West Ham 1-0 Saints - Match Thread

[badgerx16]

3 minutes ago, BallBoy said:

I haven't bothered to check but we seem to lose most games to teams around us 1-0. It's a horrible score to lose by. Most of those games we have just not turned up. Sad to say it but these players just do not have character or intelligence needed.

They know we will gift them a goal and then they just have to sit back in a tight defensive formation, safe because we have zero guile when it comes to breaking down tight, deep sitting teams.

[wadesmith]

1 minute ago, Lighthouse said:

Yeah, I mistakenly believed that Aribo would be something other than slow, lazy and dreadful. I also thought that Mara, Edozie and Larios (remember that bloke) whilst young and inexperienced, would at least provide excitement in small bursts.

What we’re we thinking? Funnily enough re-reading the thread is cheering me up! Most of us thought we had struck some incredible formula that other clubs has missed! 😂 

[AlexLaw76]

Just now, wadesmith said:

What we’re we thinking? Funnily enough re-reading the thread is cheering me up! Most of us thought we had struck some incredible formula that other clubs has missed! 😂 

It is pure gold isn't it.

Perfectly demonstrates that we, as fans, have little to no idea

[jasonbenali]

That had Brentford feel to it where we hardly laid a glove on them with low tempo aimless football although West Ham were worse than them. Amazingly we still could have scraped a draw with that header but to be fair they hit the bar as well. You get what you deserve eventually.

Tall Paul is an absolute donkey outside of the box so why only 1 cross into him in the box? You know what he can and can’t do so use the advantage.

So puzzled what’s happened to Stu - what happened to the driving runs and lost count of how many times he lost the ball.

I don’t really blame Selles who clearly thought keep it tight then change it with the subs and surely he didn’t expect Mara and Stu to be so, so bad. He’s given everyone a chance and it’s all a bit deckchair and Titanic.

We were debating MOTM - 3 votes for Lavia from the boys. He’s only 19. Class.

[trousers]

12 minutes ago, derry said:

The fact VAR took so long looking at it made me think they were looking for a reason to give it rather than give a fair decision

Yep, a reasonable observation. If it takes 4 minutes to decide if it was offside or not then there is obviously enough doubt to stick with the on-field decision. I've always said there should be a timeout on VAR decisions (say, 1 minute tops). 

Edited 2 April, 2023 by trousers

[JCBSaint]

Our so called tactics .. yeah still have no idea if we ever had any,, clearly haven’t worked so why not try something else, nothing to lose. Let’s stop this tippy tappy crap (we have a lot of crabs in the team) stop going backwards and making the goalie have more touches than any other player on the pitch and maybe seeing as we have a giant bought in for a few million just try route one, kick it long, get it wide , cross it in (above head height) and head it in the net. Simples 

[captainchris]

The team for the next game is being compiled as we speak with the first name on the team sheet just released and it’s………….Yes, Elyounoussi ….

A player in a rich vein of form who is a goal scorer, top assist provider, dominates the 10 position, always on time for training and has the ear of the Manager…. It’s a no brainer…. 

 

[Turkish]

9 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

It is pure gold isn't it.

Perfectly demonstrates that we, as fans, have little to no idea

To be fair if you make 10 signings you don’t expect 90% of them to be absolutely shit

[Disco Stu]

35 minutes ago, trousers said:

I guess Selles is thinking: "If I start with our best attacking line up and the opposition contain us for 60 minutes, that leaves me with no game changers on the bench. Whereas, if I start with the weaker strikers and we're still in the game after 60 mins then we can bring on our better strikers who will stand a better chance of scoring against a tiring opposition rather than at the start of the game"

Yes, it's a negative approach but given none of our strikers are top quality then maybe, just maybe, it's better to play the best of a poor bunch against a tiring opposition?

Not saying I agree with this approach but I can see an element of logic in it given the overall mediocre quality of the squad.

On the flip side, we gave our best players significantly less time to make an impact on the game. If you look at the games we've actually won this season, in many of them, we have done our scoring in the first half and defended well in the second.

It was unquestionably the wrong approach to start a front line of those four when they have scored 3 goals between them all season. I could perhaps see the logic of putting Sulemana up against tired legs, but Alcaraz has more goals than any of them in less than half the game time and the best conversion rate in the squad. The idea we could afford to drop him to the bench in such an important game is ludicrous especially as we were lacking our top goalscorer in open play, Che Adams.

This wasn't an away game to a top half side. It was against a fellow team in the bottom three and Selles was far too cautious.

Edited 2 April, 2023 by Disco Stu

[Archers Road Stand]

3 minutes ago, Turkish said:

To be fair if you make 10 signings you don’t expect 90% of them to be absolutely shit

Surely got to be some sackings in the scouting department. Recruitment has been largely abysmal since Liverpool gave us the VvD money. 

