Could the cups have dented promotion this season..?

[Thedelldays]

No one knows (apart from our lucky fans with crystal balls). It did hurt clubs that have done doubles and trebles and you could argue that good cup runs increase confidence and help performances in league games. perhaps without good cup runs we wouldnot be doing so well now? You only have to look at some of the points dropped by some of the other "top" teams to see that long cup runs don't affect their ability to put in a cr*p performance.

 

We must be one of the only clubs who have won b*gger all for years and finally win something then moan about it!!!

who is actually moaning..?

[VectisSaint]

That is just bollix. That winning mentality was drawing games to get into penalty shoot outs. Then we get our worse defeat of the season by Pompey, to set us up for Norwich. We definitely suffered from the cups, solely because we find it difficult to give consistent performances when playing twice a week. It's no where near 22 points worth that the cups cost us, but certainly enough to blow the play off's out of the water now. Pardew admitted in print he prioritised the cups because of the -10 points deduction, totally fecking dumb.

 

Thats because although it may have been the worst score, we actually played very well, and were unlucky not to have won, 2 late goals when we were going for the win made it look far worse than it really was, management and players recognise that and gain confidence from the performance, not the result. Its only supporters who look on that day as "our worst defeat". I would argue our worst defeat was away to Swindon, or perhaps even at home to Swindon. There were probably others (but not many because we haven't lost many all season), but those are the ones that stick on my mind.

[sadoldgit]

who is actually moaning..?

 

Go and read some of the replies on here. It would appear that some people would have been very happy if we had been knocked out of every cup at the first round stage (even though there is absolutely no guarantee that we would have any more points on the board if we had).

[The Kraken]

That is just bollix. That winning mentality was drawing games to get into penalty shoot outs. Then we get our worse defeat of the season by Pompey, to set us up for Norwich. We definitely suffered from the cups, solely because we find it difficult to give consistent performances when playing twice a week. It's no where near 22 points worth that the cups cost us, but certainly enough to blow the play off's out of the water now. Pardew admitted in print he prioritised the cups because of the -10 points deduction, totally fecking dumb.

 

You mentioned this on another thread, and I said then that I hadn't seen anywhere where Pardew has said this. Can you provide clarification of it? As I mentioned on the other thread, the only time I have seen Pardew mentioning priority of any competition is when he said this:

 

"All of the cups are a priority for me personally, and so is the league programme. It's a tournament that we're in so we should try to win it. I think that attitude has not always been the case at a number of clubs, not just Southampton, but certainly while I'm here we'll try and win everything that we enter."

 

That's not prioritising the cups at all; simply stating that we won't devalue them and will put a first choice team out for every game we play. Which is an excellent attitude to have, IMO, as I think trying to blame poor league form on cup success in our case just doesn't add up.

[up and away]

Originally Posted by up and away

That is just bollix. That winning mentality was drawing games to get into penalty shoot outs. Then we get our worse defeat of the season by Pompey, to set us up for Norwich. We definitely suffered from the cups, solely because we find it difficult to give consistent performances when playing twice a week. It's no where near 22 points worth that the cups cost us, but certainly enough to blow the play off's out of the water now. Pardew admitted in print he prioritised the cups because of the -10 points deduction, totally fecking dumb.

Thats because although it may have been the worst score, we actually played very well, and were unlucky not to have won, 2 late goals when we were going for the win made it look far worse than it really was, management and players recognise that and gain confidence from the performance, not the result. Its only supporters who look on that day as "our worst defeat". I would argue our worst defeat was away to Swindon, or perhaps even at home to Swindon. There were probably others (but not many because we haven't lost many all season), but those are the ones that stick on my mind.

 

I don't argue with any of that. I was about the only one at the time that said we would go on and beat Norwich based upon that performance. But there is no way you can tell me that losing 4-1 is winning or developing that winning mentality. It was obvious against Pompey we had found something different that could win us a game, but it was also very evident that it was such high tempo, there is no way it could continue through a heavy fixture list.

 

Our worst defeat was against Brighton, that one really cost us dear with the JPT just previous in the week. The players had very little in the tank and we went away from a winning formation, leaving the midfield and our arses exposed. That game was so wrong from so many different angles, all self inflicted.

 

And for Dav, if you can't find the quote in the programme notes, it gets quoted in the Echo at that time.

 

In his programme notes, he said he had prioritised the cups because of the ten point deduction. Cortese had described the league as the “top, top priority.”

[Dibden Purlieu Saint]

I do find it funny, that since it has been proved by way of average point lost that our cup runs helped us this season, that neither TDD nor Alpine have bothered with this thread. I think it is seen as a dead rubber, as they were wrong.

