Saint Fan CaM

I understand your thoughts, however I’m not sure you’re comparing eggs with eggs. His role changed at Saints under Eckhert compared to his time with WBA, meaning he naturally had fewer opportunities to score. I don’t think you can judge the lad based just on his goal scoring ability. He was fulfilling almost a pseudo RB role using his dribbling skills to break through an opposition high press to move the ball forward and he did that very well. There are not too many others able to do that as well as him - not even Scienza did as well. I doubt very much that his instructions from Eckhert were “go out there and score me as many goals as you can”.

And yet Fellows had a part to play in our 21 game unbeaten run. How were the same players performing prior to Eckhert influence?

Agreed - think we look pretty average compared to the usual top teams. I’m perplexed as to why Pickford still starts in goal - I think he’s a calamity waiting to happen and can’t believe there’s not a better English keeper. Then there’s the very average Roger’s, Spence and Anderson making up numbers. Without Rice the midfield looks weak. And the defensive line looks very unbalanced.

Liam Delap under Eckhert guidance would be a dream signing for Saints or indeed any Championship side. He has all the attributes for a CF role and is easily as good as Larin if not better. Best we could expect is a loan to buy, but I don’t think he wants to be playing anywhere other than the Prem…certainly not with Saints.

Spain looking good vfm last night against a pretty good Uruguay team.

Great play and game management by Ecuador - pleased they did that.

Scotland were pretty much toothless - Brazil were not even playing at their best and trounced the Scots sadly.

Not bothered about Stewart - more concerned about SR’s ability to get a decent replacement in.

Really nice to see another player commit to the club, particularly given his return coincided with our upturn in form.

Sensible signing.

Has not shown himself to be a particularly prolific, is prone to injury and not that tall. Other than he’s free, not sure what he would contribute in terms of getting us to the auto’s - I think we need a bit better than Larin or Stewart rather than worse to really make that realistic.

Understand this from an attacking and goals scored POV, however his biggest useful contribution IMO was his ability to wriggle out of tight spaces in defence when under opposition high press and allow us to break forward. Pretty essential when our Armstrong was not there to drop deep. In that regard he played a big part in the success of the 2nd half of the season.

Thanks Christophe. I wouldn’t mind watching the Eastleigh game if I’m able - would be interesting to see the difference in levels between the two clubs.

Yeah I agree with this - what I saw in Matsuki was a player growing in confidence as he adopted the role(s) and instructions given him by Tonda. And the point of this coming season is to build on last seasons incredible unbeaten run -surely the best way to do that is to utilise the players that were involved in that run.

Stewart is a difficult one to call - on the one hand we know he can score goals, however his continued fitness is a big issue which has basically been managed by rotation with Larin. Has his fitness improved because he’s been able to take rest breaks and not over-stretch himself? Overall, as with many of the players, he’s a known quantity who was an integral part of a squad that went 21 + games undefeated. That’s a significant reason to keep hold of him IMO.