Man City 3 Saints 0 reaction

[trousers]

The 3 goals aside, i thought we looked pretty decent on the MotD2 highlights just now. We more or less matched City on possession and attempts.

[musesaint]

The 3 goals aside, i thought we looked pretty decent on the MotD2 highlights just now. We more or less matched City on possession and attempts.

 

The difference being they finished their chances clinically..we didn't...but I still don't think 0-3 reflected the real balance of the game. We deserved more.

[Coxford_lou]

1. We were found out today - and so was Koeman who didn't seem to have a clue.

2. Mane was dreadful - almost embarrassingly bad.

.

 

What I wish. What I really really wish. Was that Saintsweb could be place I could come to, and discuss with fellow like minded Saints supporters, how gutted I feel when we lose a game, and how despite that, what great a team we are.

 

Rather than a place that just destroys our team just because of one defeat.

 

I also wish we'd win at least one game where I go see them in a pub. My 100% win record when I see them live is all well and good, but the walk of shame out the pub when you've just been beaten and you're the only Saints fan in there, and pretty vocal in your support, is getting annoying.

 

Anyway, on to the Emirates. Hopefully more luck seeing them in person...

[Smirking_Saint]

1. We were found out today - and so was Koeman who didn't seem to have a clue.

2. Mane was dreadful - almost embarrassingly bad.

3. Our corners and free kicks were woeful.

4. What has gone wrong with Tadic and Pelle - not in the last two games. Tadic seemed to bottle every challenge.

5. Too slow and second top the ball.

6. Referee Jones was dreadful too.

 

I stopped reading after the rediculous first point tbh

[Saint_clark]

Mane needs to take a leaf from Longs book and be a bit more direct.

 

As does the rest of the team actually, we're far too slow getting the ball forward sometimes. Our most dangerous attack today was one pass down the line from Bertrand to Long who ran past Zabaleta and crossed it for Pelle to miss the ball by about an inch. I appreciate it's probably not realistic for someone to make those runs time after time in a game as they'd be exhausted, but ONCE in the entire game? Come on.

 

I feel Koeman made a mistake moving the defence around as well. Bring Reed on in CM for Schneiderlin or Mayuka on and move Davis back. Aldeweireld was excellent in CM and Yoshida didn't really do anything wrong, but when you've got one of the best defences in Europe you do everything you can to hold onto that.

[richard]

City didn't let Saints play from the first second to the last. You can tell that they were taking it really seriously - Joe Hart had even gone to the lengths of growing a comedy moustache to put off our strikers.

 

We were going to lose sooner or later, at least it was to a decent team this time. Hopefully we can have the right reaction against Arsenal.

 

COYR!

[Sour Mash]

Ultimately I thought we were poor, slow, didn't commit or engage, but Man City looked buzzing from beating Bayern's, they looked faster and hungrier.

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[Sour Mash]

Mane poor again for us, Long so much better . Tadic really poor.

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[Sour Mash]

Best player across both teams, Toby Alderweireld, different class. I can't see him being with us in 12 months time.

 

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[Kingsbridge Saint]

Beaten by a better side so no complaints. A bit naïve to lose 0-3 though. Mane doesn't cut it for me, a livewire and unpredictable, but far too error prone and self indulgent, and ridiculous hair. Small point the hair, but it highlights his 'look at me' attitude. Get a haircut and play for the team or **** off. Tadic should never be allowed to take another corner, hopeless. Koeman will sort things out though, we're going well, just a few tweaks required and we'll be fine.

[Bermuda Saint]

Great Game!, great test for our players and coach. We were outplayed by a very good team with some very, very good players. Yaya and Lampards finishing were just clinical!

 

Man City new they were in for a game, the pace in the first half was very high, City passed very well in the first 20 min, we closed down and harried them pretty good, but it was taking a lot of effort to get the ball back. When we did, they pressed us pretty good, we were poor in the final third (Tadic), and didn't have our usual width due to Clyne and Bertrand sitting deeper to combat City's pace and skill. This is a key change to our style of play , we rely so heavily on our wing-backs to supplement our attacks, without them joining the attacks we looked toothless. At the end of first half I thought we had done ok, not our best, but got away with a pen, weathered the early storm and shown a few attacking plays that threatened City.

