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Anyone Concerned?


Saint Billy

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True, but been in the SPL for aprox 3 years which is............erm..........how do I put it, not on a par with the Prem

 

Anyone who wins Aston Villa player of the year has the relevant top flight experience for me.

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I'm terrified at the thought this hasn't happened yet. It's keeping me up at nights.

 

I love your dryness!

 

I like what we have got in so far, no problems with that at all, but will a team made up of lower league experience (and I include Davies in that) rather than a couple with top flight experience hold its own in the prem?

 

Hey guys, I am debating, I am not sure myself.

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Not really concerned no. Davis K, Davis S, Cork, Chaplow, Fox have Prem experience.

I will be a little concerned if the new centre half hasnt got experience or is a bit older than the players we have signed so far. I think of all positions centre back and keeper are the ones where you need a bit of knowledge of the league you are in.

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How much Championship experience did the league's top scorer have before the start of last season?

 

To be fair, it had some.

 

What? Before last season Rickie Lambert had never played above League One.

 

You are putting too much emphasis on experience. In any case, Fox, S.Davis, K.Davis, Cork and Chaplow have all played in the Premier League before.

 

Do you really think Lambert and Lallana are going to struggle because they haven't played in the Premier League before? Just look at some of the squads of bottom half Premier League teams, they really aren't that special.

 

Norwich and Swansea both came midtable with little in the way of previous Premier League experience.

Edited by Matthew Le God
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I'm getting close to being concerned.

 

"Old" football or "new" football, you need strength - and depth - "up the middle" in order to have a chance of being a decent side.

 

It troubles me that we have no goalkeeping cover and no cover in the middle of defence, all the more so for the fact that one of our two first choice central defenders didn't play well for much of the second half of the season. If Fonte was somewhat exposed against Championship teams, he's not going to find life easier in the Premier. Hopefully we'll see the Fonte of the first 20 or so games rather than the one of the last 20 or so.

 

That being said, I have a lot of faith that Adkins knows what he's doing.

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I love all the optimism on here, it's great compared to what the vibe was like going back a few years ago. However, I don't know why a lot of posters have to jump down the OP's throat and/or be so sarcastic. It is a very good question and one well worth debating. A lot of people quote the relative success of Swansea and Norwich last season as to reasons why they are not worried. There are good reasons to be hopeful because of this, but I'm not sure it gives a massive reason for all this confidence. I think it would be great to have another couple of experienced "old heads" in the squad, especially down the spine of the team and especially when we run out at places like Old Trafford, Etihad, Stamford Bridge and find ourselves up against it from the first minute. Equally so when we are holding on to a narrow 1-0 with time running out against a "fellow relegation candidate"

 

MLG, I love Rickie and am confident he will score goals in any league given the right service, but yes, he and Lallana could very well struggle in the Prem. There are many reasons why they might.

 

All in all, I love the way Adkins is building the squad and the type of player he targets. However, I think a couple more players with proven Prem experience would really set us up to do well this season.

 

Please don't take anything I have said as a negative. I'm very positive about Saints and their future. Just think we should have a debate about this and it would be interesting to hear people's views on which players with said Prem experience might fit well into the team.

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What? Before last season Rickie Lambert had never played above League One.

 

You are putting too much emphasis on experience. In any case, Fox, S.Davis, K.Davis, Cork and Chaplow have all played in the Premier League before.

 

Do you really think Lambert and Lallana are going to struggle because they haven't played in the Premier League before? Just look at some of the squads of bottom half Premier League teams, they really aren't that special.

 

Norwich and Swansea both came midtable with little in the way of previous Premier League experience.

 

I misunderstood your question that is why I deleted my response.

 

To be honest and I know I am going to get slated for this.... ffs who cares its a forum.... Fox, K.Davis, Cork and Chaplow are not exactly going to frighten premier opposition, I cannot comment on S .Davies as I have not been a follower of Scottish football and never really noticed him when he was playing in the prem.

 

Imo we need a couple of players who have and are still playing in the prem, not ones that use to and ended up in lower league football.

 

I dont care what anyone says, experience in this league counts for a lot and you can never have too much of it. If you want to go back in time this is how LM made us successful.

Edited by Saint Billy
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Such as?

I thought you would know this as well as anyone, considering all the research you do. Ok, how about lack of experience at Prem level (yes he had never played in the Championship before, but this is another leap again), lack of pace, playing against international class defenders rather than championship class, much less service than he is used to, not scoring for a few games and losing confidence in himself?

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How much Championship experience did the league's top scorer have before the start of last season?

 

What's that got to do with anything ? Mateja Kezman was top scorer in 4 national top divisions across Europe before he signed for Chelsea in the Prem, and he scored a whole 4 goals in a team that won the title. Success in stepping up from L1 to Championship is hardly an indicator of future success, you only have to look at the proportion of lower league players getting a crack at the Prem compared to imports to see the standard is much higher.