 

Come on guys, what you going to go for next? We'll wait and then prove that one wrong too.

[The9]

we have dropped something like 22 points from the games either side of a cup tie this season

 

that seems a massive amount..

 

That's because we had so many cup ties.

 

FWIW I think losing Hammond in the new year was the biggest cause of dropped points over that period, just happened to coincide with our points-shedding.

 

In terms of the gap to the leaders, that mostly grew because we played half as many league games as everyone else in January/February, with few home matches, rather than particularly poor form.

[alpine_saint]

I do find it funny, that since it has been proved by way of average point lost that our cup runs helped us this season, that neither TDD nor Alpine have bothered with this thread. I think it is seen as a dead rubber, as they were wrong.

 

Come on guys, what you going to go for next? We'll wait and then prove that one wrong too.

 

OK, I'll bite.

 

Firstl, please direct me to this unequivocal proof of which you speak.

Secondly, I think I was fairly even-handed in my opinion, that the FA Cup may have been the kick-start to our current impressive form.

Overall, however, I think AP saw the league as a dead loss (hes only woken up recently to the possibilities) and only concentrated on the cups. That to me means they distracted from the League campaign

[St Landrew]

we have dropped something like 22 points from the games either side of a cup tie this season

 

that seems a massive amount..

 

I really don't know. Predicting the future is difficult, and even looking back isn't that easy, on this occasion. Put it down as a what if... and let it go.

[Thedelldays]

I really don't know. Predicting the future is difficult, and even looking back isn't that easy, on this occasion. Put it down as a what if... and let it go.

its not predicting the future is it...it is the FACT that we dropped 22 points either side of a cup tie....with a few ending winning runs..

 

 

it matters not now..just posing a question

[alpine_saint]

I really don't know. Predicting the future is difficult, and even looking back isn't that easy, on this occasion. Put it down as a what if... and let it go.

 

So you reckon we would have dropped all those points even if we hadnt been chopping-and-changing the team due to having cup-tied players ?

[Red and White Army]

who is actually moaning..?

 

You, by re-hashing this subject continually.

 

It is clear what you think, if if you don't explicitly state it?

 

I could phrase a question

 

"Does TDD continually rehashing the cup run vs league form mean he is a troll who craves attention and can't resist winding up forum members to serve his own pathetic agenda?"

 

without explicitly stating what my opinion is... it's hardly big or clever - rather pathetic to hide your views behind insidious little questions actually.

[Thedelldays]

brilliant anything else to say you utter sp***c

yes, I called you a sp***c as you seem unable to respond without some sheep like default view to a point I raised..

 

which if you look, pardew himself has even said he put the cups as a priority

 

you have a problem with him..?

Edited 20 April, 2010 by Thedelldays

[The9]

Not that it fits my argument or anything, but Dean Hammond didn't play a League match between 16 Jan and 20 Feb, during which time we

 

drew 1-1 at Brentford

beat Stockport 2-0 (they ARE bottom)

and drew at Exeter

 

Hammond's comeback League match was the 2-0 win at Norwich. The 0-0 draw with Wycombe which is roudly criticised on here (and that I was at) was the midweek immediately following that LEAGUE game.

 

With hindsight, I'd say Hammond's absence may have cost us an extra 2 points in those 2 draws and it was tiredness after beating Norwich along with a wearing slippery pitch at Wycombe that cost us the points there.

 

Cup ties had nothing to do with it, other than giving some squad players a run out which came in handy when we needed to call on them.

[alpine_saint]

You, by re-hashing this subject continually.

 

It is clear what you think, if if you don't explicitly state it?

 

I could phrase a question

 

"Does TDD continually rehashing the cup run vs league form mean he is a troll who craves attention and can't resist winding up forum members to serve his own pathetic agenda?"

 

without explicitly stating what my opinion is... it's hardly big or clever - rather pathetic to hide your views behind insidious little questions actually.

 

TDD cant help your mongy and agressive interpretation of his posts.

[St Landrew]

its not predicting the future is it...it is the FACT that we dropped 22 points either side of a cup tie....with a few ending winning runs..

 

 

it matters not now..just posing a question

 

In a sense it is predicting the future, because if AP could go back and then, looking forward, change the situation, what would he have done differently..?

 

So you reckon we would have dropped all those points even if we hadnt been chopping-and-changing the team due to having cup-tied players ?

