep and isn't tracked by anyone) KD should do better from what is a very weak toe poke shot from Ramsey. Fox just lets Gervinho go. 6th Goal Ramsey gets inside Clyne easily. KD parries back into the middle too easily, and the defence should have cleared the rebound. Overall KD could have done a lot better with all the goals. Midfield didn't press enough and weren't tenacious enough in the tackle. Puncheon failed to track runners on several occasion leaving Clyne exposed. Clynes positioning is poor, he also doe0ns't seem to know who he is supposed to mark. Fox fell asleep for one goal. Yoshida and Fonte suffered from having not played together. TL/DR Team pressing/depth and issue, Lazy Midfield play by some, Communication trouble and below par GK.

For me:- Fox out Shaw in. A change is needed, he's the only one we have, the young players were promoted to the first team squad therefore they are good enough. Yoshida replaces Hoiveld - enforced change. Ramirez needs to start. JWP out, harsh I know but experience of Davis wins out. Mayuka in for Puncheon, need more pace. Same formation. Get at Villa from the off, push our defence high, press them high, get the crowd behind the players. With Cork, JWP, Puncheon, Rodriguez we have more than enough options on the bench to keep a high tempo game.

I like this idea, you only have to look at the improved shape and structure of the Arsenal defence since Steve Bould came in to see that this could help. If a great and experienced manager like Wenger can delegate this sort of role then there is no reason for Adkins to be resistant to this.

Have to agree here. Remember thinking at the time of RVPs first goal whilst the commentators were eulogising over it as a 'great finish' that whilst it was firmly struck it was a very narrow angle and I thought it was straight at KD so he should have done better. He has also been beaten fairly easily by two near post shots, his positioning for the free kick was poor and his distribution against utd was awful and nearly cost two goals (and did cost a penalty). On top of all that though his leadership of the defence and his presence isn't good enough. We need an premiership experienced head behind that defence so I say go for Gordon, was a quality keeper when fit, is till young at 29 for a keeper, I would imagine he is desperate to prove his critics wrong. Two broken arms is also unlocky and it doesn't really make him injury prone. It's a shame that Tottenham didn't do the Hugo Lloris deal earlier, they have 4 decent keepers and it looks likely that Gomes and Cudicini will go on loan to Championship club when they both could have challenged KD.

Look at the current bottom half of the table, take Newcastle and Liverpool out of there and you have the teams we need to be beating. Swansea and West Ham are flying higher than they should be, but should be fine. Even thought I would love to see them go down (in debt but stills spending, terrible football style, don't like the manager, arrogant fans) West Ham have enough to avoid the drop in my opinion. They have some big strong players like Carroll, Diame etc, they work there arses off. They score set pieces, they have some experienced players like Nolan and they have a better defence than us. With Allardyce and the players he has brought in, they are very set up for the lower mid table obscurity for the next few seasons imo, they will never be more than that though. So you are left with:- Reading - only 1 pt so far, about as defensively poor as us, worse going forward than us IMO. QPR - A miss match of a team, full of 'has beens' and 'maybes'. Their defence is 'experienced' but still looks weak, they have a lot of injury prone players and some players who are very inconsistent. You also have to question their team spirit with all those high wages, egos etc. Norwich - Watched them on Saturday and they had a very 'workman' like feel to them, plenty of graft and spirit, short on quality, again like us not great defensively. Wigan - already beaten us, but apart from that not been great, got thrashed by Man Utd. Good manager, with interesting tactics. Wonder where the goals will come from though. Sunderland - Their fans would probably think it's harsh to include them as relegation candidates, but I think their squad is poor. Back line of Brown, Bramble, O'Shea and Bardsley doesn't inspire confidence and I think they will rely heavily on Sessegnon staying fit. Aston Villa - Young inexperienced squad, fans who expect more so could on top of the team. Will rely heavily on Bent staying fit and getting the goals and an aging Dunne at the back. They need more out of Nzogbia and Ireland. Stoke - Surprise inclusion maybe, but they haven't won in 10 now, 4 draws, beaten by Swindon in the Cup (reserve team I know). They will always be strong at home, but more likely because they 'upset' one of the big boys. Personally I don't think they score enough goals which could cause them trouble. I think they rely too much on not getting beaten than actually going out to win games.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19528203 "• According to Opta, Southampton have allowed their opponents more shots on target against them than any other team in the Premier League (19). " 19 Shots on target isn't too bad in my opinion across 3 games against Man Utd/Man City

