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Saints 4-4 Norwich

whelk

By whelk,
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Patches O Houlihan

Patches O Houlihan

Posted
Posted

 6 'clear cut' chances. 4 went in. I didn't see 3 of the Norwich goals because of streaming issues, but it does seem a bit harsh to critics Baz. 

That said once I got a stream running I was swearing hard at Baz for the parried 'non goal'. 

I feel like as Saints fans we have forgotten what it is to have a resilient side. Sometimes I need to remind myself that we once had Wanyama and Schneiderlin protecting Fonte & Toby/Virgil... It meant Fraser didn't have to be a rock star every game.

Saints v Norwich stats.png

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East Kent Saint

East Kent Saint

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Posted (edited)

All 3 promoted sides lost in the prem , Everton being tipped to ‘do a Southampton’ this season as well ie flirt with relegation for several seasons then get relegated !

Perhaps the gap between Prem and Championship is getting too great.

Edited by East Kent Saint
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Chez

Chez

Posted
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3 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

I'd say he's a steady championship player, which is why at 27 he's playing in it. Clearly offers something in this system going forward but i'm not 100% convinced by him going the other way.

 

Cheers. I did wonder why he wasn't picked up by a Prem side.

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Chez

Chez

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3 minutes ago, East Kent Saint said:

All 3 promoted sides lost in the prem , Everton being tipped to ‘do a Southampton’ this season as well ie flirt with relegation for several seasons then get relegated !

Perhaps the gap between Prem and Championship is getting too great.

Early days. All three faced very good sides. 

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miserableoldgit

miserableoldgit

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Norwich quick on the break and look a handy team....but...we made it easy for them to score goals....they didn't  have to work hard to score them. I think that I am right in saying that two were fairly straightforward headers from from crosses.....something that we can't seem to manage. Oh for another Rickie Lambert! Was it Stephens who chased back and put in that crunching goal saving tackle?

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Harry_SFC

Harry_SFC

Posted
Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, SherborneSaint said:

What did he do to stand out?

 

Likely to be a starter pretty soon?

He seemed to get his foot in a few time sand looked very composed on the ball. Does look more of a natural CDM than Smallbone who cannot tackle to save his life.

Edited by Harry_SFC
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Galway saint

Galway saint

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25 minutes ago, Chez said:

Doesn't make sense to me either. 

Club trying to be clever again instead of doing the obvious thing and buying an experienced championship midfielder. Hopefully he’s more lavia than bazunu or larios ( what’s happened to him ?). We still are a pretty incoherent team and club 

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Wade Garrett

Wade Garrett

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38 minutes ago, wild-saint said:

Awesome going forward, defensively a disaster. Alcaraz is unplayable in this league. IF there were any prem scouts at the game then he will be gone by the end of the month. 

The new set piece coach has got his work cut out. Sell ABK or bedders quickly and bring in some strength / pace at CB.

Funny how we watched the same game and think completely differently about Alcaraz.  I thought he was absolute dogshit apart from the last 15 minutes.  He was decent after that though.

Defensively, we were all over the place.  The 2 centre backs were really poor.  
Thought the young lad who came on and played wide right was electric.  
Smallbone was decent again.  Should be good with him and Downes together.  Thought Charles looked tidy apart from one aberration.

Adams was a much better focal point for our attacks.

We have to improve the centre backs.  They were so poor today.

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Southner

Southner

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10 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Isn't that the basis of trying to win any football match?

Usually, yes. But if we regularly ship goals like Swansea fans have warned about, and struggle to create chances and score goals, like we have for a long while, it will be difficult.

Granted Ché and AA could potentially boss it this season, but we won't always be allowed to score 4 goals a game.  

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stknowle

stknowle

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28 minutes ago, The Cat said:

We had no defensive midfielder until Charles came on so there were numerous times when Norwich strolled through acres of open space at will.

This meant the CB's were badly exposed, see their second for an example where the player had loads of time to pick a spot.

