Ross Stewart

[Pwoite]

2 hours ago, Baz Fl said:

Strikers are the tip of the spear and we spent big money on a chocolate dagger. Why when we have such a limited budget did we take this massive risk?

And spears, good spears, cost a lot of money, which we don’t have. So, sometimes you have to gamble. With every such risk, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Whilst we haven’t collected on this bet, I don’t believe that the final whistle on this one has yet blown. Who knows?

[Turkish]

On 06/08/2024 at 10:32, trousers said:

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24496411.russell-martin-gives-latest-adam-lallana-ross-stewart-fitness/

I probably read too much between the lines on updates such as this but IMO it's a bit of a head scratcher when Russ says in one breath: "Ross picked up a little something [during pre-season] and now he's fine" but then says: "We need to get him through a couple of weeks of full training first before we can put him on the pitch. Otherwise, we are just risking something. He's in a good place now."

Why does a player need "a couple of weeks of full training" when all that's happened is that he "picked up a little something" and is now "fine"...?  

If we had to wait two weeks for every player to recover from "a little something" then we probably wouldn't be able to field a starting 11....!

It's a good job I'm not a conspiracy theorist otherwise I might be inclined to conclude we're still not being given the full picture here....

p.s. not forgetting that Russ said this two weeks ago (talking about ABK and RS): "When we go back [from Spain trip], he'll be ready, he'll be involved to train, and the same with Ross". So, two weeks ago Ross was going to be "ready" within a week. And now he's another two weeks away.... hmmm....

 

Just give the lazy fucker a cortisone injection and get on with it.

Edited August 11 by Turkish

[Challenger]

2 hours ago, Baz Fl said:

Strikers are the tip of the spear and we spent big money on a chocolate dagger. Why when we have such a limited budget did we take this massive risk?

Naivety 

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

3 hours ago, Baz Fl said:

Strikers are the tip of the spear and we spent big money on a chocolate dagger. Why when we have such a limited budget did we take this massive risk?

We know why. Buying a crock has worked before (eg. Danny Ings), so we bought this guy on an 'injured' discount hoping the plan would work again. I feel very privileged to have actually seen him live at one of his cameos at Huddersfield last year and he was very ordinary. Dibling's got more about him.

[Miltonaggro]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Just give the lazy fucker a cortisol injection and get on with it.

Failing that Ketomine...

[Patches O Houlihan]

Watching a bit of Olympics coverage this morning: Apparently heptathlete Katerina Johnson Thompson did her achilles tendon in 2019 and recovered to become World Champion in 2023. Difficult to imagine a many bigger tests for the body than performing in a Heptathlon over two days in 7 different events.

So recovery to the highest level can be done, and we saw Ross on the pitch for us at the end of the Championship season. Clearly he's not going to be ready for the start of the season, but I don't think we should be writing off his chances of ever playing for us again either.

[bangkoksaint]

6 hours ago, Patches O Houlihan said:

Watching a bit of Olympics coverage this morning: Apparently heptathlete Katerina Johnson Thompson did her achilles tendon in 2019 and recovered to become World Champion in 2023. Difficult to imagine a many bigger tests for the body than performing in a Heptathlon over two days in 7 different events.

So recovery to the highest level can be done, and we saw Ross on the pitch for us at the end of the Championship season. Clearly he's not going to be ready for the start of the season, but I don't think we should be writing off his chances of ever playing for us again either.

That’s good…….so RS should be okay by the 27/28 season possibly!!

[SNSUN]

On 06/08/2024 at 21:23, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

We know why. Buying a crock has worked before (eg. Danny Ings), so we bought this guy on an 'injured' discount hoping the plan would work again. I feel very privileged to have actually seen him live at one of his cameos at Huddersfield last year and he was very ordinary. Dibling's got more about him.

Hard to tell from such little game time... but when he came on against WBA in the play off first leg I thought he looked very direct like he wanted to score,  which a good striker should do.

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/30998/13134530/alex-mccarthy-makes-big-save-for-saints-before-alex-palmer-keeps-out-stewart

The concerns are of course his fitness and his lack of Prem experience but I don't think we should be completely writing him off just yet. He's only 28.

