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Saints 2-2 Stoke reaction


Sheaf Saint

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We really lacked ideas in the second half. How many times did Davis get hold of the ball just inside their half and then have no real options? We were crying out for Ramirez today, just anything to add a bit of flair. Unfortunately the lack of attacking depth in the squad was shown - when you spend 45 minutes constantly attacking a stubborn defence and your only substitution is at RB then you know there's a problem!

 

Still, Stoke defended superbly. Home form is a bit of a worry but we have a good chance of 3 points on Tuesday night.

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This game demonstrated to me why corks pass accuracy is so high, he always plays sideways, I can see why some posters mention he slows us down as he receives the ball and pirouettes before passing sideways, even Lovren was taking the **** out of his scoring record !!.

 

To be fair though think morgan was average as well today and as the other poster said, no creativity in the centre and if I can sin for a moment it started reminding me of Barca v Chelsea from a few years back, their front 6 didn't move outside of their half in the 2nd half.

 

Thought Odemwingie was actually very good and crouch won most of the things coming his way. I know style wise they are old school but when your fighting tooth and nail to get out of the zone you only care about results so fairplay to them.

 

Lovren my MOM for his twitter feed, "crouch is so tall OMG", "clyney is like a ferrari"

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We were poor today, too many players off their game and Stoke are such a difficult team for us to play against and their defence was never going to part like the Red Sea like Fulham's. But they responded brilliantly each time they went behind and attacked us. Was a great corner routine too for second equaliser as first man raced to meet the ball and Rickie left Crouch to try and close him down, but of course the ball ended up with Crouch where it was always going. Three card trick comes to mind, and Adam's ball for Odemthingy was a peach, just like Rickie's last week (Rickie's was better). So we defended poorly at crucial times and couldn't break down a massed defence second half. All in all a frustrating afternoon.

 

Nice to see Kat has paid a visit to the megastore though and got kitted out!

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seasons over. not too sure if anyone can have an issue with that

 

yoshida and cork were very good

you have to give credit to the opposition (I knowt that is a sin)

 

they played us very well

 

karma came back on begovic

 

Rubbish.

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Already replied, not a chance we are safe. The only reason I mention the 40 points is becuase I thought we would be safe by the end of February.... still possible though.

 

In the remaining 13 games, the team currently in 18th ( WBA ) would have to average a point a game more than us. Not going to happen.

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isgrove or ince/zaha

 

we should have got someone in jan when osvlado left

 

Yeah Isgrove was ****e today, hardly noticed he was on.

 

Shoulda,woulda,coulda. Reality is reality. We don't have Ince or Zaha and and no amount of complaining will conjure up a new signing. MP is stuck with the squad as it is and he also knows that with our league campaign having turned to an event less walk towards mid-table anonymity, playing for the draw is pointless. The manager had a player on the bench who plays a position we were lacking during that second half and instead of taking the chance, he decided to take the safe option.

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Already replied, we are safe. The only reason I mention the 40 points is becuase I thought we would be safe by the end of February.... still possible though.

 

Would take 4 points from 2 away games though, but we seem to be picking up better results away at the moment.

 

Hull City - Draw

West Ham - Win

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Already replied, we are safe. The only reason I mention the 40 points is becuase I thought we would be safe by the end of February.... still possible though.

 

Would take 4 points from 2 away games though, but we seem to be picking up better results away at the moment.

 

Hull City - Draw

West Ham - Win

 

You two should get a room ;)

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In the remaining 13 games, the team currently in 18th ( WBA ) would have to average a point a game more than us. Not going to happen.

 

Already replied, we are safe. The only reason I mention the 40 points is becuase I thought we would be safe by the end of February.... still possible though.

 

That reads complely wrong. Not a chance we will go down. I was hoping we would have the magic 40 points before the end of February, but I am not concerned about relegation at all. We will finish in the top half probably 9th or 8th. I am still looking at that european slot, but we will need to get our home form back on track.

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Steve Davis man of the match with another good performance from Cork and other stand out contributions from Shaw, Schneiderlin, Yoshida and Fonte. Lallana, Rodriguez, and Clyne below par today, as was Lambert after his goal.

 

Our midfield won a majority of the duels and supplied the balls into the last third, but we lacked the killer touches today to turn that advantage in our favour. Credit must be given to Stoke's defence however. We needed to shake things up to gain the three points towards the end of the match and didn't really have the players to do something different. With Ramirez out and Osvaldo gone, there was just Guly, but he might have made a difference with fresh legs and him being tricky in the box might have produced something. Substituting Clyne for Chambers was like for like, although for me, Clyne was frustrating today. He never once took the ball to the line, instead always cutting inside and running into traffic. Shaw on the other hand was adept at going for the line and put in a succession of good balls into the box

 

Lambert's free kick goal was sublime and unstoppable by any keeper. Other than that, we had a flukey goal and so did they. But our defence was left standing by their through ball from Adam to Odemwingie, who has a habit of scoring against us. I should have put money on it.