As neat and tidy as Smallbone is he isn't a CDM and won't be able to cope with the defensive part of that role. I think Charles needs to play, although it did make for a very exciting, open game.

Ignoring for a minute we didn’t even start him today what happens if he gets injured, or is this another lesson we haven’t learned from last season? 

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CB Fry

CB Fry

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12 minutes ago, East Kent Saint said:

All 3 promoted sides lost in the prem , Everton being tipped to ‘do a Southampton’ this season as well ie flirt with relegation for several seasons then get relegated !

Perhaps the gap between Prem and Championship is getting too great.

Well, you could place one opening day set of fixtures versus last year's 38 game season where all three promoted teams stayed up.

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HarvSFC

HarvSFC

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Posted

Issue today was we didn’t have a midfield. We have two big Lavia and JWP holes to fill at the moment. I know JWP isn’t known for being a tough tackler, but he always covered more ground than anyone else, meaning the opposition didn’t have the freedom of the city, like Norwich did when they came at us today. Their goals were far too easy for them. We know Alcaraz and S. Armstrong are good going forward, but it was Smallbone doing a one man job in midfield today, meaning we got repeatedly overran. Hopefully that’s the weakest 11 we put out this season and we got a point from it because we know this defence and Bazunu need serious protection, no matter the division we’re in.

Norwich are tipped to be up there this season and their quality wasn’t all there today, we’ve still got a slight Premier League swagger and need to keep it before we get dragged down into this level.

Refs are still hopeless. Booking every player, missing a throw-in where everyone stopped before the Norwich player clocked the ref hadn’t seen it, so ran it out for a Saints goal kick, which was nice of him, but again the ref missed it, Norwich get a corner and Tella gets booked for dissent. Wasn’t too sure on our second penalty either, looked soft, but it was up the other end to me.

For their fourth goal, Smallbone was too honest. He needed to roll on the pitch and receive treatment so the game would stop and we could get a sub on. Instead we played with 10 men and they score from it, good assist from Manning too. Again, the ref hadn’t realised we were down to 10, so there was a bit of confusion when SAA was waiting to come on, but nobody was going off.

Need new signings in before next week, please.

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EBS1980

EBS1980

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

Funny how we watched the same game and think completely differently about Alcaraz.  I thought he was absolute dogshit apart from the last 15 minutes.  He was decent after that though.

Defensively, we were all over the place.  The 2 centre backs were really poor.  
Thought the young lad who came on and played wide right was electric.  
Smallbone was decent again.  Should be good with him and Downes together.  Thought Charles looked tidy apart from one aberration.

Adams was a much better focal point for our attacks.

We have to improve the centre backs.  They were so poor today.

He wasn’t in it the first half at all. He has a good shot on him and will score us a few this season. We just need to find a way of getting the best out of him and Tella as not sure we are playing to their strengths so far.

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Wade Garrett

Wade Garrett

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 minutes ago, EBS1980 said:

He wasn’t in it the first half at all. He has a good shot on him and will score us a few this season. We just need to find a way of getting the best out of him and Tella as not sure we are playing to their strengths so far.

He had no space whatsoever first half.  Norwich had two lines of 4 and he really struggled.

Good to see him keep going though.  Finished the game well, at least that shows his character.

Edited by Wade Garrett
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VectisSaint

VectisSaint

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14 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Positives - Alcaraz, Charles, Adams & Amo-Ameyaw.

Negatives - the whole defence, Edozie & Tella who has been very poor since coming back from Burnley.

Bazunu couldn't do anything for the goals.

Not sure you can say Tella has been very poor since Burnley, he did "score" a cracker last week against Wednesday, which unfortunately for him brushed some part of Armstrong's upper anatomy before going in. 

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SambaMaverick

SambaMaverick

Posted
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Just now, Bad Wolf said:

Having just seen the goals, how on Earth can anyone blame Bazunu for any of them?! 

