HarvSFC

Bazunu KWP - THB - Bednarek - Manning Downes Alcaraz - S. Armstrong Edozie - A. Armstrong - Sulemana For me. Manning back in, as would prefer a left footed player in the position. Alcaraz in midfield with Stuart Armstrong, rather than safety first Smallbone. Praying that Harwood-Bellis is back fit. Then the front three should ensure the majority of our attacks don’t go down Sulemana’s side. A bit of flexibility, if you have Edozie and KWP causing chaos on the other side. A. Armstrong in the middle, also provides a bit more movement than Adams, who has been static since September 1st. Could even become an interchangeable front three, causing no ends of problems to the opposition defence. I expect it will be Smallbone, A. Armstrong out wide and we’ll go back to the Alcaraz false 9 experiment tomorrow, though.

https://x.com/justsaints_/status/1708532250344833183?s=46&t=DnjqB_BjPeOe3XF6SOVEuQ Alcaraz was important during our best performance of the season, the first half of the match against Leeds. What was he doing? Dropping deep into areas that Leeds weren’t picking him up and helping us to move up the pitch quickly. What’s he been doing in his appearances since then? Being played as a false 9 and the furthest man forward, a position he has struggled to make an impact in. Now, similarly to KWP, we know that Alcaraz is a good player, albeit the latter is still young and inconsistency is expected. But, like KWP earlier in the season, I feel like Alcaraz has been majorly misused in Martin’s tactics and is thus making him look crap, rather than Alcaraz having a big drop in form. I reckon Alcaraz would be best suited to the position Stuart Armstrong is playing, who also isn’t playing that well, barring a good goal against Stoke. He could also play the Smallbone role. However, the latter two seem to be more trusted. I’d also say that Shea Charles was misused last night. Looked good earlier in the season in the holding role. But, that’s Downes’ position, so Charles was a bit further up, which he’s less suited to and he pretty much got hung out to dry last night. I’d also agree that systems don’t win matches, especially once the system has been worked out, as Martin’s has due to his years of being in this league and his inflexibility to move away from his system. The best managers are the flexible, adaptive managers. Klopp’s and Guardiola’s Liverpool and City sides are nothing like the two sides they put together when they first joined. The worst managers are the stubborn ones…

We've had more fans forums than clean sheets this season.

Always helps having a Premier League player to just do something.

A lot of changes. Hopefully not to our detriment.

Can’t sell KWP in January. Not many teams in world football sell a star and probably their best player in the January window. We know how awful it is for buying good players from recent years.

Are you Phil Ifil or Jermaine Wright?

In an ideal world Meghoma, who looked alright in pre-season and has looked good for the Under-21s this season is ready to step up, keeping KWP on the right. Although, could go the same way as Jankewitz.

Given that Martin said we were going to replace Tella after Fraser had already joined and we missed out on Roberts and Paintsil at the end, possibly a wide man incoming? Roberts will be in the final six months of his contract in January. Although, Jack Clarke’s the wide player I’d go for at Sunderland, would cost a fair bit more though. I was desperate for us to keep Adams in the summer, but he has been hopeless since the window ended. I’d say sell him, but I doubt anyone’s going to offer much for him in January given his recent performances. The only concrete links in the summer were Everton haggling over pennies and a Wolves loan deal.

Never said a bad word about him.

KWP has no business playing in this league. Fortunately it’s for us and he’s no longer being asked to play an inverted role.

Should probably make these decisions at the start of an international break. We've got Millwall in a couple of weeks, follows Birmingham, so a couple of new manager bounces.

Same as at club level, we have two strikers, soon to be three who have scored for fun in the Championship, some pacey, tricky wingers, one cost £22m, an Argentina international who was one of our best attackers in the Premier League last season after joining in January and KWP, who shouldn't be playing at this level. I think that's where the anger came from against Rotherham, because we weren't going full throttle at them, or their goal when the clock was ticking down and there was a clear gap between the levels of the teams.

Especially when he started shouting that the red card for Mozambique was detrimental for Nigeria. Gave Mozambique a real advantage.

Edozie and Sulemana on either wing could be pretty decent. I think the last three matches we’ve been over reliant on Sulemana to create things. Get Edozie on the other side with KWP overlapping and on paper it looks pretty exciting. Two wingers who run at pace and take players on. Also, Russell Martin, you don’t always have to make 5 subs. Probably shouldn’t to a team leading by one goal, as it can also prove disruptive for the team.

