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Stoke 0-1 Saints - Match Thread


Lighthouse
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Won ugly today. Good result but not a great performance tactically given the relative quality of the teams and their injuries. A one off free kick and no var gave us those points. Should be good for team spirit though!! Does feel like the attackers are starting to gel as a team at least.

Good performances by TBH, Baz, KWP, Downes, Stu, and Adam tonight. Gritty and shone when they needed to. Alcaraz made a couple of very nice passes. Sulemana threatened but needs to deliver more and no tracking back.

Edited by Saint86
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1 minute ago, SNSUN said:

Fisticuffs

should help forge some more team spirit. Lovely.

Deserved win. Better side. Got to do more with break opportunities. Like what I see with Sulemana. Managed well and he could be a real difference maker.

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1 minute ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

Ooh handbags - good, that’ll help to build team spirit even more. Deserve the win and the clean sheet. A bit ugly, but that’s needed in this league.

Agree about the team spirit thing. It does look really very good now, and you can’t beat a punch up for bonding

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1 minute ago, Turkish said:

Should have had another 1 or 2 really. Defended well again. Maybe this team has gone and grown so balls

I don't want to be negative, but Stoke are a really poor side, with lots of injuries.

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Well... Good to know we can win ugly. That was a far from enoyable watch, but GTFI!!

If we shouldn't have had it put to bed already, Mara blowing that chance wide was the decider of how the last fifteen went. Unforgiveable. Lad is miles off it.

Looking a different outfit at the back though, and that is surely down to THB and the Polish Maldini. What a partnership they could become. Can't see a way back for Stephens at this rate.

Shea Charles is a Rolls Royce in the making. Loved how he instantly got a hold of that midfield, where Smallbone had been getting overrun.

Massive result and blow me.........a clean ******* sheet!!

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Massive win but we got away with it. They should have had a pen for sure although ref bad in general. 

Who still thinks we should sack Martin? ;)

We don't look fantastic do we? However the improvement we needed to see is happening. Keep this up we could play our way into automatic places still 

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Ref was so biased to be fair. Not ever seen a ref favour us like that before. 
 

But I will take it. Hopefully gives us something to build on. 
 

I will try and stay positive, as on the whole I still thought it was a pretty poor performance. But if we can grind out wins it doesn’t really matter. I thought Downes was class 

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Just now, ScandiSaint said:

Massive win but we got away with it. They should have had a pen for sure although ref bad in general. 

Who still thinks we should sack Martin? ;)

We don't look fantastic do we? However the improvement we needed to see is happening. Keep this up we could play our way into automatic places still 

We don't, but we're not playing suicidal football anymore which is the main thing.

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An ugly win. Can’t remember the last one.

A clean sheet - nope, can’t remember that either.
Wouldn’t want to watch that every week but exactly the sort of result and performance we’ll need at times in this league, and not something we looked capable of a couple of weeks ago.

Well done and keep it up!

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Hahaha, enjoyed that, even if it was far from convincing. We had to battle for that and it was the first time in ages we've shown a bit of fight, both during the match and after the full time whistle. First clean sheet since March too!

Not sure why the commentary team kept harping on about the Downes contact as being a penalty, it wasn't The Bednarek rugby tackle probably should have been, but then Johnson could've received two yellows, not sure how he got away with hacking KWP down, the ref played advantage and forgot to get his cards out once the ball was out of play before his later yellow. Then their right-back Hoever, who isn't very good could have received two yellows also. He also pulled on Sulemana every time he was beaten, which was quite a lot. So, probably evens out.

Shame the attacking subs were a bit crap.

But, we'll take it! Expect another physical, scrappy game against Rotherham on the weekend. Up the Saints!

 

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An ugly win. Can’t remember the last one.

A clean sheet - nope, can’t remember that either.
Wouldn’t want to watch that every week but exactly the sort of result and performance we’ll need at times in this league, and not something we looked capable of a couple of weeks ago.

Well done and keep it up!

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Just now, HarvSFC said:

Hahaha, enjoyed that, even if it was far from convincing. We had to battle for that and it was the first time in ages we've shown a bit of fight, both during the match and after the full time whistle. First clean sheet since March too!

Not sure why the commentary team kept harping on about the Downes contact as being a penalty, it wasn't The Bednarek rugby tackle probably should have been, but then Johnson could've received two yellows, not sure how he got away with hacking KWP down, the ref played advantage and forgot to get his cards out once the ball was out of play before his later yellow. Then their right-back Hoever, who isn't very good could have received two yellows also. He also pulled on Sulemana every time he was beaten, which was quite a lot. So, probably evens out.

Shame the attacking subs were a bit crap.

But, we'll take it! Expect another physical, scrappy game against Rotherham on the weekend. Up the Saints!

 

Reminded me of Kelvin Davis' game away at Leeds. Not because of the goalkeeping performance but because it was the kind of tough midweek away game where you have to fight for the points if you want to challenge in this issue

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Love it, fuck Stoke, horrible side. Apart from that penalty decision from the Bednarek tackle I actually thought the ref got everything pretty much spot on. Don’t get me wrong I’d hate to be on the other end of a performance like that and I’m annoyed that the narrative will be all about the ref. Amazing to get an ugly win after Saturday, suddenly things feel a little better.

Wonder if we’ve got a striking coach among the back room staff: we miss so many chances game after game. What’s Beatts up to these days.

Edited by bpsaint
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Positives - Bazunu, the whole back line apart from Manning, Downes and Alcaraz.

Negatives - Manning, Smallbone both poor again, Mara useless when he came on.

Don't think Martins subs helped things.

Gritty performance. Really liking the look of Bednarek and THB as a partnership.

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2 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

Ref was so biased to be fair. Not ever seen a ref favour us like that before. 
 

But I will take it. Hopefully gives us something to build on. 
 

I will try and stay positive, as on the whole I still thought it was a pretty poor performance. But if we can grind out wins it doesn’t really matter. I thought Downes was class 

Not sure he was biased. Stoke continually made niggly fouls and their crowd howled every time we received a free kick. It looked worse than it was because they made so many fouls.

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Just now, Lighthouse said:

Really? I saw a dirty, niggly side who knew they would be outclassed, committed lots of fouls and the ref. Didn’t buy their protests.

Agreed. Thought he was pretty on it. Stoke were just committing a lot of cynical or late fouls

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Just now, Harry_SFC said:

Positives - Bazunu, the whole back line apart from Manning, Downes and Alcaraz.

Negatives - Manning, Smallbone both poor again, Mara useless when he came on.

Don't think Martins subs helped things.

Gritty performance. Really liking the look of Bednarek and THB as a partnership.

Don’t get the criticism of Mara (other than the finish), thought he did well otherwise, showed more than adams has of late in that move alone.

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