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Saints 3 Wolves 1 - Post Match


St Chalet

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My daughter was watching the match with me, first time I've seen her in 5 years. Only my own comments are paraphrased.......

 

1-0: Oh crap! We scored too early! They are gonna slaughter us!

 

2-1: They will equalise soon, we can't have anything nice.

 

3-1 : Just watch them get 3 goals in injury time. That happens in every single game. The writing's on the wall.

 

Her: Dad, what the hell did Trump do to you to make you so negative?

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Wolves fans will be furious. It was Traore walking back that played him onside. As soon as he saw the ball break to Long he made a pathetic attempt to step out and play him offside but it was too late.

 

He was a total liability in defence but that's what you get when you are chasing the game with an attacking player at wing back.

 

Wolves were good on the ball but created very little. Gunn barely had a shot to save. For all their possession they did little in the final third and were clueless at the back. I'm presuming Sims was played to press and run at Boly who doesn't have the best touch. Worked a dream as he set up the first and was involved in the second.

 

Read the match thread while I was walking back over the Itchen Bridge. Some proper weird comments. Pretty sure half the people on there either don't understand football or are just trolling. Or both.

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Being honest, at 2-1 up before we made the substitutions we were under the cosh and I was telling myself I'd take a draw (also that we had to change it up before the inevitable equaliser). Ralph duly obliged - a fantastic result and set of results for us. Redmond outstanding. Romeu showed why we need him. Bednarek quietly efficient. Yoshida great. Sims added value. JWP better after being moved forward. After being quick to criticise Long - fair dues - he changed the game for us, providing an outlet and scoring the critical third goal - also running his guts off backwards to cover for defenders who'd gone forward. Good job.

 

Think a draw or better at Newcastle will secure safety mathematically as Brighton will not lose to Cardiff.

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Ha! Pretty similar to my expectations watching live with friends in New Jersey. As soon as Redmond scored the first was convinced we were going to lose 4-1. Glad we're both hopeless at predicting our results ;)

 

My grandson who always comes with me these days said: “The last time we scored in the first minute we lost 6-1”

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When I heard the team selection, my main question mark concerned the midfield, where leaving out Romeu for Sims suggested that we might lack a bit of muscle there. However, Sims produced a superb cross from near the right hand corner for a tap in for Redmond, giving us a lead in 1 minute 40 seconds. But once the match settled down, it was indeed the midfield that looked weak, with Wolves winning most of the 50/50 balls and increasingly forcing us back to sitting deeper. They looked threatening on their corners and it looked only a matter of time before they equalised, which they then did. But that goal conceded seemed to galvanise our players, who lifted their game, bringing the reward of a quick second goal from Redmond to dumbfound Wolves. We weathered the continued storm against Wolves' domination of midfield and I was glad to hear the half time whistle having maintained our lead.

 

I felt sure that Ralph would soon make the changes to strengthen the midfield, but as Wolves continued to dominate, I was surprised not to see any of our subs warming up. A series of misplaced passes from us and tackles lost, meant that we were unable to make much forward attacking progress, whilst Wolves looked to threaten at corner kicks, as they had for their first goal. Thankfully, Ralph eventually did make the substitutions that swung the match our way, taking off the largely ineffective Ings for Long and the effective but lightweight Sims for the solid and more muscular Romeu. Right away the midfield was winning the 50/50 balls and Long was his usual industrious self, putting himself about, tracking back and winning some free kicks, whilst offering the option of the ball over the top to chase, pressurising Wolves' defence. Just to make Hasenhuttl's substitutions look inspired, Long scored his second goal in consecutive matches, and his confidence must now be soaring.

 

The whole dynamics of the match were now firmly in our favour, the stadium was rocking, and we didn't look like conceding our two goal advantage from then on until the final whistle. The third substitution, Valery for Stephens, was presumably because Valery had only a short while before sustained an injury.