 

There's no guarantee of success from previously scoring in TOP divisions, never mind the league placed immediately below the Prem in a meritocracy.

 

I am relatively concerned that we haven't got many players who know the problems we're going to face and more importantly, the solutions to those problems. Trying to work it out on the pitch as you're getting taken apart is not the best way to get results.

 

That said, having a bunch of promising players with little fear, a strong mentality and a considerable future upside is a good thing - we just need a couple more like Steven Davis to give us an anchor and a little guidance. Hooiveld and Fonte have experience, but not Prem experience. Kelvin had an horrendous time in the Prem last time, and Chaplow's experience was only a season or two after Saints themselves were last up there. Fox and Cork both played with relegated Burnley. Even the manager hasn't been up there before - though at least Dodd is still around.

 

It's not exactly a wealth of knowledge to call upon.

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Oh god. I had forgotten the old 'gelling' excuse. I swear Burley was still trotting that one out in mid March!

 

We don't have gelling problems any more because we don't generally try and stick 5 new players into a team at the same time (at least we haven't since Pardew started a new back 4 with Fonte and Harding's debuts in a league below the one they'd been playing in). Teams who do that WILL have problems gelling.

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I'm a bit worried about not having a good keeper or back up CB. In fact, that defence will be very porous in the Prem.

 

I can't imagine that we'd loan out Aaron Martin without being 100% confident of signing at least one CB.

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You all may mock the OP but the only club that has come up in recent times and cemented their place in the Premiership is Stoke and what did they do? Buy decent, experienced players.

 

I haven't seen anybody mocking the OP, but I did work in Stoke for about 5 years. A mate I stayed in touch with, avid Stoke supporter, never missed a game. He hasn't been for ages now because "they play such horrible football under Pulis" (his words, not mine.) He lives in Nantwich, and now goes to the Alex instead. Make of that what you will.....

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Not at all worried. Do we rate Adkins that lowly really? Worrying is a little insulting, quite naive and most of all, pointless either way as it achieves nothing.

 

:scared:

 

No I rate Adkins highly and hopefully he has it in hand to bring one or two experience guys.

 

I wouldn't say I am worried, a bit concerned yes as i mentioned in my original post.

 

Pointless? no.....because we are on here debating it and that is why the likes of you and I pay our fiver every year to do so.

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For those claiming we should buy players with Premier League experience can you name some realistic and good players we should be after?

 

IMO, we will be more than fine. We are buying good players and that is ultimately what you need. Premier League experience is slightly over rated. I'd rather some of our players than some of the guff in the Premier League right now. I see the risk but I'm confident if we get it right it will pay off.

 

Again though, it would be interesting to read some names...

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I misunderstood your question that is why I deleted my response.

 

To be honest and I know I am going to get slated for this.... ffs who cares its a forum.... Fox, K.Davis, Cork and Chaplow are not exactly going to frighten premier opposition, I cannot comment on S .Davies as I have not been a follower of Scottish football and never really noticed him when he was playing in the prem.

 

Imo we need a couple of players who have and are still playing in the prem, not ones that use to and ended up in lower league football.

 

I dont care what anyone says, experience in this league counts for a lot and you can never have too much of it. If you want to go back in time this is how LM made us successful.

 

The likes of Holmes, Moran and Williams coped very well in the top division after promotion who says the likes of Rodriguez, Lallana, Cork and Morgan won't do the same?

A good experienced centre Back and Keeper would help but I am pretty confident we can do all right with what we have.

 

We went down with a team of full of experienced Journeymen and I would much rather have our current team made up of a lot of talented younger players at the outset of their careers looking to prove their potential.

 

They will be hungry up for it and I think will do all right.

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All this bloody obsession over ''premier league experience'' is doing my head in.

 

If you're good enough, then you can play in the premier league. Swansea and Norwich had very little premier league expertise, whereas on the other hand QPR had it at the bucket load.

 

Premier league experience isn't the be all and end all, having a bunch of talented young players who are ambitious and together is more important than premier league experience, and that's what we have.

 

We'll be ok, don't waste your time panicking over silly things like this.

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I can't handle all this worry so i'm going to support Pompey.

 

Nice bit of massochism on Friday 13th!

 

I don't care about Premiership experience, they'll get that in the first four fixtures anyway without much expectation. 'Sides, there's more signings to come, so we'll see if anyone comes in with that.

 

I like our lower league signings anyway. As Norwich did before us, it shows that quality players do exist in the lower leagues - I think some Premier League clubs are blinded to their own division.

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Not worried, happy with the quality of players we seem to be looking at in terms of hunger, potential and attitude, top end championship players etc. That's what Swansea and Norwich did last year and those we bring in with the right attitude and team spirit will only improve, and improve together........I think (hope) we may surprise a lot of people this season......

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I'm pretty concerned. I don't see us surviving with the current crop of players. We desperately need defenders with experience at the highest level.

 

Yeh, pretty annoying that Nigel and Nicola aren't going to get centre backs in, isn't it? Oh, wait.

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