 

Second half and Schneiderlin injury meant a strange shuffle from RK, not a bad move, I can see his point, TA is strong and using him to win the midfield battles against units like Yaya and Jovetic seemed like a sensible move, maybe Reed was a little too light weight for such a strong city mid. My disappointment was to see Tadic back on, maybe he can have a better 2nd half (not!).

 

Yaya's thump uncontested was prob due to RK putting TA in holding mid, TA and everyone one else were so frantic about getting the ball outta the danger area that they left one of the world best players all alone. Oh well, now lets see if we can get some fire in our belly and show some determination to take this game back. They tried, city gave us a bit of room and we began to play the ball around but usually failed with the final pass. The sending off of Mangala was unfortunate for us, he was one of our best players , kept fouling us, giving unnecessary corners etc. This change would mean we could attack with more freedom, bring our wing-backs into the game! We walked right into the spiders trap!! you see, city are a great counter-attacking team, they have one of the best forwards in the world, he now had the freedom to attack us, and he did!! We were playing cautiously for a reason, we keep our defense and holding mids back because of him, he would take 3 defenders to get the ball from him the others were trying to pick up the players he might pass too, That was taking 5 players to contain one or two city attackers (they are that good). So when we pressed for an equalizer, we gave Aguero the gift he wanted, one on three, he will eat that up all day ! Lampard only needed one chance, and after that we were done. Third goal was another defensive error, why fonte kept both aguero and clichy onside?, all he had to do was step up!! offside trap is the defenders greatest weapon!

 

Wanyama looked immense in the first half, strong, composed, he held the middle like a gladiator. Late In the second half he got tired, like the rest of the players and his poor passing and slow movement crept back into his game.

 

Mane was threatening with his pace and trickery, but is still prone to mistakes, but hopefully he will get more consistent.

 

Tadic, he was shockingly bad, his first touch, his ball retention, his set piece delivery. I rest this loss at his feet and RK (the buck always stops with the manager), others did not do as well as they could, but when your key play-maker is so poor it destroys so many attacking moves. RK decision to stick with him all game was a curious decision (let him play through it? I have no one on the bench to replace him?).

 

Foster, huge man, strong hands , good positional sense, but his speed in getting to low balls is disturbing, I would not say he has cat like reflex. His hesitation to come out against Aguero because he is slow almost cost us another goal (he did make a great save). He is still young and can improve but can they coach reflex, speed?

[alpine_saint]

Very down this morning. Cant even bring myself to read the "told you so's" in the tabloids.

 

It was fun, but now its over. 6th-8th beckons. The only hope I have is if we bounce back on Wednesday..

[Goatboy]

Cheer up everyone. We are 3rd.

[richard]

Very down this morning. Cant even bring myself to read the "told you so's" in the tabloids.

 

It was fun, but now its over. 6th-8th beckons. The only hope I have is if we bounce back on Wednesday..

 

I'm depressed too, but I feel like this is a bit of an over-reaction. The fact that City played so intensely yesterday was a sign for me of how seriously they are taking us in the league this year. We weren't going to go the rest of the season unbeaten and losing to a £350m team is no disgrace. Hopefully we will play with less fear against Arsenal.

[alpine_saint]

I'm depressed too, but I feel like this is a bit of an over-reaction. The fact that City played so intensely yesterday was a sign for me of how seriously they are taking us in the league this year. We weren't going to go the rest of the season unbeaten and losing to a £350m team is no disgrace. Hopefully we will play with less fear against Arsenal.

 

Fair enough. Lets see how we respond against an injury-ravaged Arsenal side on Wednesday.

[ThorpG]

Very down this morning. Cant even bring myself to read the "told you so's" in the tabloids.

 

It was fun, but now its over. 6th-8th beckons. The only hope I have is if we bounce back on Wednesday..