 

It was quite an achievement to beat a team like them, they are well managed, play attractive attacking football and have done very well indeed this season. But their style of playing suited us much better than a team coming here to park the bus and invite us to open them up. It has been clear for several weeks that we are also well managed, that we too play good attacking football and arguably, had Hasenhuttl been here from the start of the season with a pre-season to prepare the team, we might have occupied the place in the league that Wolves currently hold. Once again, it is worth pointing out that several players who were ignored or played badly under his last two predecessors, the Clown and Hughes, have been transformed into effective and valuable members of the team under him.

 

It now looks that not only will we survive, barring an awful run of losses, but that potentially we could finish the season ahead of both Bournemouth and Brighton, to re-establish our South Coast eminence. OK, Bournemouth had a good result today against a Brighton in freefall, but we remain just 5 points behind them and play them here. We can now start looking optimistically towards a summer of Ralph's transfer market dealings and I look forward to finding out how the hell his 4-2-2-2 formation works.

 

Just an aside; a couple of times again in this match, all of the players from both team were crowded into half of the pitch, top to bottom when Gunn was kicking upfield from a goal kick. Why isn't it a good idea to have one player out wide on the other side of the pitch in the acres of space that he would have? That would force one or two opposition defenders surely to come over to mark him. Instead, Gunn is forced to kick into this congested area, invariably ending in us losing possession. Does anybody have an explanation?

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Couldn’t believe a statistic in the BBC report on today’s game until I’d checked it. It said Saints have won eight of their 18 League games Hassenhuttl, which is as many as they had won in 52 games under their two previous permanent managers combined. I know it was bad but how bad is incredible. Mark Hughes managed three wins from 22 and Mauricio Pellegrino managed 5 from 30. Hughes wouldn’t use the Academy, made Ward-Prowse a fringe player and demotivated Redmond. Now we have Ward-Prowse in the England squad and the likes of Valery and Sims as regulars in the side. I’ll be surprised if Hughes ever works again.

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When I heard the team selection, my main question mark concerned the midfield, where leaving out Romeu for Sims suggested that we might lack a bit of muscle there. However, Sims produced a superb cross from near the right hand corner for a tap in for Redmond, giving us a lead in 1 minute 40 seconds. But once the match settled down, it was indeed the midfield that looked weak, with Wolves winning most of the 50/50 balls and increasingly forcing us back to sitting deeper. They looked threatening on their corners and it looked only a matter of time before they equalised, which they then did. But that goal conceded seemed to galvanise our players, who lifted their game, bringing the reward of a quick second goal from Redmond to dumbfound Wolves. We weathered the continued storm against Wolves' domination of midfield and I was glad to hear the half time whistle having maintained our lead.

 

I felt sure that Ralph would soon make the changes to strengthen the midfield, but as Wolves continued to dominate, I was surprised not to see any of our subs warming up. A series of misplaced passes from us and tackles lost, meant that we were unable to make much forward attacking progress, whilst Wolves looked to threaten at corner kicks, as they had for their first goal. Thankfully, Ralph eventually did make the substitutions that swung the match our way, taking off the largely ineffective Ings for Long and the effective but lightweight Sims for the solid and more muscular Romeu. Right away the midfield was winning the 50/50 balls and Long was his usual industrious self, putting himself about, tracking back and winning some free kicks, whilst offering the option of the ball over the top to chase, pressurising Wolves' defence. Just to make Hasenhuttl's substitutions look inspired, Long scored his second goal in consecutive matches, and his confidence must now be soaring.

 

The whole dynamics of the match were now firmly in our favour, the stadium was rocking, and we didn't look like conceding our two goal advantage from then on until the final whistle. The third substitution, Valery for Stephens, was presumably because Valery had only a short while before sustained an injury.

 

It was quite an achievement to beat a team like them, they are well managed, play attractive attacking football and have done very well indeed this season. But their style of playing suited us much better than a team coming here to park the bus and invite us to open them up. It has been clear for several weeks that we are also well managed, that we too play good attacking football and arguably, had Hasenhuttl been here from the start of the season with a pre-season to prepare the team, we might have occupied the place in the league that Wolves currently hold. Once again, it is worth pointing out that several players who were ignored or played badly under his last two predecessors, the Clown and Hughes, have been transformed into effective and valuable members of the team under him.