[AlexLaw76]

Ankerson admitted to 'taking charge' with January's recruitment.

Nice one

[Archers Road Stand]

2 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Ankerson admitted to 'taking charge' with January's recruitment.

Nice one

Amazes me that the match going fans at St. Mary's haven't turned on him yet. 

Soft as shit. 

[Christhetoerag]

How can a goal be given when at least 3 players are off side.  By being offside they blocked the view of our goal keeper. Sorry but all 3 of them were intefering with play. We had more of the play but it was same old story. We have no one who can score a goal in open play. 

[saintant]

33 minutes ago, jasonbenali said:

That had Brentford feel to it where we hardly laid a glove on them with low tempo aimless football although West Ham were worse than them. Amazingly we still could have scraped a draw with that header but to be fair they hit the bar as well. You get what you deserve eventually.

Tall Paul is an absolute donkey outside of the box so why only 1 cross into him in the box? You know what he can and can’t do so use the advantage.

So puzzled what’s happened to Stu - what happened to the driving runs and lost count of how many times he lost the ball.

I don’t really blame Selles who clearly thought keep it tight then change it with the subs and surely he didn’t expect Mara and Stu to be so, so bad. He’s given everyone a chance and it’s all a bit deckchair and Titanic.

We were debating MOTM - 3 votes for Lavia from the boys. He’s only 19. Class.

Keeping it tight then changing it rarely work for us because strangely enough we are useless at keeping it tight. Better off going for it from the start - it's always worked best for us and we rarely get much if we don't go for it from the first whistle.

[beatlesaint]

50 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

You can see us beating Man City just for pointless banter

No, I really can’t 

[Chez]

46 minutes ago, derry said:

Alternatively I recognise that Orsic hasn't looked good, maybe we should play him his way not make him play like an advanced full back.

He's played both left wing and left midfield and looked poor in both positions. Not sure what `his way'  is.  

[gallaghert366@yahoo.com]

2 minutes ago, Archers Road Stand said:

Surely got to be some sackings in the scouting department. Recruitment has been largely abysmal since Liverpool gave us the VvD money. 

Agree entirely, that's been the problem, eventually, resulting in the club's demise.

The failures of the January transfer window cannot be ignored.

Danny Ing's departure was never addressed believing that A&A could keep us up  - a lamentable and costly decision.

Very few players are of Premier League quality and a long haul awaits the club in the Championship.

The current squad are, at best, a top half Championship squad.

To finish on a positive note, season tickets should be cheaper with more games to watch!

[The Kraken]

Despite our insipid performance I’m still furious about the West Ham goal being given. It’s probably the correct decision according to the laws, but it’s an utterly stupid law. When the ball has been played in it was aimed towards at least 4 of their players, 3 who were blatantly offside and all made movements towards the ball as it came In. You simply can’t convince me that the presence of those offside players makes zero difference to the positioning and actions of the defenders and keeper. They’re interfering with play as far as I’m concerned. Dopey law.

Ah well, season over now, we’re done. Just need to get to 30 points somehow so it doesn’t look completely embarrassing.

[Boris Karloff]

46 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

It is pure gold isn't it.

Perfectly demonstrates that we, as fans, have little to no idea

To be fair I think most fans said it was a good transfer window except for the lack of a goalscorer. 

Who knows, maybe if we'd bought a decent striker, the likes of Edozie might have thrived. 

[AlexLaw76]

1 minute ago, Boris Karloff said:

To be fair I think most fans said it was a good transfer window except for the lack of a goalscorer. 

Who knows, maybe if we'd bought a decent striker, the likes of Edozie might have thrived. 

Christ, forgot he played for us.... 😂

[trousers]

15 minutes ago, saintant said:

Keeping it tight then changing it rarely work for us because strangely enough we are useless at keeping it tight. Better off going for it from the start - it's always worked best for us and we rarely get much if we don't go for it from the first whistle.

Wasn't it that tactic that earned us the 'record number of points lost from a winning position' accolade the last couple of seasons? 

[BotleySaint]

Roll on next season... This one is the most depressing I've known. 

Edited 2 April, 2023 by BotleySaint

[Chez]

4 minutes ago, Boris Karloff said:

To be fair I think most fans said it was a good transfer window except for the lack of a goalscorer. 

Who knows, maybe if we'd bought a decent striker, the likes of Edozie might have thrived. 

He looks a poor signing at this moment in time. He is not ready for the Prem. In a few years, he might be great, but he hasn't improved us. Not sure what difference a striker would have made to his displays. His lack of a final ball was part of the goal scoring problem

[redkeith]

I still hope our strikers might turn out OK. I was talking with my brother last week and we both agreed that if you replaced Paine and Sydenham with our current wide men, Man U would have won the 4 1 Ron Davis game one nil .