 

I hope Koeman and the team show less of a defeatist attitude. The Premier League is tough and it even tougher when you are fighting it out at the top, rather than settling for mid table - you are mixing with some of the best teams in the World. It ain't meant to be easy, but you have to show a bit more resilience than accepting your fate after one defeat. If we can go to Arsenal and get a result, we will learn far more about this team than we will be beating Leicester or Hull or Sunderland (no disrespect intended to those teams).

 

We are 3rd, if we can re-find September / October form we could end the year in or around the top four. I am not sure we really have enough in the squad to finish higher than 6th, but I hope I am wrong and 3rd place currently says I might be.

 

COYR!

[david in sweden]

Comparing Citeh's League record and performances in the last 2-3 seasons - was it so unexpected?

 

No-one seems more surprised at our fantastic start than Ronald Koeman, but yesterday was a reality check and regardless of what happens between now and January 1st....

 

Koeman's real test will be ... what he does / who he buys in the January window to re-dress the balance / strengthen the squad.

[dubai_phil]

Think we've been "poor" last two games. (Which seem to have co-incided with us being back on telly every game over here)

 

The ball seems to be bouncing off Tadic & Pelle far more than the beginning of the season (maybe the Winter Balls are to blame)

 

One of the comments yesterday was that we seemed to be trying to play "too fast" and for me that may be nearer the point, City have so much pace and played the ball around so fast we struggled to get our own Tempo going. (IMHO Steve Davis is our Metronome so having been out a while maybe this was a reason).

 

After about 20 minutes we seemed to take the sting out of them and started to play some football and we did create chances playing at the slower tempo (Pelle should have scored at this point).

 

Perhaps it is that role which JWP will eventually cover when he gets back to full fitness, but we needed to be at our best yesterday and for the second game in a row we weren't.

 

Obviously the TV Taters here (Peter Drury & Kevin Kilbane) could hardly hide their glee at us being put in our place.

 

Personally I think Tadic & Pelle need to get back to their early season sharpness, maybe the intensity of the PL is now catching up on them. Shane Long may need a run out in the centre to give one of them a break with the big run of games coning up.

 

Thought Toby did a good job stepping into MF, showed what a damned complete footballer he really is. Thought Yoshida looked comfortable when he came on but then you look back and think that the Toure goal probably came about because we dropped too deep and had nobody covering the edge of the box (although the goal seemed very similar to the one we conceded at Spurs so maybe something to work on in training there?). Was Yoshida at fault with his positioning or did Toby think he needed to drop back to cover him?? No idea but we all know the end result. A comeuppance and a lolage for many no doubt.

 

But later on I think we showed an embarrassing naivety. Conceding a goal to 10 men when chasing is not good. Conceding 2 is pretty damned poor.

 

With Morgan back and Cork on the bench for next two games I would be confident of a bounce back and results. Without them, we could be back in the mix again for 6th-8th.

 

Strange feeling, being back to normality after such a great start. But I did think it was coming sometime in the next month. shame it was in the 1st one. More pressure now

[CB Saint]

What makes me laugh is the level of depression from some quarters. Do people really expect us not to lose games - only one team have ever done that in this league. We lost to Man City - the champions of England - the team that has just beaten Bayern Munich - the team with a galaxy of superstars in it - the team with arguably one of the most in form players on the planet in it.

 

Some people are going on like we have just had our tummies tickled by Burnley

[Webby]

The main concern for me is that Pelle hasn't scored in 4 now and Tadic hasn't made an assist in 4 either if I remember correctly.

[S-Clarke]

The main concern for me is that Pelle hasn't scored in 4 now and Tadic hasn't made an assist in 4 either if I remember correctly.

 

To be honest, I think our last 'complete' performance was our job against Hull at the KC. I felt we muddled through against Leicester, and obviously were pretty crap in the subsequent 2 games as well.