 

It now looks that not only will we survive, barring an awful run of losses, but that potentially we could finish the season ahead of both Bournemouth and Brighton, to re-establish our South Coast eminence. OK, Bournemouth had a good result today against a Brighton in freefall, but we remain just 5 points behind them and play them here. We can now start looking optimistically towards a summer of Ralph's transfer market dealings and I look forward to finding out how the hell his 4-2-2-2 formation works.

 

Just an aside; a couple of times again in this match, all of the players from both team were crowded into half of the pitch, top to bottom when Gunn was kicking upfield from a goal kick. Why isn't it a good idea to have one player out wide on the other side of the pitch in the acres of space that he would have? That would force one or two opposition defenders surely to come over to mark him. Instead, Gunn is forced to kick into this congested area, invariably ending in us losing possession. Does anybody have an explanation?

 

If you stretch the play the you give the opposing team the space to play through you very easily - it’s the only explanation I have

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If you stretch the play the you give the opposing team the space to play through you very easily - it’s the only explanation I have

 

I'm not sure that washes. As I said, invariably Gunn's kick into the crowded area conceded possession. There is then the possibility that an opposition pacey player could run into all of that space onto a diagonal kick from their player who has won that ball, leaving our entire defence exposed. That is balanced by us leaving a player out wide inviting them to mark him, thus clearing up space for our players to be able to have more chance of receiving the ball from the goal kick. Or how about a training ground routine whereby the players bunch up in one half of the pitch lengthways, but on a pre-arranged signal, Gunn kicks the ball wide in the opposite direction into those acres of space for somebody like Bertrand or Redmond to run onto it high up the pitch?

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Fab result. We would have been comfortable by half time if sims had of crossed for ings and if he’d got his shot on target straight afterwards. Still he caused them all sorts of issues. Hopefully with more games will come that extra composure.

 

Liked that Ralph gambled with a more attacking lineup. We shouldn’tbe Afraid of wolves at home. Romeu will come back in for away games no doubt and sims can hopefully cause problems off the bench.

 

Thankfully they brought on traore who can’t defend and helped Shane put the game to bed.

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I'm not sure that washes. As I said, invariably Gunn's kick into the crowded area conceded possession. There is then the possibility that an opposition pacey player could run into all of that space onto a diagonal kick from their player who has won that ball, leaving our entire defence exposed. That is balanced by us leaving a player out wide inviting them to mark him, thus clearing up space for our players to be able to have more chance of receiving the ball from the goal kick. Or how about a training ground routine whereby the players bunch up in one half of the pitch lengthways, but on a pre-arranged signal, Gunn kicks the ball wide in the opposite direction into those acres of space for somebody like Bertrand or Redmond to run onto it high up the pitch?

 

Everything you say is absolutely plausible but also the opposite can apply. They leave a man wide and he gets the ball - blah blah bah.

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First game at St Mary's in over 2 years..with my lad Sooo much better than previous.so. Won a lot of tackles in our half having let them have it at their back. Great display of team and everyone e knowing their job!

Next season expect top ten.

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Good to see Sims get a start but if that happens again I hope Romeu gets the start as JWP is not suited to that role next to PEH. I can see why Ralph went with JWP after his recent goals etc but he was bloody awful until Romeu came on and he moved into a more attacking role.

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Definitely agree with you about the owner, although our form since Ralph took over has been top 10 I believe, and in 2019 top 6 or 7! (ish)

 

We are averaging 1.5 points per game so after 33 games we would have 50 points, which would put us 7th currently this season

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Cracking results all around really, Brighton must be bricking it after their results against us and today.

 

Excellent performances from Redmond, Sims, Valery and Yoshida. Romeu was also decent when he came on, I didn’t think Hoj and JWP were having a particularly good game until he came on.

 

Three decent goals, three points. We could finish as high as 11th with our head to heads against BOU, WHU and NEW. Onwards and upwards.

 

Don’t forget the momentum change when Long came on, he ran their defence ragged, chased lost causes and settled the match with the third goal !!

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Good to see Sims get a start but if that happens again I hope Romeu gets the start as JWP is not suited to that role next to PEH. I can see why Ralph went with JWP after his recent goals etc but he was bloody awful until Romeu came on and he moved into a more attacking role.
I'd agree JWP wasn't having his best game. But it cheers me to think we're now finding it difficult to leave players out rather than find players to put in.

