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Saints 2-0 Cardiff City - Match Thread


waylander
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Good performance, same intentions as every game this season including the Bristol City game, but Cardiff afforded us more space and we took advantage. Playing the way we do allows us to look that dominant when we are allowed, and control games and grind them down when we aren’t. Hopefully in those tougher moments people will understand why we are doing what we are doing and support the team. I think it’s great to watch.

As I posted after City I do think the Sulemana injury will be a blessing, we will be more effective and should allow Manning to play better too.

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25 minutes ago, SNSUN said:

We can't do much about the 3 teams above us, all we can do is keep trying to win and keep pace with them and hope they'll trip up at some point. We still have to play them 

Typical that the year we go down into the Championship there are four maybe five teams of similar quality. Keep waiting for Ipswich's bubble to burst but doesn't seem to be happening.

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27 minutes ago, SNSUN said:

We can't do much about the 3 teams above us, all we can do is keep trying to win and keep pace with them and hope they'll trip up at some point. We still have to play them so...

Agreed. Ipswich have a tough run of fixtures between now and Xmas - including a locsl derby. We just nerd to keep on winning. 

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5 minutes ago, Convict Colony said:

Expect the martin haters are too busy to be online tonight, expect to hear from them again when something bad happens.

harry potter GIF

I'm not a huge fan but I'm here. It's such an odd dick swinging competition on here with one side Vs the other when things go their way. It's weird. On Wednesday we were crap, conversely today we were good. It can be that simple.

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Just now, Greedyfly said:

I'm not a huge fan but I'm here. It's such an odd dick swinging competition on here with one side Vs the other when things go their way. It's weird. On Wednesday we were crap, conversely today we were good. It can be that simple.

This is true, one doesnt have to be right at the expense of others, agree we were crap v bristol but the way we got over the abysmal 4 losses in a row without even having a firing centre forward (arma inside right) means we still have room to grow.

Seemed to of limited the errors at the back as well and I actually prefer charles and downes in midfield.

 

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How do we pick a MOTM from that? Everyone was outstanding!! Manning's best game in a Saints shirt!

Gonna go for the obvious and say AA. His positioning both in and out of the ball was superb. The way he tracked back when the ball was lost and covered all sorts of ground and dictated the game was terrific.

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2 minutes ago, Convict Colony said:

This is true, one doesnt have to be right at the expense of others, agree we were crap v bristol but the way we got over the abysmal 4 losses in a row without even having a firing centre forward (arma inside right) means we still have room to grow.

Seemed to of limited the errors at the back as well and I actually prefer charles and downes in midfield.

 

Yeah the CF situation and Glass Stewart is a concern I think because it could come back to cost us later on in the season.  I do hope we have contingency in place for Jan but it's so bloody hard to find at that time of the year.  If only we had a CF out on loan we could recall...

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1 hour ago, RobJones1971 said:

Nice to win by a couple of goals. Seemed a comfortable victory. How have we played today?

Best two half performance if the season by far. 

1 hour ago, OttawaSaint said:

Enjoyable game that. Wish we could play like that in all games and not do that retreat and pass around crap that invariably backfires.

Hopefully RM is learning.

No offence intended but RM is TEACHING. The players are learning. That match was FULL of the  pass around crap that you found enjoyable. 

47 minutes ago, Saint Matty 76 said:

Manning very good as well in fact, after all the (somewhat deserved) worry about his selection

Best match for Saints - cut out his odd mistakes and made some good defensive interceptions and challenges. His haters must be fuming he didn’t fuck up but they may get satisfaction yet. It’s a long season and defensively it’s clear that lh side is still our Achilles heel.

What people miss though is that a major reason why opponents attack that flank  is because KWP is so good the opposition can generally only defend on his side of the pitch. 
 

He’s saints player of the season by miles imo right now. 


He looks more like an EPL player every week and must be nailed on for the championship team of the season already. 

Edited by gio1saints
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Best we’ve played this season. For a lot of this season our passing has lowered the tempo to walking football, becoming slow and ponderous. Today, for the first 30 minutes especially the tempo was excellent. Nobody was admiring their passes, as soon as they released the ball, they were on the move, creating some lovely one twos to get around the Cardiff defence. 

Manning, who I was critical of before the match had his best game for us. Perhaps the Swansea links were motivation. But, then even Mara looked good when he came on.

Shame to still be so far away from the automatics on this run, needs to be near perfect every week.

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19 minutes ago, Jonnyboy said:

Brrrr, a cold and misty one. Cardiff offered very little so hard to judge but I felt our passing was crisper and more accurate than earlier in the season. Also defensively more solid. Carry on like that and the Playoffs should be very achievable.