[Bad Wolf]

I have this funny feeling he's going to start against Newcastle. As a proper surprise. Ex-Sunderland striker...It's written in the stars I tell you!

[trousers]

13 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

I have this funny feeling he's going to start against Newcastle

There's a fair chance he could make it I reckon...

Edited August 10 by trousers

[northam soul]

2 minutes ago, trousers said:

There's a fair chance he could make it I reckon...

Nah I think he will be two weeks away from being ready to be seen still.

[ErwinK1961]

6 hours ago, SNSUN said:

Hard to tell from such little game time... but when he came on against WBA in the play off first leg I thought he looked very direct like he wanted to score,  which a good striker should do.

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/30998/13134530/alex-mccarthy-makes-big-save-for-saints-before-alex-palmer-keeps-out-stewart

The concerns are of course his fitness and his lack of Prem experience but I don't think we should be completely writing him off just yet. He's only 28.

Are you saying he’s not Finnish?

[CSA96]

In the spirit of keeping the thread updated...

 

[hypochondriac]

32 minutes ago, CSA96 said:

In the spirit of keeping the thread updated...

 

Clear as mud. 

[S-Clarke]

37 minutes ago, CSA96 said:

In the spirit of keeping the thread updated...

 

He has missed an entire pre-season, he will not play for us to any standard this season - pointless kidding ourselves otherwise.

A loan would be good for him,  as if we're honest - no one knows if he can play anymore.

Edited August 10 by S-Clarke

[Osvaldorama]

2 hours ago, CSA96 said:

In the spirit of keeping the thread updated...

 

Club has been saying this for over a year now. 
 

Joke of a signing 

[Hopper]

If he can get himself fit he offers us something we don't really have at the moment. I think there's a player there, he's looked good in the very small cameos he's made.

The whole situation is quite remeniscent of Danny Ings prior to him finding his fitness. Hopefully he comes good and stays fit.

[trousers]

2 hours ago, CSA96 said:

In the spirit of keeping the thread updated...

 

So, same as the last 53 updates then...,?

[AlexLaw76]

What an absolutely horrible transfer he was.

[Mr Saints]

I truly hope he can be a success, but at this point you’d have to say fucking Delgado was more useful.

[FarehamSaintJames]

10 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

He has missed an entire pre-season, he will not play for us to any standard this season - pointless kidding ourselves otherwise.

A loan would be good for him,  as if we're honest - no one knows if he can play anymore.

Let’s be honest we weren’t sure if he could play in the first place. Wasn’t he injured when he signed?

😂

[beatlesaint]

8 hours ago, Hopper said:

If he can get himself fit he offers us something we don't really have at the moment. I think there's a player there, he's looked good in the very small cameos he's made.

The whole situation is quite remeniscent of Danny Ings prior to him finding his fitness. Hopefully he comes good and stays fit.

The word "if" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. You're right but missing a whole pre-season isnt a great sign.

[Hopper]

2 minutes ago, beatlesaint said:

The word "if" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here. You're right but missing a whole pre-season isnt a great sign.

Agreed. More worrying is them not disclosing exactly what has been the setback. We’ve been snakebitten with a few real long term injuries between him Juan and Baz but players can/do recover eventually. Biggest question is what sort of player he will be when he finally does! 😬 

[beatlesaint]

1 minute ago, Hopper said:

Agreed. More worrying is them not disclosing exactly what has been the setback. We’ve been snakebitten with a few real long term injuries between him Juan and Baz but players can/do recover eventually. Biggest question is what sort of player he will be when he finally does! 😬 

Well thats the other issue. Getting fit enough to play is one thing but he's not Premier League proven so he could end up being totally out of his depth. I fear we'll never get the chance to find out one way or the other.

[Luke SkyWalker-Peters]

I'm really rooting for him. He was bossing the Championship with Sunderland before his injury. 10G and 3A in 13 games - so a goal contribution per game. He certainly looks capable of the Premier League if we can get him back fit.... Obviously "if" is doing a lot of work there.

I don't like how our fanbase has seemingly written him off. He has had one really bad injury that has derailed his career, but didn't have too many before that.

Terrible work by our medical, sport science and strength & conditioning teams to have done such a shit job of getting him back from his original injury. They did the same with Livramento. Both got really nasty hamstring injuries when trying to get match fitness back.