 

 

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Wolves are weird. The better team for most of that game but totally complacent at key moments either end. It helped that Bednarek and Yoshida were bang on it (as was Vestegaard bar a couple of shakey moments).

 

But Hojbjerg's got to be man of the match. His positivity made the first goal.

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Did Ings do anything before being subbed , I saw him pass once to Sims but other than that he seemed to just jog around in their half . At the start of the season he was running around and scoring , was his injury that bad ????

 

Ings got the assist for Redmond’s second goal, and if I’m not mistaken, played in Sims with a great pass only for Sims to fluff his lines.

 

Ings was off the pace today and was rightly substituted, but clearly has a touch of class about him and with a few more games under his belt, will surely bang in a few goals in the run in.

 

 

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[quote name=O

hio Saint]My daughter was watching the match with me, first time I've seen her in 5 years. Only my own comments are paraphrased.......

 

1-0: Oh crap! We scored too early! They are gonna slaughter us!

 

2-1: They will equalise soon, we can't have anything nice.

 

3-1 : Just watch them get 3 goals in injury time. That happens in every single game. The writing's on the wall.

 

Her: Dad, what the hell did Trump do to you to make you so negative?

 

@_DHOTYA

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Couldn’t believe a statistic in the BBC report on today’s game until I’d checked it. It said Saints have won eight of their 18 League games Hassenhuttl, which is as many as they had won in 52 games under their two previous permanent managers combined. I know it was bad but how bad is incredible. Mark Hughes managed three wins from 22 and Mauricio Pellegrino managed 5 from 30. Hughes wouldn’t use the Academy, made Ward-Prowse a fringe player and demotivated Redmond. Now we have Ward-Prowse in the England squad and the likes of Valery and Sims as regulars in the side. I’ll be surprised if Hughes ever works again.

And also persisted with that **** Hoedt (whilst freezing out Bednarek completely), and hardly using Romeu.

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Ings got the assist for Redmond’s second goal, and if I’m not mistaken, played in Sims with a great pass only for Sims to fluff his lines.

 

Ings was off the pace today and was rightly substituted, but clearly has a touch of class about him and with a few more games under his belt, will surely bang in a few goals in the run in.

 

 

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As you say, Ings got an honourable mention from the pundits on MOTD for those parts he played and would probably have scored had Sims passed to him when clear through.

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And also persisted with that **** Hoedt (whilst freezing out Bednarek completely), and hardly using Romeu.

 

TBF though, Hoedt would have been slated on here if he had played like Bednarek in the last two games. Not that I’m saying Bednarek has played badly but people would have seized on the fact that two goals were his fault and slated him for it.

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A lot if people claiming Wolves were the better side. From what I saw they were lucky to get away with only a 3-1 defeat.

 

Yeah, it was odd. They dominated the ball and kept going at us until it was 3-1, but couldn't carve out a chance and had those mad defensive lapses which ended up in the MOTD clips. I guess they had a better midfield but nothing else.

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TBF though, Hoedt would have been slated on here if he had played like Bednarek in the last two games. Not that I’m saying Bednarek has played badly but people would have seized on the fact that two goals were his fault and slated him for it.
Yes, if Jack Stephens, for example, had been aerially dominated at the back post, costing us two goals in two games, the phrases "scared of heading the ball" and "League One standard" would've made repeated appearances around these parts.

 

Bednarek has been one of our handful of positives to take from the season, but he's not exactly a superstar in the making. I'm not sure he can even cut it in a back four, but he's a solid citizen in a five, albeit limited.

 

Come the summer, we will once again be in desperate need of a new CB (or two).

 

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TBF though, Hoedt would have been slated on here if he had played like Bednarek in the last two games. Not that I’m saying Bednarek has played badly but people would have seized on the fact that two goals were his fault and slated him for it.

 

Don't think today's goal was his fault, if that's what you mean. Hojbjerg was on Boly.