 

Probably not, but you never know. It's not something that we can do anything about now. We have had the occasion and pleasure of the JPT competition, and you could say we have had to pay dearly for it, by dropping points, with an unsettled side. But the club, manager and players wanted something tangible from this season, and they've got that. We may get something more. Let's put it another way though, if all those teams above Saints had kept winning like, for example Norwich, then Saints wouldn't even be in with a sniff of a playoff place. However, if all those teams above Saints had had a typical League One season, for their current placings, then Saints would probably be right amongst them. It's all what if's..?

[alpine_saint]

In a sense it is predicting the future, because if AP could go back and then, looking forward, change the situation, what would he have done differently..?

 

 

 

Probably not, but you never know. It's not something that we can do anything about now. We have had the occasion and pleasure of the JPT competition, and you could say we have had to pay dearly for it, by dropping points, with an unsettled side. But the club, manager and players wanted something tangible from this season, and they've got that. We may get something more. Let's put it another way though, if all those teams above Saints had kept winning like, for example Norwich, then Saints wouldn't even be in with a sniff of a playoff place. However, if all those teams above Saints had had a typical League One season, for their current placings, then Saints would probably be right amongst them. It's all what if's..?

 

Of course it is, but this thread wasn disguised as aynthing apart from "what if". I dont see discussing "what ifs" is an issue, to be honest.

[St Landrew]

Of course it is, but this thread wasn disguised as aynthing apart from "what if". I dont see discussing "what ifs" is an issue, to be honest.

 

OK. It just struck me as a thread one would discuss during the close season. 2009/10 isn't over yet and it appeared to me that we were carrying out a bit of a post-mortem on it. Carry on.

 

EDIT: I notice a couple of insults flying around betweeen posters. Keep it civil peeps. Ta.

[LA77]

Of course it is, but this thread wasn disguised as aynthing apart from "what if". I dont see discussing "what ifs" is an issue, to be honest.

 

If my aunt had bollix... etc.

[The Kraken]

OK, I'll bite.

 

Firstl, please direct me to this unequivocal proof of which you speak.

Secondly, I think I was fairly even-handed in my opinion, that the FA Cup may have been the kick-start to our current impressive form.

Overall, however, I think AP saw the league as a dead loss (hes only woken up recently to the possibilities) and only concentrated on the cups. That to me means they distracted from the League campaign

 

OK, I'm still not buying in to this. I've yet to see a quote from AP anywhere suggesting that the league is out and we're only concentrating on the cups. I asked upandaway as he's quoted this a few times, yet he could only point me in the direction of "programme notes and the Echo has repeated it a few times". Well I've tried google searching it, and still can't find a quote attributed to AP that we were placing cup success ahead of the league. I'll happily admit I'm wrong if someone can provide me with a quote, but so far I'm yet to see one. I've easily found previous quotes from AP suggesting that both league and cups are a priority, and that we'll try to win every game we play. Maybe someone can provide the mystery quote(s) I seem to have missed.

 

Edit: As for the "only woken up recently to possibilities in the league", well certainly Cortese doesn't see it that way.

 

Cortese said both he and manager Alan Pardew were of the opinion that the amount spent in January – around £2m – meant the playoffs had to become their target for the campaign.

 

“We spent quite a considerable amount of money in the transfer window,” he said.

 

“Simply, when you do that automatically your expectations change.

 

“When the manager comes to ask me about buying players, we also talk about what we are going to end up with when we are buying those players.

 

“So we were always on the same page with what we want to achieve."

 

That pretty much says, in black and white, that AP went to NC to ask for funds for new players to mount a serious playoff push. It certainly doesn't say to me that AP asked for players becasue he thought we could win the JPT and therefore should neglect our league chances.

Edited 20 April, 2010 by The Kraken

[Wiltshire Saint]

we have dropped something like 22 points from the games either side of a cup tie this season

 

that seems a massive amount..

 

No, the cup run did not dent our promotion chances, in my humble opinion.

 

I will not accept anything other than losing in the first round of all the cups next season.

 

For possibly the first time ever i find myself agreeing with you. We must, at all costs, make sure we lose in all cup competitions next season.

 

Short answer, yes.

 

Stupid answer, yes, more like.

 

not really, it's helped us install a winning mentality.

 

I agree

 

I agree...but would anyone swap the JPT final for a playoff final..

 

or the game against pompey to finish 6th..?

 

oh dear

 

If there's some way of doing that then yes.

Do we apply to the football league to do the swap, or do we have to collect ring pulls from cans of Coke?

 

 

It's a completely redundant question

 

Have you never read any of delldays' posts before?

 

The cup runs had no bearing at all IMO..it was just the bare facts that we hardly had a pre season.. didnt have a proper team when the season kicked off ..and that it took us NINE games to register our first win.