 

But the reality is that we were always going to dip. We were never going to win every week whilst keeping clean sheets, it's a total impossibility. And we are and were in a false position, that's not being negative, it's just the truth. The longer our amazing run went on, the bigger 'bolt'' this sort of period would hit us with as expectations have been screwed all over the place. I'd say that getting a good result in the next 2 is pretty important to maintain a bit of momentum, otherwise we're heading into the Christmas fixtures on a pretty horrific run of form.

[Special K]

One area of concern or me was the poor first touch shown by our front three. They were much more assured in previous games, but yesterday they seemed to be, as Andy Townsend says, a "little bit all over the place". Hope they sharpen up considerably for the next two games.

 

We showed City a bit too much respect, i think and got beaten by a terrific side who will surely be the nearest challengers to Chelsea. No complaints there, but i hoped for a bit more of an aggresive approach from RK and his men. Still, no drama's, let's get to the Emirates and stick one on the Arse.

[S-Clarke]

One area of concern or me was the poor first touch shown by our front three. They were much more assured in previous games, but yesterday they seemed to be, as Andy Townsend says, a "little bit all over the place". Hope they sharpen up considerably for the next two games.

 

We showed City a bit too much respect, i think and got beaten by a terrific side who will surely be the nearest challengers to Chelsea. No complaints there, but i hoped for a bit more of an aggresive approach from RK and his men. Still, no drama's, let's get to the Emirates and stick one on the Arse.

 

Tadic's touch was particularly horrific. It was similar on Monday as well, not quite sure what's up with him as we all know he's sheer class.

[Greenridge]

Tadic's touch was particularly horrific. It was similar on Monday as well, not quite sure what's up with him as we all know he's sheer class.

 

At times I thought someone had put the wrong air pressure in the ball. It was bouncing off us left, right and centre. It reminded me of the old boy who used to sit next to me in the Chapel who turned round to his mate and quite genuinely asked why Beattie's second touch always seemed to be a tackle.

 

Anyway a drop in performance levels was always likely to happen and December is no doubt going to be a tough month but we'll be OK.

[Sour Mash]

What makes me laugh is the level of depression from some quarters. Do people really expect us not to lose games - only one team have ever done that in this league. We lost to Man City - the champions of England - the team that has just beaten Bayern Munich - the team with a galaxy of superstars in it - the team with arguably one of the most in form players on the planet in it.

 

Some people are going on like we have just had our tummies tickled by Burnley

I don't think anyone expects us never to lose, but we weren't great yesterday and people are just stating that, some players were below par, and that's one of the things these forums are for.

 

Man City were excellent, and they look like they could properly push Chelsea all the way, I thought the title race was over, but they did look very strong yesterday. I think that Bayern game definitely gave them a lift, they looked on a high.

 

What I found frustrating is we played similar to how we'd done at Villa; moved the ball too slowly and so wasteful with corners and set pieces from good positions, ridiculous number of wasted crosses in both games, I'm not sure what the solution is there though.

 

 

I thought Alderweireld was excellent, top, top, class player, really was very good for us.

[CityRanger]

Aguero must have been so happy when Alderweireld moved into midfield after having such a great 1st half.

[pangy]

Reading through some of these posts is comical,too many of you believed the media hype that we were about to gatecrash the top 4,City on form will beat 90% of the teams in the league 3-0.

 

For those that still believe that we can,take this as a positive,Arsenal have not beaten a top 4 team in 15 games

[Saint86]

Best player across both teams, Toby Alderweireld, different class. I can't see him being with us in 12 months time.

 

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Jesus christ man get a grip and take of the rose tinted glasses.... You can't be man of the match as a CB in a defence that lets in 3 goals... If he was that impressive you'd surely give MoM to Aguero, for getting 2 assists and winning a ghost penalty.

 

Toby is a good player and had a solid game, but seriously. MOM? wow.

 

What we should be doing, and what we should take from this game is that Tadic can play CAM, with long and Mane on the flanks.

 

We seem to be determined to not do this, even against villa where we played long through the middle.

[VectisSaint]

Jesus christ man get a grip and take of the rose tinted glasses.... You can't be man of the match as a CB in a defence that lets in 3 goals... If he was that impressive you'd surely give MoM to Aguero, for getting 2 assists and winning a ghost penalty.