Put this in another thread, August/September was always going to be tough for us. City, United, Arsenal and away at Everton are tough games. Only home to Wigan and Villa were winnable. October/November will shape our season.

3 points and were potentially 11th, nothing to panic about, even with a loss tomorrow teams around us aren;t guaranteed win, QPR are playing Chelsea, Liveprool are away at Sunderland, Villa are playing in form Swansea, Reading are playing spurs. Lose at home to Villa and things look a bit dour though. October and November are where we cna get the points on the board - Southampton V Fulham Sun 7 Oct 13:30 West Ham V Southampton Sat 20 Oct 15:00 Southampton V Tottenham Sun 28 Oct 15:00 West Brom V Southampton Mon 5 Nov 20:00 Southampton V Swansea Sat 10 Nov 15:00 QPR V Southampton Sat 17 Nov 15:00 Southampton V Newcastle Sun 25 Nov 15:00 Southampton V Norwich Wed 28 Nov 19:45

Not exactly a premiership standard of cars in that car park! Not a bentley in sight! Back on topic, of the Big Teams, Arsenal are the one I think we can get a result from. They have had a good start but they are very inconsistent and don't take their chances (especially withut RVP) like Chelsea and the Manchesters do, they also have a home crowd that are quick to get on the teams back so I think if we can keep it tight for the first 30 mins and then build into the game we can get something. I can see none of the new signings starting, what with it having been international week and not having much chance to train with the team.

Yeh the flag of one of the most powerful and biggest countries in the world versus the kit of a football team. Yeh good comparison there, lots of relevance. Like the guy bringing out the 1980's Liverpool kit, oh no we look like a team from 30 years ago. I'm sure that exact thought is going round every fan of every club we play cos they all have in depth knowledge of other teams kits form the 1980s. You lot act as if our kit has always been the same since the beginning of time, when clearly it hasn't - http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Southampton/Southampton.htm Seeing as some of your are fascinated with 30 years ago, pretty much none of the 1980's kits are your traditional red and white stripes, in fact it is difficult to describe them as striped at all.

Been having a look on the Arsenal forums, in the thread like this. Most of them are expecting a comfortable win, some predicting a hammering. They seem to also think that we are going to go there and attack and that will suit them.

My main worry for him playing in a wide role, not convinced of his work rate from some things I have heard, and we don't need our full backs to be under any more pressure. Like you said, freedom to roam, freedom to get on the ball and shoot, cross, dribble etc. Essentially build the team around him. Will be exciting to see him in this sort of role and exciting for a club like us to play this way. I hope we embarrass teams like the West Ham to show there is a different way to stay in the premiership.

Good review thanks. I have a suspicion that he has been lined up for the wide right role. Hopefully Puncheons form will have changed this and he will be played in the truer 'number 10' role that I think he is more suited to and we would get the best out of him. Have Morgan and Davis have more emphasis on defensive duties and allow Ramirez some freedom to create.

The substitutions didn't cost us the game, Man Utd were always going to come back strong and press hard for the last few minutes. Defensive errors and the team as a whole sitting to deep were the problems. It meant we couldn't retain the ball or clear our lines properly, it also meant that our midfield had far more space to cover. The subs had no chance, they never got the ball. Your view of 'subs costs us the game' is very simplistic, just because AL, RL and JP were all doing well does not equally mean that they would have continued to do well, especially if they were all tired. Defenders have to be able to defend under pressure, ours failed to do that, Fonte in particular struggled, slicing clearances and failing to mark.