[Dellman]

1 hour ago, beatlesaint said:

Having watched Saints since 1976 I can honestly say I cannot think of a worse, more ineffective forward line. We literally have nothing in attack.

The only thing we might have is Tall Paul who, when he gets a cross on his head, hits the bar……but he won’t get game time, that’s obvious.

We are toast.

Exactly right and I've been watching Saints since the war ended! And for most of that time we have had prolific goalscorers, a whole succession of 'greats' beginning with Charlie Wayman and Eric Day. When we had bad spells it was because we had defence troubles. I wonder how many times we have scored 70+ in a season. We will struggle to get 30 this season and most of them from defenders or free kicks.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

1 hour ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

I always thought we would go down, but I didn't expect us to go down without a fight. I also thought we would finish above Bournemouth, they are showing more fight than we will ever do

This to me is the most damning fact. Go down fine but make a fight of it. 

[Dellman]

1 hour ago, BallBoy said:

I haven't bothered to check but we seem to lose most games to teams around us 1-0. It's a horrible score to lose by. Most of those games we have just not turned up. Sad to say it but these players just do not have character or intelligence needed.

I doubt its much to do with the players character or intelligence there have been times when they have shown plenty of both. The problem is the mentality of the management insisting on possession football and all the square balls, back passes and little tap taps in triangles that go with it--end product, lose 1-0 and bore the pants off every viewer

[Charlie Wayman]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

To be fair if you make 10 signings you don’t expect 90% of them to be absolutely shit

Depends where you're shopping, John Lewis or Matalan. We seem to be obsessed with Matalan.

[Micky]

17 minutes ago, BotleySaint said:

Roll on next season... This one is the most depressing I've known. 

Be careful what you wish for, given the state of the club and squad, don't just expect some sort of magical renaissance next year.  Our downwards trajectory could last for quite a lot of seasons yet before this clusterfuck is sorted out.  I think there is more pain to come yet. 

[Chris cooper]

I’m hoping pompey make it up so we can have our derby days back fuck the premier league it’s boring as fuck ..Hampshire police match days have had it far too easy.

cheaper tickets and different grounds to go too.

more games ..  a decent crack at a trophy maybe 

[Charlie Wayman]

9 minutes ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

This to me is the most damning fact. Go down fine but make a fight of it. 

Quite! One had the impression today that not a single Saints player gave a toss whether we won or lost. Going down without fight or passion is a disgrace but many of them know they will be off to other PL clubs so it doesn't really affect them at all. 

Still it gave Armstrong & Ward Prowse the opportunities to perfect their breathtaking skills of stopping the play dead in its tracks and passing safely backwards to a central defender. We must be as good as anybody in the league at these forgotten skills.

[FarehamSaintJames]

Can’t be bothered to scroll through the three pages since full time but was is this that Saints players and staff are coming out saying we played well? It was the complete opposite!

It’s like the Tories sharing everything that has gone well about Brexit and it’s the complete fucking opposite.

🤦🏻‍♂️

[Galway saint]

14 minutes ago, Dellman said:

Exactly right and I've been watching Saints since the war ended! And for most of that time we have had prolific goalscorers, a whole succession of 'greats' beginning with Charlie Wayman and Eric Day. When we had bad spells it was because we had defence troubles. I wonder how many times we have scored 70+ in a season. We will struggle to get 30 this season and most of them from defenders or free kicks.

The commentator on sky said we have scored the lowest number of goals at this stage of the season in our history. Can’t be bothered to check if that’s correct but if true then it’s sums up why we are going down and if you take our free kicks it would be truly horrendous. Think defensively we are ok but part of that is because we don’t commit men forward and spend large swathes of the game passing it around to no effect and boring the shit out of everyone.  We are also so slow and ponderous in the transition and it just makes for a really difficult watch. Guess we are down now and will be cut adrift after the Arsenal game 

[alehouseboys]

1 minute ago, Chris cooper said:

I’m hoping pompey make it up so we can have our derby days back fuck the premier league it’s boring as fuck ..Hampshire police match days have had it far too easy.

cheaper tickets and different grounds to go too.

more games ..  a decent crack at a trophy maybe 

Many away days in the Championship will be more expensive than the PL price cap.

[saint michael]

This has been coming for years. Shit keepers shit defence, shit attack. Tippy tappy sideways football where success is ball retention and possession. Ward prowse only quality and hope of scoring. Picking people like Ely every game. Players wanting to feel loved by the manager. Picking Jones don’t even start me in that.  A board that is a complete shit show. etc etc etc changing any one of these things will not make the difference. Rotten to the core. Big change needed 

[Harry_SFC]

1 minute ago, alehouseboys said:

Many away days in the Championship will be more expensive than the PL price cap.