The club needs to be careful with him. His body composition will be imbalanced and vulnerable to re-injury having been out so long.

On face value a loan until January in a lower league would be good, but we need to be in control of his minutes. I think a lot of time building up fitness in the U21s carefully would be best. Not just 1 game then throw him back into the 1st team squad like last time. He needs to be playing 90 minutes for a number of U21 games before he can get onto the pitch in the Premier League IMO. And even then I'd be starting with 5 minute cameos in the PL for quite some time.

I really hope he recovers. It must be awful to be injured so long and watching your career slip away.

Also, I want him to come good as a £4.5m starting striker in FPL would be incredible for my team.

[Badger]

1 hour ago, Mr Saints said:

I truly hope he can be a success, but at this point you’d have to say fucking Delgado was more useful.

Scored a goal once as well. Not sure he knew too much about it at the time but it counted. 
What chances of Ross emulating this for us ? 

[SaintNewForest]

47 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Let’s be honest we weren’t sure if he could play in the first place. Wasn’t he injured when he signed?

😂

Sunderland were hoping he'd be back playing for them after last September's International break 😅

[James]

I thought the whole idea behind not rushing him back from his hamstring injury (which I think happened after the Hudds game in November) was so that he could have a full pre season it’s surely seen as a disaster that he hasn’t had a minute? It’s hard to see how he can go from no minutes in a non-competitive to being in a PL match day squad…

Getting Dean Ashton vibes here - ankle injury and just never made it back.

[James]

3 minutes ago, SaintNewForest said:

Sunderland were hoping he'd be back playing for them after last September's International break 😅

I wonder why they put that out there shortly before pocketing £10m from us 🤣

[Saint Billy]

God we have wasted some money on duds in the last few years.

[S-Clarke]

2 hours ago, Luke SkyWalker-Peters said:

I'm really rooting for him. He was bossing the Championship with Sunderland before his injury. 10G and 3A in 13 games - so a goal contribution per game. He certainly looks capable of the Premier League if we can get him back fit.... Obviously "if" is doing a lot of work there.
 

But those 13 games are all we have to go on, before that he'd never played above L1 level.

It could have been a freakish purple patch, carried on from the momentum of the year before, or he was actually good for Championship level. The fact is that no one actually knows if he is any good above L1. We spent £9m on someone who was injured and had very little exposure at a high level.

We dropped another almighty bollock with that signing, no two ways about it. If he comes good for us count me surprised, but in my eyes he's dead rubber for our needs at this level and we should not be counting on him.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

3 hours ago, Luke SkyWalker-Peters said:

I'm really rooting for him. He was bossing the Championship with Sunderland before his injury. 10G and 3A in 13 games - so a goal contribution per game. He certainly looks capable of the Premier League if we can get him back fit.... Obviously "if" is doing a lot of work there.

I don't like how our fanbase has seemingly written him off. He has had one really bad injury that has derailed his career, but didn't have too many before that.

Terrible work by our medical, sport science and strength & conditioning teams to have done such a shit job of getting him back from his original injury. They did the same with Livramento. Both got really nasty hamstring injuries when trying to get match fitness back.

The club needs to be careful with him. His body composition will be imbalanced and vulnerable to re-injury having been out so long.

On face value a loan until January in a lower league would be good, but we need to be in control of his minutes. I think a lot of time building up fitness in the U21s carefully would be best. Not just 1 game then throw him back into the 1st team squad like last time. He needs to be playing 90 minutes for a number of U21 games before he can get onto the pitch in the Premier League IMO. And even then I'd be starting with 5 minute cameos in the PL for quite some time.

I really hope he recovers. It must be awful to be injured so long and watching your career slip away.

Also, I want him to come good as a £4.5m starting striker in FPL would be incredible for my team.

Look at "written off" as a statement of reminding the club that they could be doing worse than expecting nothing from him for quite some time, and look to recruit on that basis.

Particularly as SR's history with us is to smugly tell us that the striker positions would be fine before we went into our relegation season. They then got caught out having not recruited for one manager they sacked only to recruit too late for the next manager they sacked with players that were no use to their next managerial choice, who has now also gone.

