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Saints Vs Stoke Reaction


Mr X

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A lacklustre display, not the first time after the international break the team seems to forget how it plays. It looked like Van Dijk was caught out going forward, left a gap in the defence which Stoke overloaded from our right and scored. Clasie looked very good, IMO a poor decision to replace him. Pelle played far too statically and was easily marked. We were poor at winning the breaking ball and our passing was below standard. Tadic had a lot of the ball but wasted it. Both full backs struggled. Wanyama needs to decide what he is, for me he is a blocker in front of the back four, win it and give it to Clasie. His passing was woeful today. Long showed a lack of intelligence and his touch, positioning and movement was poor. He has to play up the middle or forget it.

 

There was a slow tempo and general lack of movement from the team in general which really slowed down our attacking and Stoke were able to get back. Even when playing Mane, Pelle, Juanmi, Long, Tadic with Wanyama and JWP and three at the back were unbalanced. JWP keeps on about going to the Euros, he is absolutely deluded. Playing backwards and sideways, not a ball winner and can't head, score and lacks pace, just adds to the general slowness.

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Hopefully this doesn't start our traditional run of 3 months of poor winter results.

 

The answer is simple. It happens every year as soon as the brass monkey weather arrives. We need to equip the players with top class " WILLY WARMERS" Easy enough to find although the likes of Graziano will need to have his custom made.

 

Training indoors in a Dome certainly won't toughen up the squad.

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thought vic had another poor game - slow, bad passing and even bottled tackles.

 

team just not up for it, no urgency at all and where has our pressing game gone.

 

even though we lost I'd hate to be a stoke fan, having to watch that dross every week.

 

Stoke played some good stuff and beat us comprehensively on the deck.

 

Can name a number of players who had worse games than Vic - the entire back four for a start.

Edited by shurlock
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thought vic had another poor game - slow, bad passing and even bottled tackles.

 

team just not up for it, no urgency at all and where has our pressing game gone.

 

even though we lost I'd hate to be a stoke fan, having to watch that dross every week.

 

How was that dross exactly? If we'd played like that and won 1 0 away at Stoke (or anywhere really) would you describe it as dross? They are a good team.

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That first half was a diabolical mess to be honest. No shape, no movement, no cohesion, no passing, nothing.

 

2nd half was a bit better as we at least gave it a go, but if we're honest it probably should have been at least 2-0 to Stoke, they created the better openings.

 

Credit where it's due, they came and played well. Defended well, were organised and played the perfect away from home counter attacking game.

 

Not really much to be positive about really.

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How was that dross exactly? If we'd played like that and won 1 0 away at Stoke (or anywhere really) would you describe it as dross? They are a good team.

Agreed. They were sharp in the break and defended well.

 

We lacked the killer pass and finish today.

 

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Maybe I'm the only one who thinks so, but I thought both Pelle and Long did OK. They didn't get great service, and they didn't always know where the other was, but individually they worked hard and made the best of the service they got. The main problem was how slow we were to move the ball forwards.

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Maybe I'm the only one who thinks so, but I thought both Pelle and Long did OK. They didn't get great service, and they didn't always know where the other was, but individually they worked hard and made the best of the service they got. The main problem was how slow we were to move the ball forwards.

Yes and no. Thought they worked hard to win the first ball but didn't link with each other particularly well.

 

Also, it was clear Butland was going to eat up any floated cross but their movement in the box wasn't good enough to offer other alternatives, except when Pelle got a shot away from a tight angle near the end.

 

But Tadic was particularly guilty of just floating crosses in, or losing the ball with ambitious flicks.

 

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Just arrived home after another 180 miles.

We were total rubbish.

The worst was Tadic. How many crosses failed to beat the first man? How many corners went straight to Butland? He was terrible. He should gave squared the ball to Long in the first half. At least Long was determined.

Cedric's crossing was abysmal too.

Davis was our best player & he would get a 6 out of 10 at best.