Would take a huge drop off to not make the playoffs.

We can definitely still get auto - our form so far is usually enough for that but Leicester and Ipswich have had unusually good starts.

I think we can definitely reel Ipswich in if we can keep up the kind of consistency we have shown since the end of the run of 4 losses.

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35 minutes ago, gio1saints said:

 

No offence intended but RM is TEACHING. The players are learning. That match was FULL of the  pass around crap that you found enjoyable. 

I'm not talking about passing around, but retreating and just aimlessly passing about. When we drop right off like that we don't look dangerous at all.

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Great team performance. 

Adam Armstrong the stand-out, not just for the goals but for working his socks off, but special mentions to Charles, Manning and Aribo, three players who have (quite rightly) taken some stick in the past but who all put in a great shift today. Aribo in particular looked a different player to the one who's previously been strolling about. 

On another day that's five or six nil, against a perfectly respectable side. Best performance of the season so far for me. 

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Quite simply a very good, polished performance all over the park … except for the second half in front of goal. Should really have been a couple more but churlish to be too critical. 
Only issue is that Cardiff offered so little it’s hard to know how good we were. I suspect we simply passed it so well we made them look ordinary but I still expected them to try something second half.

Vey good by Baz (sweeping header, distribution), and from all of the back line; even Manning.

Assured performances from Shea and Downes for the second game running. Average age of (I’m guessing) 20 and they just ran the midfield for a second championship game running in 3 days. That’s impressive.

Stu and Charlie both had decent games; largely good but occasional brain fart moments. Che wasn’t as bad as Wednesday and at least put a shift in but he’s lacking form, confidence and quite frankly ability.

ArmA justifiably motm. Couple of great finishes, excellent work-rate, a constant menace for 90 minutes. Totally professional attitude and disappointed he couldn’t muster the hat-trick he deserved.

Tactically, very good again. Somewhere between a 4222 and a diamond (Stu more advanced than Downes and Shea) which meant we could risk 2 attacking full backs. Manning had more space in front of him today so not surprising he looked better. I’m happy we have an option to play either a more attacking or a more defensive (Bree) left back depending on the circumstances, it’s a useful flexibility to have in the squad.

Subs were spot on, I thought. Briefly the game opened up and got stretched allowing them a bit of space to operate in; we removed Stu and Charlie, went 433 and barely let them have a touch of the ball for the next ten minutes, confirming the result. Even Mara (who until now I’ve thought of as a lazy, useless excuse for a footballer with a dreadful attitude) looked lively, full of running and almost competent.

Loads to like today - if we had the striker we need and should have we’d have at least doubled the score. Never going to blame Russ for that (recruitment teams fault) so a big pat on the back for him, the players and all the coaching staff; very good performance and result.

Edited by Chewy
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1 hour ago, Greedyfly said:

I'm not a huge fan but I'm here. It's such an odd dick swinging competition on here with one side Vs the other when things go their way. It's weird. On Wednesday we were crap, conversely today we were good. It can be that simple.

It's a weird one, I'd say we've been good for 11 games. We were good on Wednesday and won 1-0 because we were good. Today we were great and won 2-0, but it should have been 5 or 6. So you could say we weren't good. 

🙃🙃🙃

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Overall a brilliant performance, bar some terrible finishing in the last half an hour. The first 20 minutes was about as one sided as I’ve seen in a game of football, absolutely all one way traffic. After that we seemed to take our foot off the gas for the rest of the half. Second half, particularly after we bought on Aribo and Fraser, we were all over them once again and it really should have been four or five.

AA probably my MotM, he was everywhere, but how he didn’t net his hat trick with that first half header straight back across the goal at the keeper I’ve no idea. Aribo was excellent when he came in, could have set up three goals all by himself. Pretty much everyone excellent though, with a shout out to Manning and KWP in particular.

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  • Lighthouse changed the title to Saints 2-0 Cardiff City - Match Thread
29 minutes ago, Dusic said:

Would take a huge drop off to not make the playoffs.

We can definitely still get auto - our form so far is usually enough for that but Leicester and Ipswich have had unusually good starts.

I think we can definitely reel Ipswich in if we can keep up the kind of consistency we have shown since the end of the run of 4 losses.