 

This is the most sensible post on this thread. Why has no one else mentioned the terrible run at the beginning of the season (or the minus 10). Not currently being in the play-offs can be traced directly back to these two events.

 

Not sure what games you're picked as we've only played 42 league games so far.

 

Yep, sorry, that's meant to say 28 from 22.

 

Stupid idiot

 

The only valid answer to the OP is "maybe, maybe not"....

 

No, another valid answer to the OP is "Shut up delldays, you boringly negative spanner"

 

Agree. Can't understand why some fans hate the cups so much.

 

I don't think it is the cup that TDD hates, it's just he likes to have something (anything) to moan about.

 

who is actually moaning..?

 

YOU!!

 

it matters not now..just posing a question

 

If it doesn't matter, shut up. And you're not "just posing a question". You never just pose a question. You hide your ridiculous thoughts within ridiculous questions.

 

You, by re-hashing this subject continually.

 

It is clear what you think, if if you don't explicitly state it?

 

I could phrase a question

 

"Does TDD continually rehashing the cup run vs league form mean he is a troll who craves attention and can't resist winding up forum members to serve his own pathetic agenda?"

 

without explicitly stating what my opinion is... it's hardly big or clever - rather pathetic to hide your views behind insidious little questions actually.

 

Haha! Spot on!

 

brilliant anything else to say you utter sp***c

yes, I called you a sp***c as you seem unable to respond without some sheep like default view to a point I raised..

 

Nasty.

[Saint_clark]

brilliant anything else to say you utter sp***c

yes, I called you a sp***c as you seem unable to respond without some sheep like default view to a point I raised..

 

which if you look, pardew himself has even said he put the cups as a priority

you have a problem with him..?

 

No, because we're not the ones who see a cup win and another season in league one as a disappointment.

[Genk]

we have dropped something like 22 points from the games either side of a cup tie this season

 

that seems a massive amount..

 

Surely you just want to look at points dropped after a cup game. How does the game before matter?

[Saint_clark]

Surely you just want to look at points dropped after a cup game. How does the game before matter?

 

Because clearly Pardew isn't good enough to keep his players focussed.

[Doctoroncall]

... Let's put it another way though, if all those teams above Saints had kept winning like, for example Norwich, then Saints wouldn't even be in with a sniff of a playoff place. However, if all those teams above Saints had had a typical League One season, for their current placings, then Saints would probably be right amongst them. It's all what if's..?

 

More recently, the points tally to gain sixth place has been around 75 points. If we don't make the play-offs and still get to the 78 point mark, it would be the first time that such a high points tally misses out of a play-off spot since the 02/03 season when 81 was required.

[up and away]

Not that it fits my argument or anything, but Dean Hammond didn't play a League match between 16 Jan and 20 Feb, during which time we

 

drew 1-1 at Brentford

beat Stockport 2-0 (they ARE bottom)

and drew at Exeter

 

Hammond's comeback League match was the 2-0 win at Norwich. The 0-0 draw with Wycombe which is roudly criticised on here (and that I was at) was the midweek immediately following that LEAGUE game.

 

With hindsight, I'd say Hammond's absence may have cost us an extra 2 points in those 2 draws and it was tiredness after beating Norwich along with a wearing slippery pitch at Wycombe that cost us the points there.

 

Cup ties had nothing to do with it, other than giving some squad players a run out which came in handy when we needed to call on them.

 

The cup ties had more than enough to make the difference between the play off's or not. It is exactly as you say, tiredness effecting performance. The more games, the more tired you are, very simple. I agree about Hammond, but he had already started to go off because of the work load, again magnified by the cups.

 

We never addressed the most vital position in the window, someone who could take on Hammonds work load and we never really bothered with Wotton or Gillett. After we got all the players fit after the Jan window, we did have the squad, but the problem is not really at that point in time, it's earlier. We should never have played Connolly so much (nothing to do with the cups), we knew how fragile he was and second half performances were working well, why push it too far and bust the whole lot. How Ricky Lambert has put in all these performances is unbelievable, off key in a couple, but a herculean feat by others standards. It's only recently we have even seen players getting rested for the last 10-15 minutes, it never happened tactically previously.

 

The real problems were around the time of the Brighton game, where cups and tactics conspired to take the play off's away from us. We and Leeds both had JPT games the same night before meeting at Elland Road, they had 7 fresh players out against us. I absolutely love the way Saints play when they have the levels and on song, but what use is that when you can't subsequently win a corner at Wycombe because of tiredness?