All while telling how smart and left field their innovative approach was. Fine to keep drip feeding that at some point in the near future, Stewart will be back. But not something I'd be basing the squad around happening.

He's not had the expected pre season, and will be eased extremely gently back in, if he comes back any time soon. The club updates aren't really helpful, and will be less so if we're struggling. He'll be back when he's fit, if at all for us. We'd not be the first club to have a player not recover. We'd be in a smaller group to buy the player while they're injured. But that's the left field SR way.

I'm sure everyone wishes him a full, and career lasting recovery. And that he goes on to be brilliant for us.

As a group, we're going into the season with BBD and AA as striking options, with Tall Pall and Mara not being direct fits into the way we play. I'd not be including Stewart in that group until he's getting back to match sharpness, with no recurrence/ new set backs. SR should be honest with themselves and recruit accordingly.

[gio1saints]

He is desperate to play and show why we bought him. 

Same time I feel he has possibly bought in too much to the club injury rehab & prevention doctrine and is possibly now over-cautious with himself.

 It’s a very fine line but if the medical team stress that his career might be over with another bad injury you can forgive someone being super cautious themselves if it’s their livelihood at stake. 

I think biggest challenge he has right now - and same with Adz, is mental not physical. 

Adam Lallana is possibly  bricking it at the thought that saints fans are expecting to see the old Adz - but he’s much older now and his Cruyff turn days are probably behind him. Technically he’s probably the best player we have - but physically he’s older and as for mentally, despite all his achievements, I  reckon he’s massively concerned about turning up and playing at SMS in front of 30k saints. Almost stage fright if you like. I saw him kick a ball in warm up at Eastleigh and since then he’s disappeared. That’s like a 3 week injury from just “ a niggle”. It’s mental not physical imo. 
Both players, imo, need massive fan support when they both reemerge PLUS a massive dose of downplaying expectations. Worse thing we could do is slag them off if they don’t deliver star quality straight away. Best thing is to treat them like human beings and encourage them to do whatever is their best at any given moment recognising it’s a pathway in the first matches - not the be all and end all day one. 

[AlexLaw76]

2 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

He is desperate to play and show why we bought him. 

Same time I feel he has possibly bought in too much to the club injury rehab & prevention doctrine and is possibly now over-cautious with himself.

 It’s a very fine line but if the medical team stress that his career might be over with another bad injury you can forgive someone being super cautious themselves if it’s their livelihood at stake. 

I think biggest challenge he has right now - and same with Adz, is mental not physical. 

Adam Lallana is possibly  bricking it at the thought that saints fans are expecting to see the old Adz - but he’s much older now and his Cruyff turn days are probably behind him. Technically he’s probably the best player we have - but physically he’s older and as for mentally, despite all his achievements, I  reckon he’s massively concerned about turning up and playing at SMS in front of 30k saints. Almost stage fright if you like. I saw him kick a ball in warm up at Eastleigh and since then he’s disappeared. That’s like a 3 week injury from just “ a niggle”. It’s mental not physical imo. 
Both players, imo, need massive fan support when they both reemerge PLUS a massive dose of downplaying expectations. Worse thing we could do is slag them off if they don’t deliver star quality straight away. Best thing is to treat them like human beings and encourage them to do whatever is their best at any given moment recognising it’s a pathway in the first matches - not the be all and end all day one. 

Is this a parody post?

[Whitey Grandad]

30 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Is this a parody post?

Aren’t they all?

[Chewy]

33 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

He is desperate to play and show why we bought him. 

Same time I feel he has possibly bought in too much to the club injury rehab & prevention doctrine and is possibly now over-cautious with himself.

 It’s a very fine line but if the medical team stress that his career might be over with another bad injury you can forgive someone being super cautious themselves if it’s their livelihood at stake. 

I think biggest challenge he has right now - and same with Adz, is mental not physical. 

Adam Lallana is possibly  bricking it at the thought that saints fans are expecting to see the old Adz - but he’s much older now and his Cruyff turn days are probably behind him. Technically he’s probably the best player we have - but physically he’s older and as for mentally, despite all his achievements, I  reckon he’s massively concerned about turning up and playing at SMS in front of 30k saints. Almost stage fright if you like. I saw him kick a ball in warm up at Eastleigh and since then he’s disappeared. That’s like a 3 week injury from just “ a niggle”. It’s mental not physical imo. 
Both players, imo, need massive fan support when they both reemerge PLUS a massive dose of downplaying expectations. Worse thing we could do is slag them off if they don’t deliver star quality straight away. Best thing is to treat them like human beings and encourage them to do whatever is their best at any given moment recognising it’s a pathway in the first matches - not the be all and end all day one. 