Yeah agreed. He's fucking shit and I hate him but all four were the fault of the complete clown show at the back.

That free kick he parried out was dreadful though. Could've thrown his cap on it, or at the bare minimum get it behind.

It would also be nice to see him make a decent save once in a while. One where you think: "Fuck me, how's he got to that."

He was also pretty assured with the ball at his feet as well today, probably the best of the back five - not that it was hard at all.

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S-Clarke

S-Clarke

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Well that was pretty chaotic to say the least.

The main problem I saw today was a total lack of control in the middle of the park, they were able to get in behind on the turnover and bypass our midfield so quickly - and continuously. Some of the goals were absolute shit house, like Manning falling over himself and everyone leaving Rowe to head it in. Their second goal was a screamer though.

Attacking wise we played okay, but the problem will continue to be the turnover if don't have control of the midfield. I thought Charles came on and provided a little more of an anchor in there and we actually had more control with him on the pitch, so it just goes to show how important that style of player is. In effect we started Central Midfield with just attacking midfielders, and because of that we were totally overrun on the counters.

It was great entertainment though, we didn't go into our shells to be fair and we kept coming back which was good to see.

Lots of work to be done though, didn't think our football was as sharp as it was at Wednesday, but Norwich were much quicker to us and didn't give us the time.

We'll have too much for a lot of teams in an attacking sense, but you do feel that we can be got at (certainly if we play a midfield full of attackers)

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Nordic Saint

Nordic Saint

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30 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

I'd say he's a steady championship player, which is why at 27 he's playing in it. Clearly offers something in this system going forward but i'm not 100% convinced by him going the other way.

 

He's the level of player we are recruiting to build a mid-table Championship team. I'd expect a few more like him to arrive as we aspire to become the new Swansea.

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Yorkshire Saint

Yorkshire Saint

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7 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

Still really pissed off with their 4th.  Not so much the mistake by Manning, but our CB standing off the guy who put it in, when he could easily have put a challenge in.  Not sure which one of the gruesome twosome it was, but it was really fucking shit.

Stephens 

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Suhari

Suhari

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Posted

I was entertained and I'm pretty positive about the season.

We needed to be more creative and we are. Yes, the defence needs work, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Much prefer what I saw today than the awful Sellesball and other shit from last season.

We will get better.

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S-Clarke

S-Clarke

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Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

I feel blessed that I find myself not caring if we get promoted or not. The premier league is dead to me. I find myself actively wishing for the European super league to happen and all the top sides, and money, to fuck off. 

It must be weird being a Sheffield United fan for example, the euphoria of getting promoted, yet they are staring Derby's record in the face this year - they are absolutely inept, by all accounts Palace didn't even have to turn up today. Promotion just seems pointless if they're just going to get walked over for 38 games.

This is going to be a joyless season for them and may well set that club back for many years. 

Edited by S-Clarke
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spyinthesky

spyinthesky

Posted
Posted

I am sure a neutral would have seen that as a really enjoyable game.

Nice to score in the last minute for once.

As has been predicted we should score goals but concede many as Swansea did.

However I suggest we have a better squad and probably need it with the amount of yellow cards being liberally dispensed.

We do need to get more height and muscularity in the team.

Assuming we dont lose any more players and this is a big IF, I suggest out staring X1 is likely to be:

BAZ

KWP 
JAN B
JACK S  (with Bella Kotcha as 1st replacement option)
MANNING (or Peraud if he stays)

SMALLBONE
DOWNES
ALCAREZ

TELLA
ADAMS
ARMA (who I think offers more options than Edioze at the moment.

I think that side with a bit of adjustment should at least see us through to the Play Offs.