 

Just for Dav, go onto the Echo website, look under Saints, scroll down the stories and you get to more news, keep going back to the Mk Dons game where we qualified for Wembley and look in the aticles just past and you find "In his programme notes, he said he had prioritised the cups because of the ten point deduction." You will find no other mention of it apart from the programme notes. Radio Solent made reference to it in the interview with Cortese, but he deliberately kept it out of other Saints articles to let it lie. But Cortese did emphatically state the league was the priority when asked why the cups were the priority.

[The Kraken]

Upandaway, thanks for the link and I've found it now. Not being a collector of programmes, I can't see what it was that Pardew actually said, only the Echo's reporting of it. If AP did actually say "the cups are more important than the league", then that is clearly disappointing. However, the quotes in the article seem to go against that, as he's saying:

 

“We have three competitions and we are trying to achieve something.”

 

After the game Pardew commented: “I felt it would be important for the spirit of everybody we did well in the cups"

 

“We have slipped a little in the league recently with draws and that’s disappointing and we need to get back on that."

 

Any most importantly I would suggest...

 

He added: “The only way you can really grow as a club is to go up. We are very much focussed on the league but we have a squad big enough to cope with the cups.

 

“My job is try and get the right balance between the league campaign and these cup campaigns.

 

“Unfortunately in the league we’ve slipped up a little bit but we’ve drawn games rather than lost them.

 

“It’s very frustrating but we hope to put that right.”

 

Again, without the programme itself it's difficult to categorise one way or the other. Either AP has been misquoted by the Echo, or he is doing some back-tracking for comments he really shouldn't have made. But its very clear from the tone of the direct quotes from the article that he was clearly targetting success on ALL counts, and not making cup achievement a more important priority than the league.

[saint_stevo]

Upandaway, thanks for the link and I've found it now. Not being a collector of programmes, I can't see what it was that Pardew actually said, only the Echo's reporting of it. If AP did actually say "the cups are more important than the league", then that is clearly disappointing. However, the quotes in the article seem to go against that, as he's saying:

 

 

 

Any most importantly I would suggest...

 

 

 

Again, without the programme itself it's difficult to categorise one way or the other. Either AP has been misquoted by the Echo, or he is doing some back-tracking for comments he really shouldn't have made. But its very clear from the tone of the direct quotes from the article that he was clearly targetting success on ALL counts, and not making cup achievement a more important priority than the league.

 

Too ture

[Deano6]

I agree...but would anyone swap the JPT final for a playoff final..

 

or the game against pompey to finish 6th..?

 

You're asking if I would swap a heavy home defeat to our most hated rivals for a guaranteed spot in the play-offs??

 

I've got one for you: Would you swap last year's relegation for a place in the Champions League?

[Whitey Grandad]

I've got one for you: Would you swap last year's relegation for a place in the Champions League?

 

:confused: If we were relegated we wouldn't be in the Champions' League. (Or am I being thick?)

[Ohio Saint]

Too ture

 

Never turer.

[The9]

The cup ties had more than enough to make the difference between the play off's or not. It is exactly as you say, tiredness effecting performance. The more games, the more tired you are, very simple. I agree about Hammond, but he had already started to go off because of the work load, again magnified by the cups.

 

We never addressed the most vital position in the window, someone who could take on Hammonds work load and we never really bothered with Wotton or Gillett. After we got all the players fit after the Jan window, we did have the squad, but the problem is not really at that point in time, it's earlier. We should never have played Connolly so much (nothing to do with the cups), we knew how fragile he was and second half performances were working well, why push it too far and bust the whole lot. How Ricky Lambert has put in all these performances is unbelievable, off key in a couple, but a herculean feat by others standards. It's only recently we have even seen players getting rested for the last 10-15 minutes, it never happened tactically previously.

 

So what you're saying is that we should have changed MORE players, and the cup-tied players were a blessing in disguise ?

[Thedelldays]

So what you're saying is that we should have changed MORE players, and the cup-tied players were a blessing in disguise ?

they wre saying on the radio last nigt that players are looking tired now (lambert and harding in particular) and that is has become clear that we have played too many games this season..

 

whether that was the case, i dont know

[The Kraken]

they wre saying on the radio last nigt that players are looking tired now (lambert and harding in particular) and that is has become clear that we have played too many games this season..

 

whether that was the case, i dont know

 

I must have watched a different game then, as Harding played as a left back and left winger all game, His work rate was phenomenal and he kept running at their defence right up to the final whistle, while still doing his defensive duties.

 

Lambert didn't look particularly tired, he just didn't get an awful lot of change out of two big, strong centre backs, and didn't get an real support from midfield.

 

Tiredness is too easy an excuse when you don't win; you don't often hear it trotted out when you win 5-0 though.