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TBF though, Hoedt would have been slated on here if he had played like Bednarek in the last two games. Not that I’m saying Bednarek has played badly but people would have seized on the fact that two goals were his fault and slated him for it.

There're basically 3 types of players: top quality who rarely make mistakes (too good to join us, or if they do, soon move on), decent players who are generally good but do make mistakes (e.g. Bednarek and Yoshi), and those who are crap (Hoedt). Errors of the latter tend to be seized on and the player vilified because they happen so often. I guess most (but not all) of us tend to be more forgiving of the middle group if they seem to be trying their best.

 

Players are also going to be slated if they seem to be lazy or obnoxious (whether true or not)! Bertie and Redmond were I think unfairly judged for their attitudes, but I think people were correct in regarding Hoedt as a ****.

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Weird game very happy with the result and points (which is all that really matters at this point of the season) and the atmosphere was pretty good ..but I did come away feeling like we where second best for a big chunk of that game. The difference between wolves ball retention and passing and ours was quite noticeable. I guess with the way Ralph has us playing, trying to get the ball forward quickly, mistakes are inevitable but we seem to put ourselves under a lot of unnecessary pressure by giving the ball away cheaply in midfield.

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Their corner was a perfect delivery, Boly came from deep and he is huge. He took out-jumped our players and gave Gunn no chance. Saddened to see us concede from a corner but given that Wolves had 9 corners in the match, we should be praising our defenders in making sure they only scored the once.

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Hard game to sum up. Although we won well in the end, at times we were overrun in the midfield by a rampant Wolves attack and boy did our backline look flaky. Surprised we didn't start with Romeu as their attack is renowned for fast interchanging between the lines and aerial bombardments from the wings and we very nearly paid the price. Once Romeu was brought on the midfield was plugged and the game was ours. JWP is not a defensive midfielder and once the decision had been made to start with Sims, there really was no place for James.

 

Otherwise, how good to see Sims gaining in confidence if not in accuracy. More experience and more composure and we would have had another couple of goals but hopefully Ralph will give him a run now and we could have quite a player on our hands.

 

How can we not give huge shout-out for Nathan Redmond MotM by a country mile, now that he has added goals to his game he looks like a carbon copy of Sterling so come on Southgate give the lad a chance.

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Ings got the assist for Redmond’s second goal, and if I’m not mistaken, played in Sims with a great pass only for Sims to fluff his lines.

 

Ings was off the pace today and was rightly substituted, but clearly has a touch of class about him and with a few more games under his belt, will surely bang in a few goals in the run in.

 

 

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Maybe but is he worth the £20m we have to cough up for him in June? If there is an escape clause surely we can do better for the money?

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Maybe but is he worth the £20m we have to cough up for him in June? If there is an escape clause surely we can do better for the money?

 

Hard to judge really, on his day, he’s worth that and more. But as is the way with a club with our budget and appeal, the purchase of “proven” premier league goal scorers will always come with a caveat, in this case, it’s a poor injury record. Take that injury record away, he’s arguably out of our league.

 

As Ralph has said, the focus will be on bringing in good young players in the summer, I’m happy with this as long as we have RH at the helm, because one thing we can be sure of, they will have the right attitude and he will squeeze every ounce of potential out of them (and with that will come huge transfer fees).

 

 

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Maybe but is he worth the £20m we have to cough up for him in June? If there is an escape clause surely we can do better for the money?

 

I think his performances when able to play suggest he’s well worth the money, the issue as expected is his injuries. I’m not so sure in the current market that it would be as easy as you suggest to find better alternative strikers at that price. Got any suggestions yourself? Remember how much we paid for Carrillo?!

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Would like to see Ralph back in the Bundesliga. Schalke is looking for a trainer (my son plays for them - waiting for his chance to play - under Ralph he was regular player). But his Son (Patrick) told my son - unfortunately he is absolutely happy to train the Saints. Dilema ;)

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Would like to see Ralph back in the Bundesliga. Schalke is looking for a trainer (my son plays for them - waiting for his chance to play - under Ralph he was regular player). But his Son (Patrick) told my son - unfortunately he is absolutely happy to train the Saints. Dilema ;)

 

Get your son to come to Saints

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