What are you talking about? Speak to Ross and you’ll discover he thought he was ok to play months ago; it’s not him being cautious, it’s the club. Or at least it was back in the spring.

Do you know any better? Or just making things up in your head and presenting it as a factual summary?

[gio1saints]

9 minutes ago, Chewy said:

What are you talking about? Speak to Ross and you’ll discover he thought he was ok to play months ago; it’s not him being cautious, it’s the club. Or at least it was back in the spring.

Do you know any better? Or just making things up in your head and presenting it as a factual summary?

@Chewy

I’ve not claimed anything above as a factual summary. I’ve deliberately and repeatedly suggested it’s possible.

I’m very much pro Both players and this is not an attack piece, as for your sarcasm - unnecessary. 

The situation in which two of our star players were unable to play all preseason without a clear medical diagnosis given inevitably raises questions in fan base. 
 

Is it the club being professionally cautious- or over-cautious? Are the players being professionally cautious - or over-cautious? Or a bit of both?  

I think there is such a thing as being psychologically rehabilitated as well as physiologically. I’m querying whether the former is the primary issue at this point. 
 

 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

1 hour ago, gio1saints said:

He is desperate to play and show why we bought him. 

Same time I feel he has possibly bought in too much to the club injury rehab & prevention doctrine and is possibly now over-cautious with himself.

 It’s a very fine line but if the medical team stress that his career might be over with another bad injury you can forgive someone being super cautious themselves if it’s their livelihood at stake. 

I think biggest challenge he has right now - and same with Adz, is mental not physical. 

Adam Lallana is possibly  bricking it at the thought that saints fans are expecting to see the old Adz - but he’s much older now and his Cruyff turn days are probably behind him. Technically he’s probably the best player we have - but physically he’s older and as for mentally, despite all his achievements, I  reckon he’s massively concerned about turning up and playing at SMS in front of 30k saints. Almost stage fright if you like. I saw him kick a ball in warm up at Eastleigh and since then he’s disappeared. That’s like a 3 week injury from just “ a niggle”. It’s mental not physical imo. 
Both players, imo, need massive fan support when they both reemerge PLUS a massive dose of downplaying expectations. Worse thing we could do is slag them off if they don’t deliver star quality straight away. Best thing is to treat them like human beings and encourage them to do whatever is their best at any given moment recognising it’s a pathway in the first matches - not the be all and end all day one. 

The club's medical team will be fully assessing their progress. In Stewart's case, possibly with Mr Insurer taking a close look.

Their reintroduction (only a couple of weeks away...apparently) will be gradual, and designed to mitigate any unexpected niggles or concerns.

I think it's very unlikely it's in their heads, and that they could/should run it off. That just increases the risk, which is exactly what this approach is designed to avoid. There's plenty of physical work being done to support the approach.

Lallana was brought in, in part, because of his big club experience. Again, very unlikely to be having stage fright about performing in front of us.

Expectations, I'd say, were minimal for either of them. We've brought in midfielders to compete along with Lallana. We've got 2 new forwards, and that still leaves a more centre forward berth for Stewart to claim as his own.

I think I get your points though. Long term/ recurring injuries can have an effect, mentally as well as physically on anyone.

It does no harm to remember that everyone should be treated as human beings, and we all want them to do well.

When they misplace their first pass, and hear the moans, then they be really back. 🙂

[gio1saints]

Thanks for getting it what I’m trying to say! 
WRT Adz- 
 You’d think Adz has got enough experience to not get performance anxiety but I suspect that he has it - he’s only human. Even if it’s not as much as a Sam Amo might have say. And that’s a good thing. Complacency coming back to SFC after being at Liverpool and England etc not what we want to see. And he knows that. But performance anxiety can come in disguise. Little niggles become not something you can run off but something you get off the pitch for treatment for example. 