However it is some way away from Premiership standard and I hate to say it but I enjoyed todays game more than most Prem games, the 4-4 draw with Liverpool notwithstanding>
 

 

 

 


 

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sfc4prem

sfc4prem

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25 minutes ago, HarvSFC said:

Issue today was we didn’t have a midfield. We have two big Lavia and JWP holes to fill at the moment. I know JWP isn’t known for being a tough tackler, but he always covered more ground than anyone else, meaning the opposition didn’t have the freedom of the city, like Norwich did when they came at us today. Their goals were far too easy for them. We know Alcaraz and S. Armstrong are good going forward, but it was Smallbone doing a one man job in midfield today, meaning we got repeatedly overran. Hopefully that’s the weakest 11 we put out this season and we got a point from it because we know this defence and Bazunu need serious protection, no matter the division we’re in.

Norwich are tipped to be up there this season and their quality wasn’t all there today, we’ve still got a slight Premier League swagger and need to keep it before we get dragged down into this level.

Refs are still hopeless. Booking every player, missing a throw-in where everyone stopped before the Norwich player clocked the ref hadn’t seen it, so ran it out for a Saints goal kick, which was nice of him, but again the ref missed it, Norwich get a corner and Tella gets booked for dissent. Wasn’t too sure on our second penalty either, looked soft, but it was up the other end to me.

For their fourth goal, Smallbone was too honest. He needed to roll on the pitch and receive treatment so the game would stop and we could get a sub on. Instead we played with 10 men and they score from it, good assist from Manning too. Again, the ref hadn’t realised we were down to 10, so there was a bit of confusion when SAA was waiting to come on, but nobody was going off.

Need new signings in before next week, please.

Completely agree with the bit in bold. Norwich cut through the middle of us with absolute ease. We need a solid presence in there to disrup, to intercept, to block runs and stop the opposition basically strolling through the centre of us.

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sfc4prem

sfc4prem

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Posted

Enjoyed that at times. Good to be back at St Mary's. I feel we essentially gifted those goals to Norwich, particularly the free header for the third. Norwich's fourth was a clusterfuck. Cross came in too easy, Manning gently slotting it into the path of the striker rather than lacing it out of the box first time. Head in hands moment.

Our defending needs sorting out. I'm at a loss as to whether it was individually poor performances and defending, or whether it was a wider issue with shape and defensive tactics from our central midfield and entire defence.

It was, at times, embarrassing how easy Norwich found it to carve us open and ultimately to score four goals away from home.

On the positive side of things, A-A looked spritely, Che was great, AA showed some good moments, especially one of his defensive sliding tackles (or was that Alcaraz?) Stu was dangerous and showed real heart. 

Still work to be done. Need to replace those we have sold and get some grit and a proper spine, because at the moment we are spineless.

Was the atmosphere good? I felt it was from the Northam but always hard to tell.

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The Cat

The Cat

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1 minute ago, sfc4prem said:

Enjoyed that at times. Good to be back at St Mary's. I feel we essentially gifted those goals to Norwich, particularly the free header for the third. Norwich's fourth was a clusterfuck. Cross came in too easy, Manning gently slotting it into the path of the striker rather than lacing it out of the box first time. Head in hands moment.

Our defending needs sorting out. I'm at a loss as to whether it was individually poor performances and defending, or whether it was a wider issue with shape and defensive tactics from our central midfield and entire defence.

It was, at times, embarrassing how easy Norwich found it to carve us open and ultimately to score four goals away from home.

On the positive side of things, A-A looked spritely, Che was great, AA showed some good moments, especially one of his defensive sliding tackles (or was that Alcaraz?) Stu was dangerous and showed real heart. 

Still work to be done. Need to replace those we have sold and get some grit and a proper spine, because at the moment we are spineless.

Was the atmosphere good? I felt it was from the Northam but always hard to tell.

Atmosphere was alright. We have moved to Block 36 this season to escape the crushing boredom of the Family Stand.

Just before their 4th the noise was loud. We were attacking well, creating chances. Armstrong ran 50 yards back to tackle their player and a combination of Bazunu and a defender blocked that 1v1. 

Then they scored and naturally it dropped until the last 10 minutes. 

I see Block 1 is still closed. I thought that was going to be open again this season?

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