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Saints 1-2 Millwall - Match Thread


ErwinK1961
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1 minute ago, Dman said:

They played 3 lumps at CB to our single lone forward. Is it any wonder we didn’t have more success?

A decent coach might have more success pitting his wits against a defence consisting of 3 lumps at CB. It's hardly rocket science. Quite damning really.

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Aimlessly playing out from the back at walk speed, allows Millwall to get 11 behind the ball, no space to play behind them, no centre forward, 1 save from their keeper 2nd half, and at the end we are still playing walking football. Load of knob. 
Offered nothing, got nothing. 
Turgid Saints, down to you RM. 
 

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12 minutes ago, washsaint said:

Devoid of ideas, devoid of fight, devoid of a plan B.  

Weird team selections, weird subs, really need a reset.  Right now, Saints look like a shambles in all areas of the pitch with no threat.

The Rothwell loan signing was a strange one - why did we not keep Alcaraz?

Good question!!

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1 hour ago, JRM said:

I actually agree, he's fucked it. 

Scar tissue well and truly back 

I don't actually think he should go but I have never believed the tactics he wants to use, even when we were using them successfully, would keep us up in the Prem. We'd get torn apart unless we managed to somehow sign 5-6 £50million players.

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Russell Martin needs to focus his attention managing the team rather than constantly berating the 4th official. Fecking embarrassing today. He goes on about bravery but that comes down to him.

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Just now, badgerx16 said:

I'm starting to feel that that unbeaten run flattered us, and put us in a false position.

of course it did. Even Martin was saying recently that we dropped too many points in that run, and it will mean nothing if we do not go up

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Just now, badgerx16 said:

I'm starting to feel that that unbeaten run flattered us, and put us in a false position.

Starting to feel? It was bloody obvious. We drew way too many and stole a a couple in the final minute due to having better players than everyone else.

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1 minute ago, SNSUN said:

Well I decided not to follow the game today, dug out the Wii and played Skyward Sword.

Is that what you young 'uns call it these days.

That was awful again (I actually managed to miss the 1st goal trying to get a stream going). So now we know, we really are a one-man team. How will then pan out next season in the Championship when he has gone back to West Ham? At least we probably won't have Sulemana.  End of Jack Stephens unbeaten run this season, actually thought he did some good things attacking-wise, but none of it came to anything while we pissed around in the area trying to get the perfect pass/shot on goal. Commentators missed Fraser getting injured after the ref had blown for a foul, thought he had just felt something, could be a big miss. So, play-offs it is (confident we can still make them, but not confident about beating Ipswich or Hull.

Could be embarrassing against Scousers on Wednesday

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Just now, Saint_clark said:

I don't actually think he should go but I have never believed the tactics he wants to use, even when we were using them successfully, would keep us up in the Prem. We'd get torn apart unless we managed to somehow sign 5-6 £50million players.

And Pep.

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Probably just waiting a few months for the (inevitable) play-off defeat now. 

This should be the end of the Martinball experiment. Do we get rid of him now or wait till May.

Next season likely to be horrible on a Poortvliet / Wotte scale

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2 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

I don't actually think he should go but I have never believed the tactics he wants to use, even when we were using them successfully, would keep us up in the Prem. We'd get torn apart unless we managed to somehow sign 5-6 £50million players.

This is why I was talking about burnely and their adoption this season, they are getting destroyed more than katie price's car insurance

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1 minute ago, Neil said:

Probably just waiting a few months for the (inevitable) play-off defeat now. 

This should be the end of the Martinball experiment. Do we get rid of him now or wait till May.

Next season likely to be horrible on a Poortvliet / Wotte scale

Wait the bloke who took on a club record run should get sacked !! I think its more likely someone who owns a small team takes a risk on him from the premier league

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I'd rather have a wobble now, sort our shit and turn up for the play offs than get pipped and fizzle out. At least this way we have time to turn it around. We're still a good side that has played some lovely stuff this season.

Admittedly I'd also rather we win every game until the end of the season and go up automatically.

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Seems Russ has been rumbled and he is perhaps a one-trick pony.  Haven't seen any signs of us trying anything other than the walking football with passes going sideways and backwards just to make sure we retain the ball. We sang his praises during the long unbeaten run and rightly so but the sign of a good coach is what he does when adversity comes knocking. Well, not much is clearly the answer. 

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I feel Millwall had a bit more grit steel and determination. Didn't mess around with the tackles straight in tough tackling.  You could see this caused a few of our lads hesitation and nerves. 