With Adz he knows he has the big rep. But there must be a secret little voice of doubt saying can his body deliver what his class says he can/ or could?? So many questions as an elite athlete to answer - What are Saints Fc expectations versus saints fans expectations just one of them. 

They are very different for certain and that is the nub for me ( and maybe for Adz). Is his future just coming in off the bench sitting and recirculating the ball keeping possession or is he there to actually DO something aggressive? Tackle someone or Score goals even? What if he does try that and fucks up. Isn’t it safer to endlessly pass sideways? 
 

Saints showed performance anxiety in practice Saturday when in the time after player sent off our intensity dropped across the pitch. At that point the “ expectation” was for us to demonstrate our numerical superiority and sadly we could not do that in fact we failed at it. The second half bit better but  all the same when loaded up with that extra expectation - before match we mostly all thought we’d get beat don’t forget - the players faltered. This was a psychological loss not a tactical or strategy loss. I’m hopeful SFC have noted it - certainly RM has said as much - and believe v Forest we will be a different animal. A Tiger. 

[Weston Super Saint]

Just a couple more weeks....

[Weston Super Saint]

11 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

. This was a psychological loss not a tactical or strategy loss. 

Mumbo jumbo horseshit 

Not sure why you think it's relevant to a player who doesn't play, but hey ho.

 

[Tommy Mulgrew]

I think you should go for a walk in the rain, gio1saints.  It should do you the world of good.

[S-Clarke]

I find the whole Stewart thing a little perplexing really. We were told in December of 2023 that we can 'count him out' for the rest of the season, no need to put pressure on him. Then we start to hear that he may make it back for the playoffs, he does - around 20mins? That was on the pretence that it would allow him to go into pre-season with a bit of match conditioning behind him, and then attack pre-season to get up to speed.

He missed the entirety of pre-season. Not just the games, but even normal training. He hasn't been seen. 

He may well be back on the training pitch next week, but I won't hold my breath that we'll see him kicking a ball for us to any sort of level. Honestly feels like the club are covering all tracks for some sort of insurance claim here, acting like they've done everything they can not to rush him back etc.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Fuck me, I was only joking when I posted Rod Stewart will have more career  minutes on the St Mary’s pitch than Ross, but it looks like a sound prediction now…..

Edited August 19 by Lord Duckhunter

[gio1saints]

15 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Mumbo jumbo horseshit 

Not sure why you think it's relevant to a player who doesn't play, but hey ho.

 

Sry for long reply but subject deserves a proper hearing imo.
 

It does sound like nonsense - but it’s also Russell’s opinion. 

A lot of EPL teams use psychology/pyschologists - or what you might call mumbo jumbo. 
 

Not just for getting into players like Adz and RS heads positively after injury.
 

The goal we conceded v Newcastle for example. Russell identified that we had a throw in by KWP as original start point of the goal.Our intensity and movement  around it from relevant players dropped. Mentally we switched off.  Collectively. At same time as NUFC were conducting a high press. 

A bunch of small individual mental went to sleeps or mentally not fully alert shall we say by our players at EPL level and it’s a goal. And the three points ultimately. 

It was nothing to do with physical fitness. This goal originated with mental Inefficiency. 

There’s a piece online somewhere on X or The Athletic actually Demonstrating how our intensity and forward momentum DROPPED after we went a goal up. It dropped when the EXPECTATION level of us scoring ( and winning) had just gone through the roof.

Arguably it’s cos we don’t know how to play v 10 men- though that seems unlikely to me - these are professional footballers and RM is not a rookie manager either. Or NUFC are just so very good at defending. Yes I can buy that. 

But it’s equally arguable- and more convincingly imo , that we did not kill off a team we should have and maybe it was something in our heads. We conceded literally, a mental goal, and then did not find a way back. Thats why I called our defeat a psychological loss not a tactical loss. 

[Weston Super Saint]

19 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

Sry for long reply but subject deserves a proper hearing imo.
 

It does sound like nonsense - but it’s also Russell’s opinion. 

A lot of EPL teams use psychology/pyschologists - or what you might call mumbo jumbo. 
 

Not just for getting into players like Adz and RS heads positively after injury.
 