 

Toby is a good player and had a solid game, but seriously. MOM? wow.

 

What we should be doing, and what we should take from this game is that Tadic can play CAM, with long and Mane on the flanks.

 

We seem to be determined to not do this, even against villa where we played long through the middle.

Guess you didn't watch the game then, because Toby was not CB when we let 3 goals in, he was in DM instead of Morgan. he was probably 2nd best player for saints though, Wanyama was Saints MOTM for me. But Aguero was MOTM, three assists and what seems now to have been s stonewall penalty (didn't think so at the time).

[VectisSaint]

Very down this morning. Cant even bring myself to read the "told you so's" in the tabloids.

 

It was fun, but now its over. 6th-8th beckons. The only hope I have is if we bounce back on Wednesday..

Why? We are below the best two teams in the league, by a mile. Who are the other 4-6 brilliant teams who will rise above us for us to fall to 6th-8th? of course we will know better in a week's time, but really Arse and Man U are really not that good, and both have massive injury lists with key players out.

[Saints foreva]

Very down this morning. Cant even bring myself to read the "told you so's" in the tabloids.

 

It was fun, but now its over. 6th-8th beckons. The only hope I have is if we bounce back on Wednesday..

 

That's still a very good season, especially with us taking the cups seriously - Who knows what could happen there.

[doddisalegend]

Jesus christ man get a grip and take of the rose tinted glasses.... You can't be man of the match as a CB in a defence that lets in 3 goals... If he was that impressive you'd surely give MoM to Aguero, for getting 2 assists and winning a ghost penalty.

 

Toby is a good player and had a solid game, but seriously. MOM? wow.

 

What we should be doing, and what we should take from this game is that Tadic can play CAM, with long and Mane on the flanks.

 

 

We seem to be determined to not do this, even against villa where we played long through the middle.

 

You can when your playing in midfield when those three goals are conceded........ Toby is a class above most of our players

[The9]

We were, like at Villa:

 

Slow

lost posession cheaply

poor set pieces and crosses

Pelle and Tadic out of form and out of sorts

 

Against City, we were doomed to lose by about 3 goals with those problems. Hell, we nearly lost to Villa.

 

To be perfectly honest, if we hadn't decided to push forward and chase the game at 0-1 I think City would have shut up shop and taken that, but we left gaps chasing the game, and Lampard showed how he's scored so many goals with a superb take down and finish that was a different class.

[CB Fry]

Reading through some of these posts is comical,too many of you believed the media hype that we were about to gatecrash the top 4.

 

Interesting you got the same idea I had from the reams of gushing coverage I've seen, read and heard too.

 

Not noticed all the stories designed to destabilise us, then?

 

Me neither.

[doddisalegend]

Interesting you got the same idea I had from the reams of gushing coverage I've seen, read and heard too.

 

Not noticed all the stories designed to destabilise us, then?

 

Me neither.

 

Surely all the gushing with praise articles were designed to make our players complacent, lose focus and thus destabilise us..........

[The9]

Comparing Citeh's League record and performances in the last 2-3 seasons - was it so unexpected?

 

No-one seems more surprised at our fantastic start than Ronald Koeman, but yesterday was a reality check and regardless of what happens between now and January 1st....

 

Koeman's real test will be ... what he does / who he buys in the January window to re-dress the balance / strengthen the squad.

 

Koeman's test will be whether he can remotivate the team to beat the likes of Burnley and Palace (and Everton at home) in the midst of a difficult run, and whether

he can get the team in shape to beat the sides we've already beaten in the second half of the season too.

[CB Fry]

Surely all the gushing with praise articles were designed to make our players complacent, lose focus and thus destabilise us..........

The perfect crime.

 

In that world Mark Lawrenson is a SFC hero with his "Saints will lose" motivational articles. Probably worth a statue outside SMS.