The thing that really frustrates me about this style of football at time is lack of urgency to go for the jugular. What I mean by this is we seem to get into the opposition half / box and it's this turgid sidewards patient build up. 

I'm sat thinking take risks play more direct get through balls in the box or get the wingers running with the ball more direct into the box. 

Weaknesses lack of creativity and bollocks in the team we need a Romeu hard bastard enforcer  type to break up the play.... 

 

Edited by ally_uk
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Just now, saintant said:

Seems Russ has been rumbled and he is perhaps a one-trick pony.  Haven't seen any signs of us trying anything other than the walking football with passes going sideways and backwards just to make sure we retain the ball. We sang his praises during the long unbeaten run and rightly so but the sign of a good coach is what he does when adversity comes knocking. Well, not much is clearly the answer. 

Bro he's been in the championship for a few seasons, he would of been rumbled earlier than season 3.

Players being shit, a tale as old as time.

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4 minutes ago, John Boy Saint said:

Said it the other night - things went awry after beating Watford in the cup. Let’s get the circus out of the way Wednesday.

It went tits up when Downes got injured and Martin refused to play Charles. Might not have won anymore, but we wouldn’t have shipped 2 a game. 
 

poor management.

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Well that was a bit insipid!

5 points is a tough turnaround, especially given our comparative goal difference.

I've really enjoyed this season though. It's a shame our run has ended with three defeats in quick succession, we were looking pretty unstoppable until a this period.

I'll stop with the crass and bolshy predictions now, which although tongue-in-cheek, have limited substantiation currently.

Let's try and bounce back next game. Two defeats on the trot - ouch!

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2 minutes ago, ally_uk said:

I feel Millwall had a bit more grit steel and determination. Didn't mess around with the tackles straight in tough tackling.  You could see this caused a few of our lads hesitation and nerves. 

The thing that really frustrates me about this style of football at time is lack of urgency to go for the jugular. What I mean by this is we seem to get into the opposition half / box and it's this turgid sidewards patient build up. 

I'm sat thinking take risks play more direct get through balls in the box or get the wingers running with the ball more direct into the box. 

Weaknesses lack of creativity and bollocks in the team we need a Romeu hard bastard enforcer  type to break up the play.... 

 

Lots of good points here.

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5 minutes ago, coalman said:

I'd rather have a wobble now, sort our shit and turn up for the play offs than get pipped and fizzle out. At least this way we have time to turn it around. We're still a good side that has played some lovely stuff this season.

Admittedly I'd also rather we win every game until the end of the season and go up automatically.

Nah mate, this isn’t just a blip. He’s coached any progressive intent out of them and we’ve been properly worked out. We won’t put a meaningful run together from here 

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12 minutes ago, Dman said:

Starting to feel? It was bloody obvious. We drew way too many and stole a a couple in the final minute due to having better players than everyone else.

Easier said in hindsight, Dman. We were pretty unstoppable during that run.

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Only small silver lining i can think of, is that playoffs are basically assured, so if we're going to miss automatics maybe its better to have a blip now and sort it all out. The alternatives would be to potentially burn ourselves out chasing automatics only to lose form going into the playoffs, or potentially lose out on the final day.

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17 minutes ago, Totton Saint said:

why on earth when we are behind with time running out do we persist in futile sideways and backwards passes including to Baz?  Do't they no where

the goal is?

Exactly! 'URGENCY'.  Bollocks, I'm sick of pointing out the f'ing obvious.

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3 defeats in 4 as the unbeaten run becomes a memory hurtling into the distance.

I only caught the second half, but much the same as previous draws and defeats.

A fair bit more possession, more so with Millwall ahead. More efforts on goal, but not able to capitalise enough on them to get the result.

Other things we’ve seen before is how much we miss Downes. Charles clearly isn’t fancied as his replacement at present to give us a specialist DM. Stephens today was given a different role. Previously we’ve seen him come forward, allowing Smallbone to sit a bit deeper and support another DM. Without either Downes or Charles, this doesn’t seem to be working.

With Adams and Aribo playing, we certainly should have offered more opportunities to get the ball up, and hold it, pushing it back. But we didn’t take advantage of that, relying on passing it around, allowing Millwall to reset and hoping that *then* we could try and pass round them.

Rothwell is a player where whatever good things he’s brining in, are offset by the passes going astray, losing possession, not being in the right place or at the right tempo.