The goal we conceded v Newcastle for example. Russell identified that we had a throw in by KWP as original start point of the goal.Our intensity and movement  around it from relevant players dropped. Mentally we switched off.  Collectively. At same time as NUFC were conducting a high press. 

A bunch of small individual mental went to sleeps or mentally not fully alert shall we say by our players at EPL level and it’s a goal. And the three points ultimately. 

It was nothing to do with physical fitness. This goal originated with mental Inefficiency. 

There’s a piece online somewhere on X or The Athletic actually Demonstrating how our intensity and forward momentum DROPPED after we went a goal up. It dropped when the EXPECTATION level of us scoring ( and winning) had just gone through the roof.

Arguably it’s cos we don’t know how to play v 10 men- though that seems unlikely to me - these are professional footballers and RM is not a rookie manager either. Or NUFC are just so very good at defending. Yes I can buy that. 

But it’s equally arguable- and more convincingly imo , that we did not kill off a team we should have and maybe it was something in our heads. We conceded literally, a mental goal, and then did not find a way back. Thats why I called our defeat a psychological loss not a tactical loss. 

Still completely irrelevant on a thread about a guy that doesn't play.

[gio1saints]

You are right. I should have put the sports psychology stuff on a new thread. 

Let’s just hope RS and Adz injuries - whatever they are- cure fully and we see them on the pitch soon. 

[Lee On Solent Saint]

3 hours ago, gio1saints said:

You are right. I should have put the sports psychology stuff on a new thread. 

Let’s just hope RS and Adz injuries - whatever they are- cure fully and we see them on the pitch soon. 

Adz? Seriously? 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

12 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Sry for long reply but subject deserves a proper hearing imo.
 

It does sound like nonsense - but it’s also Russell’s opinion. 

A lot of EPL teams use psychology/pyschologists - or what you might call mumbo jumbo. 
 

Not just for getting into players like Adz and RS heads positively after injury.
 

The goal we conceded v Newcastle for example. Russell identified that we had a throw in by KWP as original start point of the goal.Our intensity and movement  around it from relevant players dropped. Mentally we switched off.  Collectively. At same time as NUFC were conducting a high press. 

A bunch of small individual mental went to sleeps or mentally not fully alert shall we say by our players at EPL level and it’s a goal. And the three points ultimately. 

It was nothing to do with physical fitness. This goal originated with mental Inefficiency. 

There’s a piece online somewhere on X or The Athletic actually Demonstrating how our intensity and forward momentum DROPPED after we went a goal up. It dropped when the EXPECTATION level of us scoring ( and winning) had just gone through the roof.

Arguably it’s cos we don’t know how to play v 10 men- though that seems unlikely to me - these are professional footballers and RM is not a rookie manager either. Or NUFC are just so very good at defending. Yes I can buy that. 

But it’s equally arguable- and more convincingly imo , that we did not kill off a team we should have and maybe it was something in our heads. We conceded literally, a mental goal, and then did not find a way back. Thats why I called our defeat a psychological loss not a tactical loss. 

There's certainly lots of interesting discussion points (probably complete conjecture, since we're not likely to know) about our team psychology.

We deliberately drop pace at times, favouring control over taking too many risks chasing or pushing a game. One player said the approach meant a major revision in how they were taught to play.

I'd argue that playing, and sticking to that possession style makes it more difficult to shift gears when we need to. We have done it, getting a number of late goals. Sometimes, we just can't make the switch.

Nathan's view that it's tougher against 10, come to mind too.

Style of play, mixed in with ability, adaptability and mentality making us unable to break down a team happy to let us have the ball.

But a bit removed now from Stewart, who I'm hoping will be the centre forward option that really helps to unlock such teams.

With Lallana (it took me 2 paragraphs to realise that's who Adz was 🙂 ), I guess all older players will go through the expected emotions as their career winds down. Insecurity over injury will be there too. Interesting that you say it can be a mentality to not kill off teams. That's one of the reasons he's here. To instill that belief in the squad, and show them what higher performance goals should be. So, very much working on pushing the squad mentality (and coaches too)

[pingpong]

Delgado was a star. Without him we would not have beaten peak arsenal, probably the best side we have ever beaten. He won the pen to go 2-1 up and then scored our 3rd.  It's a shame some of our fans didn't like him for some reason.