[The9]

Jesus christ man get a grip and take of the rose tinted glasses.... You can't be man of the match as a CB in a defence that lets in 3 goals... If he was that impressive you'd surely give MoM to Aguero, for getting 2 assists and winning a ghost penalty.

 

Toby is a good player and had a solid game, but seriously. MOM? wow.

 

What we should be doing, and what we should take from this game is that Tadic can play CAM, with long and Mane on the flanks.

 

We seem to be determined to not do this, even against villa where we played long through the middle.

 

No, I agree, Alderweireld was the best player on the park yesterday. Two positions, looked superb in both of them and also had a couple of our best shots. I'd have picked him in all eleven positions yesterday if I could have.

 

Also, the Tadic CAM thing was so bloody obvious some of us were saying it should have been used last Monday against Villa before the game even kicked off.

[Sour Mash]

Jesus christ man get a grip and take of the rose tinted glasses.... You can't be man of the match as a CB in a defence that lets in 3 goals... If he was that impressive you'd surely give MoM to Aguero, for getting 2 assists and winning a ghost penalty.

 

Toby is a good player and had a solid game, but seriously. MOM? wow.

Oh who gives a f**k, sorry it upset you that much

[WIGANSAINT]

Outclassed. Think we gave them too much respect and the tempo too slow. Reminded me of chelsea last season.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Playing with that intensity City would have beaten anybody bar Chelsea , they were really up for it.

 

We were average and I thought we didn't really believe we could win. Small example,we've been constantly using short corner routines this season, but didn't yesterday. I just thought we were a bit too respectful. Victor did well, particularly first half and long made a impact when he came on. Pelle is too static against Kompany, and the two wide men were really poor.Personally I'd give long a run down the middle weds and give Pelle a rest.

[Lorne Malvo]

City played well, we played ok a bit like against Leicester...and Citys much better class showed.

[KelvinsRightGlove]

Agree with the praise for Toby, he really is a class act. Dare I say, probably a class above Saints? I, sadly, don't see him here next season.

 

I don't think we were awful, we came up against a very expensively assembled side, containing lots of very good (and some World Class - Aguero, Yaya & Kompany) players who were really fired up.

 

For 60 or so minutes it was pretty tight, then after the goal & red card - we pushed on a bit and got caught by a couple of sucker punches. Whilst City definitely deserved to win, I'm not sure it was a 3-0 in all honesty. That said, it was disappointing how quiet the front 3 were. Though, their supply was relatively restricted.

 

Not too disheartened, I don't think many teams would have lived with City yesterday.

 

On to Arsenal I guess, would have taken 4 points from these games (being ambitious) as a great result, not changed my stance on that. Points still to be had against Arsenal & Utd, though granted they are both tough games.

[OttawaSaint]

The first 20 minutes were tough to watch. Glad we dodged the penalty (and possibly a red) but during those 20 I was left wondering, where IS Tadic. He just didn't seem to be in the game at all. City did their homework on him and basically either shut down the supply line to him, got really tight to him or showed him inside. I think his confidence really took a knock and showed in his poor set ball deliveries and hurried crosses/passes.

 

Mane is bloody frustrating to watch, it's great when it comes off but looks so terrible and puts others out of position when he needlessly tries to take on another man or tries a poorly thought out pass or shot. Keep it simple and add one or two surprise moves per match and he'd fare a lot better.

 

Defense looked good until the reshuffle, that Morgan injury really cost us and shows the wide gap between the teams, we had no like for like change and had to band-aid it as best we could. You just can't get away with it when City are firing all cylinders.

 

I always look back and think what if. What if Pelle had scored that chance (or Tadic the rebound), what if Toby's shot had sailed in. What if Man C had played a poor game like they did vs West Ham and QPR but I guess once could also have asked what if they got that penalty and Jose was red-carded. Not worth it I guess, though it grinds my gears that we've lost to Liverpool, Spurs and Man C and they all played well against US, but have been really poor against other sides (again, swings and roundabouts as Newcastle etc were poor against us).

 

I don't blame Forester for any of the goals and that 1 on 1 with Aguerro was excellent. Toure's goal took 2 deflections but the defense were running around all over the place before Toure hit it.