Wanyama was rubbish, Bertrand on another planet, Fonte all over the place, Pelle touched the ball about 5 times.

That said what has Pelle got to do to get a free kick?

How is JWP booked & Adam for studs up, Bojan for elbow & Arnoutovic fir blatant blocking not booked?

Mason is appalling. He was completely inconsistent favouring Stoke at every opportunity.

We didn't lose because of him, we were total poo!!

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Just arrived home after another 180 miles.

We were total rubbish.

The worst was Tadic. How many crosses failed to beat the first man? How many corners went straight to Butland? He was terrible. He should gave squared the ball to Long in the first half. At least Long was determined.

Cedric's crossing was abysmal too.

Davis was our best player & he would get a 6 out of 10 at best.

Wanyama was rubbish, Bertrand on another planet, Fonte all over the place, Pelle touched the ball about 5 times.

That said what has Pelle got to do to get a free kick?

How is JWP booked & Adam for studs up, Bojan for elbow & Arnoutovic fir blatant blocking not booked?

Mason is appalling. He was completely inconsistent favouring Stoke at every opportunity.

We didn't lose because of him, we were total poo!!

 

This about sums it up. I would give MoM to Stek though, just on the basis that no outfield players deserve it.

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Poor as Saints were I think Stoke aren't being given enough credit here. Think back, they had several chances and if they could finish they'd have beaten us by more, and would have deserved it. What I didn't like was how they were into Pelle's back every time the ball was played up to him which totally disrupted the focal point of our attacks. But then its up to the kn@b mason to penalise it.

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over 54 years of support we get at least one game a season like that, i have learned not to over analyse them

unless of course they get repeated for a couple more games.

 

Quite. Turned on at 7.09 am to watch, missed their goal and knew that was going to be the result. You get a game or two like this every season - flat for no reason. I'm not over-analysing it. We are a good team capable of beating anyone on our day. If you think we can't finish, look at Arsenal today...should have won by four or five goals and managed to lose. Let's move on.

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The only player in the whole side to emerge with any credit was Stekelenburg. He made a couple of good saves and did nothing wrong. The rest were, unfortunately complete crap. Boring is not a word I'd normally associate with Saints, but I will today. Never created anything, never looked like creating anything, poor crossing, poor passing, just one of those games.

Give Stoke credit, they played well, worked hard as a team, and stopped us finding space in behind them. Always more likely that they would get a second than we would equalize.

Most disappointing thing was our subs did nothing. Me, like everybody else was desperate to see Mane, and he was .....poor, just like everyone else. Don't see the point of Clasie for JWP, like for like, and unlike some, I thought Clasie was nothing special either. Our midfield is severely lacking creativity. Tadic couldn't cross the road today, and found a Stoke player every time. Other than him, we had no creation at all. Poor today. That's it really. Pelle was bullied and harried and didn't look up for it. You know Stoke will do this, it isn't a surprise is it? They wasted time at every opportunity, but hey ho, if you are winning, why wouldn't you? Makes me laugh when our fans howl with derision at their antics, it may not be pretty, but it gets results - that is what it is about!

 

Having read RK's after match comments, if he thought the first half was poor, but the second was better then he was at a different game to me! I know he stands up for his team, but both halves were terrible.

 

We all know we are better than this. I think Stoke and ourselves will both finish very close together - top half, but not top six.

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Like night follows day

 

Following EVERY international break we are sh**it*e

 

Get Mane' his own private jet FFS!

 

And get Lee Mason some decent glasses....he's so anti Saints he is starting to reach Clattenburg levels .

Edited by musesaint
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thought he was alright today

 

I thought he was one of our worst players. As mentioned above, he was bottling tackles, particularly against Walters when challenging for long balls/goal kicks. And he wasn't keeping up with the game at all for long spells in the first half - it was frenetic at points, admittedly, but he just looked like he was being lazy (imo). If he's going to be our enforcer, he *has* to be consistently physical, because he contributes little else.