 

Stoke are a niggly physical team and generally we handled them well, as did the referee.They tried to con him several times with dives, but he saw through them. Crouch was guilty of it more than once.

 

Stoke's game plan neutralised our preferred style of play and once they were on level terms each time, they stifled us and went for the draw. Summed up by Pochettino and then by Merrington who I heard summarising on the radio back in the car as being a frustrating game. That's exactly what it was. We didn't play badly generally, but neither did we do enough to deserve the win.

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Its a shame Gallagher wasn't available today. We could have done with his movement up front in the second half. Stoke defended very well but we were attacking so slow and centrally that we made it easy for them.

 

This. I know he's "only 18" but he could easily have had an impact off the bench today. Obviously wasn't possible and our thoughts are with him and his family - that's far more important than the result of a football game

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MP couldnt have done much more. Nobody on the bench is good enough to come on and change the game, we have a small squad.

 

Isgrove won't make it and was effectively making up the numbers and JWP wouldnt have made an impact - we had enough tidy passers on and any crosses were dealy with well by Shawcross.

 

We werent at it today and Stoke defended very well.

 

Move onto the away games where there is more space for our attackers to play.

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we definitely DIDNT need anyone in jan. No way. Saintsweb had spoken!!!!!

 

all seriousness. seeing a player like tom ince go to palace on loan is annoying. we need to add variety at times to our play and he is an attacking wide player who could have done well here

 

even zaha too

 

Where are the wingers in our formation? Please show them to me... and if we wanted them we would use Rowe or Sinclair rather than spunk on ince.... We have minimum 9th in the bag bar a bad injury crisis. Go for cup and be happy with that. Although, after MoPo's comments it seems he may throw the cup away :(

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Where are the wingers in our formation? Please show them to me... and if we wanted them we would use Rowe or Sinclair rather than spunk on ince.... We have minimum 9th in the bag bar a bad injury crisis. Go for cup and be happy with that. Although, after MoPo's comments it seems he may throw the cup away :(

 

who said we should play wingers?

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Not the best of games, Stoke defended well throughout the whole team to quash our attacks and we couldn't work out how to pass it through them. Neither team seemed particularly bothered about winning it in the second half.

 

Made me laugh that despite it completely leathering it down with over 5 minutes to go people were walking out in their droves. Leave early and get soaked or stay in the ground for a few more minutes, watch the end of a game you've paid to see and wait for the rain to stop. Tough choice.

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Where are the wingers in our formation? Please show them to me... and if we wanted them we would use Rowe or Sinclair rather than spunk on ince.... We have minimum 9th in the bag bar a bad injury crisis. Go for cup and be happy with that. Although, after MoPo's comments it seems he may throw the cup away :(

 

What did Pochettino say regarding the cup?

Edited by DarrenLeTiss
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Not a great 2nd half and our good start just fizzled out too soon.

 

If anyone is wondering why Schneiderlin isn't making the French team yet, the answer is those who start these days can shoot, he can't! Same goes for Cork.

Even then, Jack is clearly our most in form player, although I do agree that today Steven Davis was our MOM. He has the energy, is as neat as you can find in the PL and on a chart his performance line could be drawn with a ruler comfortably above the middle point across the whole season, but our front players apart from him left the pitch on 25 minutes.

 

Stoke are still a terrible team. I see no difference between last season and now in terms of the well-known direct long pass, boring game of theirs, apart from having a worse manager.

They and WBA are still my two favorites for relegation.

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We were bullied today, AB at fault for their second goal(see my comment on Boruc thread) what is becoming frustrating is that we don't seem to have another way of playing and if we can't our pressing game going we come unstuck as we did today. Fair play to Stoke they came with a game plan and it worked, another thing that I found frustrating is that Clyne did not take his man on and try and get a cross in from the dead ball line.

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Yes, yes he was. Brilliant tackle 2nd half - as perfectly timed as you will ever see - and free kick was awarded against him

 

Wrong! If you watch the referee brought back play for the foul made before the Yoshida tackle. Watch again if you can and you will clearly see the ref informing the players.

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Predictable. We had plenty of bodies in the middle of the field so as Adam was their only creator he should have been constantly pressured instead of having all the time in the world to pick out Odemwingie. Loads of meaningless low tempo square and back passes, ridiculous across the back square passes under pressure very nearly getting us into trouble. The balls we put into the forwards lacked pace so played into Stoke's hands.

 

We were never going to be able to get Stoke to allow us to play our game as they just allowed us to play sideways and backwards in front of them then hit the front first time when they won the ball. It was crying out for Shaw and Clyne to get to the byeline not come inside. We had to knock any crosses in with pace. The midfielders in games like this need to run at the defenders and the forwards make runs, today there was a lack of movement up front. The tempo was far too slow.

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