Football's weird. Everyone knows that Liam Rosenior was the brains behind Rooney at Derby. Rooney's just been dumped by DC United in the MLS with a 26.4%, while Eustace has Birmingham in the play offs. What more do they expect? Similar to Bournemouth who dumped O'Neil for a foreign name and haven't won a league game in their first 8. If their manager was called Nathan Jones... Every now and then you get a Pochettino, but more often than not these decisions turn out wrong.

The atmosphere was good on Saturday, until we started playing within ourselves, looked too calm/confident/lethargic despite time ticking away and drawing 1-1, but even then there were only a few murmurs. It was only at full time when the boos came out and even then plenty got clapped off. Can't blame it for Rotherham scoring. Russell Martin got a few renditions of the e i, e i o song. They keep blaming the fans, it has been a running theme for well over a year now with Semmens starting it, then Jones and now Martin. It's an easy excuse, there are far more intimidating grounds than ours and this season was full of optimism going into it. Look at the numbers for each game played this season, despite being on TV for 6 of the 11 fixtures. Soon they'll be playing in front of a half empty St. Marys like the Poortvliet year and there won't be many to voice an opinion. Just look at what has become of Stoke last week.

Joel Piroe has 5 in 8 at Leeds, could've just signed him.

We're better defensively, although we couldn't get much worse. Now, he needs to learn substitutions. Against Leeds, the substitutions made us worse, against Stoke, the substitutions made us worse, today, the substitutions made us worse. I think SAA would be a pretty good substitutions for Suelemana, if he can't last 90 minutes, so why he has been demoted back to the Under-21s, I'm not sure. Fraser's a different player, more of a grafter who won't pull off the magic to win a game and Aribo's also different in that he's just so average and lazy. Whereas, Amo-Ameyaw's like a younger Sulemana in that he has that skill and trickery to get fans off their seat and create something. Mara's also not it, so poor. Hope not to see him again for a while when Stewart gets fit. We don't always need to make 5 subs. Before COVID teams coped with 3.

Championship clubs signed some quality players on loan in the 2022 summer window. Nathan Tella, Amad Diallo, Ian Maatsen, Cameron Archer, Harwood-Bellis, James McAtee and the two Doyles. We got this hobbit and Mason Holgate. WTF.

Positives: We looked a level above. Rotherham were just... there? Negatives: Everything else. Three games in a row, the subs coming on have killed our flow going forward. Alcaraz, Sulemana and KWP are the only three who can play on the turn, the rest get a bit predictable and really only pass the ball back to where they've received it from. Manning's so poor going forward. Adams doing a trademark Adams, missing from blank range for the first goal, fortunately, S. Armstrong was there, then Adams was just crap for the rest, as he has been ever since August finished. Can't blame a toxic home atmosphere for this one.

Superb news. Felt like he has looked a frustrated figure in the early parts of this season, but I'm no body language expert. Should keep him here for the season now with a number of reports earlier about a January bid for him.

Good for us in that he won't see playing for Southampton in the Championship as having a negative impact on his international career for the immediate future. I remember when we got relegated to League One and the France Under-21 manager said he wouldn't call up Schneiderlin if he played in the third tier. Thankfully, Schneiderlin remained. I am surprised that he got called up, though.

Hahaha, enjoyed that, even if it was far from convincing. We had to battle for that and it was the first time in ages we've shown a bit of fight, both during the match and after the full time whistle. First clean sheet since March too! Not sure why the commentary team kept harping on about the Downes contact as being a penalty, it wasn't The Bednarek rugby tackle probably should have been, but then Johnson could've received two yellows, not sure how he got away with hacking KWP down, the ref played advantage and forgot to get his cards out once the ball was out of play before his later yellow. Then their right-back Hoever, who isn't very good could have received two yellows also. He also pulled on Sulemana every time he was beaten, which was quite a lot. So, probably evens out. Shame the attacking subs were a bit crap. But, we'll take it! Expect another physical, scrappy game against Rotherham on the weekend. Up the Saints!

Two weeks off after the three games this week. Our 2009 to 2012 teams also played three games a week a lot for three years and coped alright. Lambert, Lallana, Fonte and Hammond certainly didn't miss many and they were the core of the team. That was also when only three subs were allowed and a five man bench. I'd be pretty annoyed if the good creative players (Alcaraz and Sulemana) were rotated again as they were exactly what we had been missing in the recent losses. Neither have got call ups to their international sides either. Also please don't shoehorn Adam Armstrong around the midfield. Play him as he did on Saturday, Adams on the bench.