 

P.S Thought Clasie was our best player. Made some inventive passes.

P.P.S I don't think Long got into the box enough today (for crosses). If he's starting on that right, he needs to be coming in at the back post 9 times out of 10. I didn't feel like he did that much at all today.

Edited by Donatello
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Rubbish all around. No spark from us, nothing. First shot on target a soft one by a sub on 70 minutes, and we were at home. Wanyama needs to go in January - our choice this time, don't need him around to destabilise us in another window, and he can practice his passing and shooting with some other mugs. Cedric way too narrow for their goal and his performance went downhill from there. Should have been hoiked off at half time. Other than that, I am looking at Koeman as the set up was all wrong, and didn't change all game. Nailed on penalty for the chop on Pelle so despite all the above, the worst performance of the day award has to go to Mason. Not giving that penalty was so bad it's borderline standing down material.

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Thought their cross was partly blocked which took the pace off it and dropped it nicely for the scorer .

Their back four were totally solid all game which made our reliance on endless crosses frustrating , at least Mane looked like he was trying to change that when he came on but final ball not quite good enough. If Stoke weren't so 'dirty' they would be seen in a better light !

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Bloody awful game.

 

The thing that ****es me off is everyone and their granny knows Stoke play counter attack these days. Given that It was likely we would have a lot of the ball but our passing needed to be on top form to wear down the Stoke defensive wall and pull them out of position with good quick one touch football instead it was awful and every time our passing broke down Stoke counter attacked with pace. That also begs the question why we were committing so many players forward so early in the game both VVD and Betrand were out of position for their goal and couldn't recover fast enough. Once we went a goal behind, and so early, we played right into Stokes hands we should have been more disciplined first half.

 

Stoke had the best chances late in the second half to but that was partly through us pushing for an equalizer and leaving us open at the back. You can see why they've only scored 11 goals this season though as their finishing was pretty bad (granted not as bad as ours yesterday).

 

Claise is about the only player who came out within any credit for me yesterday. It was like watching a bunch of strangers out their yesterday passing was awful and player communication was non-existent. So many players making poor decisions yesterday to passing when shooting was better, shooting when someone else was open passing to the team mate under pressure when someone else was in an acre of space the whole match we were just poor. Special mention for Tadic's set pieces which were dire I don't think there was one which didn't go straight down Butland's throat yesterday.

 

All in all we were ****e and Stoke set out their stall and played it well. On to face the Man city backlash next week....

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We always seem to struggle after international breaks, that is why i said a draw would be a good result on the pre-match thread. Stoke are a good side and I think many underestimated them. It was a poor performance, just one of those days. Still, no need for a meltdown, our form was good before this so it's likely to dip, and i can't see that changing against City next week. We should really have one eye on the Liverpool game now. Draw a blue line under this and move on.

 

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No point moaning about the penalty decisions not given. After Pelle got kicked, the ball fell to a Saints player anyway and we still couldn't do anything with it. Although I do think Hughes' comments that we were getting desperate and going down looking for penalties was a little disingenuous really.

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Telling that no-one took up my bet that we wouldn't finish as high, or with as many points as the last couple of seasons.

 

Meh, never mind. No danger of relegation I guess.

 

LOL Nostradamus no one would take your bet that we wouldn't finish as high as our best ever two PL finishes ........I'm shocked. What's your next amazing prediction/bet? How about Shane Long won't win the Golden boot or Martina won't make the PL team of the season? :lol:

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No point moaning about the penalty decisions not given. After Pelle got kicked, the ball fell to a Saints player anyway and we still couldn't do anything with it. Although I do think Hughes' comments that we were getting desperate and going down looking for penalties was a little disingenuous really.

 

yeah because he was also fouled in the penalty box making it two possible penalties in 30 seconds. Not that it matters we can't play that badly and expect any kind of result.

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