 

Real test of character on Wednesday (on the TV here as is the Utd game...oh ****). I can see Koeman being more cautious and sitting back and going for counter attacks. This is the real test for Ron, it is somewhat easy (as Fergie mentioned in his book) when the team is winning a lot, basically pick the team and send them out. It is when doubt creeps in that the manager really earns his paycheque.

 

Lastly, corners. We HAVE to sort this out as we get so many and they never seem to come to anything. I liked the little routines that they were trying at Villa (short corners etc). The inswinger just seems too easy to defend, esp if they don't clear the first man.

[The9]

On the Tadic point, I was most disappointed at our failure to exploit Clichy's ridiculous tendency to come haring up the pitch to try and intercept balls into Tadic's feet every single time - after the second time he did it we should have had the nous to have Pelle nearby, either running wide into the space Clichy had left, or standing square of Tadic for a quick give and roll by Tadic for him to get in behind Clichy, or even just popping the ball long over Clichy to turn him and have Tadic chase, just to give Clichy something to think about other than "just cut out the short ball to Tadic" but we continued to play very predictably and often left Tadic out to dry with little support for him - partially of course because City were very good at marking the options.

[sadoldgit]

You cant give the ball away in those areas against a team of City's quality and not expect to get punished. Was also disappointed that we left the likes of Lampard alone on the edge of the box. Really thought that we would get something but we still have the best defensive record in the league and will play worse and win. Roll on the Gooners.

[ART]

Mane needs to take a leaf from Longs book and be a bit more direct.

 

As does the rest of the team actually, we're far too slow getting the ball forward sometimes. Our most dangerous attack today was one pass down the line from Bertrand to Long who ran past Zabaleta and crossed it for Pelle to miss the ball by about an inch. I appreciate it's probably not realistic for someone to make those runs time after time in a game as they'd be exhausted, but ONCE in the entire game? Come on.

 

I feel Koeman made a mistake moving the defence around as well. Bring Reed on in CM for Schneiderlin or Mayuka on and move Davis back. Aldeweireld was excellent in CM and Yoshida didn't really do anything wrong, but when you've got one of the best defences in Europe you do everything you can to hold onto that.

 

That's like the blind leading the blind. Must be the worse advice every posted.

[The9]

Also, seeing as I'm watching in on MotD... Tadic has so far drawn the foul for Mangala's first booking, put in a great FK that we nearly scored a header from, and cut the loose ball against Hart from a narrow angle for what should have been a corner (wrongly given as a goal kick) after Pelle's leg-dangling miss... Plus the second shot just wide of the second half in the 48th minute, so he wasn't entirely ineffective.

Edited 1 December, 2014 by The9

[The9]

Guess you didn't watch the game then, because Toby was not CB when we let 3 goals in, he was in DM instead of Morgan. he was probably 2nd best player for saints though, Wanyama was Saints MOTM for me. But Aguero was MOTM, three assists and what seems now to have been s stonewall penalty (didn't think so at the time).

 

I can't give Wanyama MotM, when did Alderweireld get caught in possession like Victor did? Especially as he gave it away in the lead up to the first goal, and got booked so early on he left himself unable to challenge for the rest of the match.

 

FWIW, Toure's shot was hit with 6 Saints players in the 5m x 5m square immediately in front of him - Fonte was lunging to block, Alderweireld and Davis were in the direct line of the ball - unfortunately Alderweireld's part-block only served to bend the ball around Davis who also would have blocked it. Forster had no chance of seeing it, and I'm still not sure how it got through the 6 defenders.

[The9]

Also, two goals came from us giving the ball away cheaply (albeit more than 50 yards from the goal) - Steven Davis caught on half way by Milner for Lampard's goal, and Tadic's terrible corner for a 3 on 2 (and then 4 on 3) break for Clichy's goal.

 

I will say Alderweireld MIGHT have picked Lampard up slightly better but he went to close down the ball instead, so maybe Schneiderlin might have stopped it.