We rely on turning our possession into moving teams around, creating space for chances, that we need a fair number of to be certain of the win. Millwall, ahead already, were fairly compact, only tiring later to give us some chances.

Sule offered some attacking threat. But we don’t really play a system that allows us to capitalise on his pace consistently. So, he’s often pushed into other parts of his game that aren’t as strong. Alcaraz was in the same boat there.  

AA had a couple of chances when he came on. But none in areas where he’s strongest.

When we don’t get a point, we can pretty much always look to the system. We can point out the lack of tempo, the risk aversion which means that we never go for the jugular. The passing that allows opponents to reset, rather than forcing them back and into making errors. Martin’s only too well aware of that, from September interviews. His system hasn’t changed majorly in that time and it’s the same improvements that need to be progressed.

We managed to put together a long unbeaten run. Today, Baz got nowhere near a ball and we pulled someone back for a penalty. 2 errors, that changed the game. A game that, with the above flaws, we struggled and ultimately failed to get a result from. Martin will be frustrated, and showed it on the touchline. It will be more tweaking of the same approach to try and turn things round, and get us back into contention.

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19 minutes ago, Totton Saint said:

why on earth when we are behind with time running out do we persist in futile sideways and backwards passes including to Baz?  Do't they no where

the goal is?

I think they're hoping to draw out the opposition, who they're hoping will press higher up and leave space consequently.

Problem is, teams either aren't doing that, or if they are, we're not taking advantage of the gaps because we're a) not progressing it quickly enough up the pitch with our passing and b) not making the runs needed off the ball to make further pockets of space or drive into them.

Insipid is the word.

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I'm absolutely devastated after that one. I didn't expect that, I thought we'd react as I believed we had the mentality right this season - looks like I was wrong.

Taking it back to the start, the line up confused me a little - but the players positions when we started the game just baffled me. I'm not entirely sure what we were trying to do and it didn't feel as if the players were too sure either. It feels as if we're trying to overcomplicate it and be too clever to over-compensate for other deficiencies. For me, we should have started with Charles and Smallbone with Stephens at LB - keep KWP at RB. Football is a simple game, when you start to get too clever it will more than often go tits up.

I'm very confused as to why we switched KWP to the left, it made us very unbalanced and slowed us down as he was continuously having to cut back onto his right foot - but Stephens role was confusing as hell. In defence when we didn't have the ball, but playing as a DM, CM, AMC when we had it. It was stupid and confusing and the team had no structure because of it. Saying all that though, when we went 1-1 we had them on the ropes I felt - needed to get them there and then, but we didn't play with enough purpose.

Now, where the fucking fuck do you start with that second half? That is as bad as we have played all season. Inept, toothless, slow, no movement, no bravery, no running - it was absolutely diabolical and the players heads have collectively dropped, you could tell through their body language. Why are they still so fragile mentally? I thought Edozie for the time he was on the pitch was bad, S.Armstrong got tired very quickly (which is a common theme) and Brooks was popping up everywhere but with no real purpose at the end of it (it feels like his inclusion has unsettled us a little bit). It does take some going  to have someone like Brooks make the team look worse though.

The subs in the second half made no impact at all - Adam Armstrong was unlucky with the header, but we had no real structure and couldn't get the ball to him. Rothwell struggled to control the ball and didn't seem to have a set position to play either. And Sulemana does not suit this team, much in the same way as Charly - although as a sub he does need to do a hell of a lot more.

I'm not sure where we go from here. 6 points behind now, it's a tall order - we have to pretty much win every single week now. I called us mentality monsters a few weeks ago when we came back against Huddersfield, but that seems to have been a fluke. A criticism labelled at us during our PL years was that the heads drop when the going gets tough. I thought we'd got over that, but seemingly not. The going has got really tough now and they've collectively wilted. The demeanour of the players is all wrong.

The unbeaten run was terrific, you can't take that away from them at all. But having that sort of run (once in a lifetime thing) and achieving nothing at the end of it is a very saints thing to do. We had very fine margins of error because of our September and we did well to bring ourselves back into the conversation - but we should have had enough to say there, not just wilt away before Spring.

We'll go on another run before the end of the season for sure, but we've left ourselves with far too much to do now. Playoffs it is and for a team that has collectively wilted like they have, you worry about how they'll cope with the pressure of those 3 games. As it stands I can't see how they will.

Edited by S-Clarke
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