Plus the majority of the away games are up north 

[The Kraken]

8 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Plus the majority of the away games are up north 

Yep, just looking at this. We’ll get some reasonably close games like Reading, Bristol City, Millwall and QPR (love Loftus Road). But yeah, really a lot of games that are a good old chew away.

[Forester]

Disappointed that Alacaraz didn’t start, but given injuries to two CBS and Adams I can understand the other selections. 
 

Felt a lot like Leeds away.  Lacked creativity, beaten by team marginally more clinical.

 

When we step back from the anger, it’s three managers trying in their different ways to make the best of a clusterfuck of a summer where the squad lost two strikers and only brought in one, Mara, who is woefully short of Premier League class.  It’s naive to imagine that Adams will play 38 games.

 

And so Rasmus is accountable for transfer activity and management appointments.  Ladies and gentlemen that is the long and short of it

[John Boy Saint]

29 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Depends where you're shopping, John Lewis or Matalan. We seem to be obsessed with Matalan.

More like B&M Bargains or Lidl Middle Aisle 

There just isn’t any substance to our team. 

[Adkins' Bus]

57 minutes ago, trousers said:

Wasn't it that tactic that earned us the 'record number of points lost from a winning position' accolade the last couple of seasons? 

Yes, which a lot of fans got very upset about and constantly used it to bash Ralph. Well I would rather be ahead at some point than never! Especially when we are a team that can pretty much never break down a side sitting deep to protect a lead. As frustrating as it was, flying out the traps and expending our energy early was the right tactic for us as a team.

[Convict Colony]

On 19/03/2023 at 09:20, Convict Colony said:

Wanted to start a thread for once as I can smell the victory that takes us out of the zone, its tantalisingly close and at west ham its going to happen.

I am officially banning myself from starting threads ever again, we posed as much danger as elton john in a nunnery.

[Dark Munster]

2 hours ago, captainchris said:

The team for the next game is being compiled as we speak with the first name on the team sheet just released and it’s………….Yes, Elyounoussi ….

A player in a rich vein of form who is a goal scorer, top assist provider, dominates the 10 position, always on time for training and has the ear of the Manager…. It’s a no brainer…. 

 

I thought he had a good game today.

Stu Armstrong on the other hand ...

[JRM]

2 hours ago, miserableoldgit said:

Don't expect the tickets to be cheaper.....more games in the Championship.....

I'd like to see them try charging £89 for Kingsland premium block 31 in the Championship 😂 

[spyinthesky]

1 hour ago, Dellman said:

Exactly right and I've been watching Saints since the war ended! And for most of that time we have had prolific goalscorers, a whole succession of 'greats' beginning with Charlie Wayman and Eric Day. When we had bad spells it was because we had defence troubles. I wonder how many times we have scored 70+ in a season. We will struggle to get 30 this season and most of them from defenders or free kicks.

I am distressed that you have not mentioned Derek Reeves!!!

[cambsaint]

I'm trying to decide which is more depressing: The near certainty of relegation or reading the comments on this site.

I  think its probably this site as Championship football isn't that bad and we might be televised more often and I might be able to get to more away games.

[Crab Lungs]

West Ham we’re sh1t. Seriously sh1t. However, we start with 10 men often and quite frankly, even with 11 we’re so powderpuff. 

Ughhhh. Grim future ahead.

[JRM]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

To be fair if you make 10 signings you don’t expect 90% of them to be absolutely shit

I've not gone back and read it but I'm sure I said at the time the 8/10 window was the biggest nonsense I'd heard for ages, mostly untested youngsters who we had no idea if they could step up to mens football let alone Premier league,  a lot of people allowed themselves to fall into the trap of equating signings from Man City as top players when the likes of Bazunu, Edozie and Larios were complete unknowns at this level. Lavia was as well to be fair, but overall return on investment for transfers has been abysmal , Joe Shields probably did well out of it though. 

[JRM]

This 1-0 defeat along with the Leeds and Nottm Forest 1-0 defeats highlight how well deserved our relegation is, opportunity against another side in the bottom 3 and we consistently fail to take it. 

[Archers Road Stand]

1 minute ago, JRM said:

This 1-0 defeat along with the Leeds and Nottm Forest 1-0 defeats highlight how well deserved our relegation is, opportunity against another side in the bottom 3 and we consistently fail to take it. 

Thing is neither of those sides had to play well to get a win, they were all shite on the day. Can even add Wolves x2 to that list. 

We deserve to go down, I just hope the people at the helm don't think it'll be a cakewalk getting back up. Dark days ahead if we fail to get up within two years, parachute payments drop massively in that 3rd and final year. 

[Crab Lungs]

2 hours ago, Archers Road Stand said:

Surely got to be some sackings in the scouting department. Recruitment has been largely abysmal since Liverpool gave us the VvD money. 

Agreed. Been saying it for years, but these useless c**** constantly go under the radar 🙄