We don’t want to finish second dull as fuck 

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My random thoughts:-

I thought that today was our most complete performance of the season. We were on top and in control for 90 minutes and very few mistakes. Every player including the subs played well. Difficult to pick a MotM......equally difficult to pick a weak link today. Ryan Manning takes a lot of stick....perhaps desevedly so at times....but he was excellent today....even Joe Aribo looked good when he came on. Despite what others say, I don't think that we played badly on Wednesday. First half left a lot to be desired but second half was much better. Seeing the way that we played today gives me hope that something good is happening at SMS despite the negativity in  some quarters. Onwards and Upwards!!!

Edited by miserableoldgit
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Proud fan watching that.

Adams is a fucking donkey while this Cardiff fan had this to say about us.

Re: SOUTHAMPTON v CARDIFF CITY. Match thread

I knwo they are at home but have to say they seem one of the best teams we have played...way better than WBA....maybe Leeds/Leicester better.
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10 minutes ago, jamesfp1 said:

It's a weird one, I'd say we've been good for 11 games. We were good on Wednesday and won 1-0 because we were good. Today we were great and won 2-0, but it should have been 5 or 6. So you could say we weren't good. 

🙃🙃🙃

Perspective is a funny thing.  I thought we were shit Wednesday, resorting to passing for possession stats.

 

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Great win and performance today :) everyone was outstanding today. We controlled the game from start to finish. Adam Armstrong was my man of the match today, scored two goals and his workmate was immense, tracking back and winning the ball back :) RM is building something very special :)

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Cracking performance and for those that weren't there, don't underestimate the weather today. Very cold, and I was concerned the mist could threaten the game. It was getting hard to pick out players at times. I'm sure that had an impact.

Two early goals put the game to bed. After that it was a case of keeping up the pressure without becoming vulnerable. They did that very well.

Adam Armstrong clearly MOTM. As others have observed he never stopped running. He really has started to fire on all cylinders.

Manning put a real shift in, way better than previous games.

I thought Che had a poor 1st half, looked very immobile. 2nd half much better and he was setting up attacks with good layoffs. Hopefully things will start to click for him.

Just have to keep up the pressure on Ipswich and Leeds. This battle is a long one.

 

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2 hours ago, Greedyfly said:

I'm not a huge fan but I'm here. It's such an odd dick swinging competition on here with one side Vs the other when things go their way. It's weird. On Wednesday we were crap, conversely today we were good. It can be that simple.

I agree. Convict should be out celebrating but he prefers to goad fellow fans. As you say dick swinging is more important. Today was good. Wednesday not so good but CC only has one gear. 

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A few beers thawing out in the pub after that one. That was the most complete performance under Martin by far, and should easily been five or six nil, genuinely. Played them off the park, Armstrong deserved a hatrick and Fraser should have had one. Extra marks for Bazunu for his kamikaze diving header clearance which threw their forward completely and Downes who should get an obe for services to recycling. Also the Saints fans did well today cheering on through the freezing fog, fuck me it was chilly. Impressive, improving Saints, keep it up and someone is going to get tonked! 

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2 hours ago, macca155 said:

I thought Che had a poor 1st half, looked very immobile. 2nd half much better and he was setting up attacks with good layoffs. Hopefully things will start to click for him.

Today gave me some optimism that with a run in the side, Che could get his form back

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4 hours ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

Typical that the year we go down into the Championship there are four maybe five teams of similar quality. Keep waiting for Ipswich's bubble to burst but doesn't seem to be happening.

It is bad luck.    Reasonably sure that Leicester, Leeds, Ipswich, Saints and WBA would have the measure of the likes of Luton, Sheffield U and Burnley.  There are going to be (at least) two unlucky sides remaining in the Championship at season's end - let's hope Saints aren't one of them.

Apart from the first half v Leeds, I can't remember a more complete performance from Saints this season.    The quicker movement, tempo and range of passing was great to watch.   Both Armstrongs were good; AA could have easily had four goals.   Once again impressed with the Downes/Charles midfield.    Fair play to Manning who was much improved.    The headed clearance from Bazunu was a highlight too.

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Best performance of the season. Never looked like losing (although they were pony). Only niggle is some of the finishing, should really have been 3 or 4. Manning outstanding, Both Armstrong were very very good as well, Charley & Charles the other two stand outs for me. We look far better with Charles & Downes instead of Smallbone.
 

Che Adams needs to look at AA & how he’s knuckled down & be brutally honest with himself. I don’t know if he’s sulking, but he should be tearing up this league. 

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Pretty much echo everything most have said. Best performance of the season and kept it up for virtually all of the game. Movement and passing were superb, finishing could have been better.

 Wonder whether these three game weeks suit us much more as the opposition has far less time to prepare a game plan to stifle us. I guess the fatigue factor also plays into our hands because we looked much stronger than Cardiff too.

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