Saints 1-1 Boro - Match Thread

[Galway saint]

ipswich have won so that’s that.

no team has a right to automatic promotion and this season is exceptional but to not even be in the mix for the last 8 games or so is pretty shit 

[Lighthouse]

5 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

ipswich have won so that’s that.

no team has a right to automatic promotion and this season is exceptional but to not even be in the mix for the last 8 games or so is pretty shit 

We are though, aren’t we. It’d be a brave man to bet on us but we’re not out of it.

[OttawaSaint]

Had a brainfart, for some reason thought game started at 3pm EST, not GMT. 

Missed it, kinda glad I did. Were Che's misses really bad?

[S-Clarke]

4 minutes ago, OttawaSaint said:

Had a brainfart, for some reason thought game started at 3pm EST, not GMT. 

Missed it, kinda glad I did. Were Che's misses really bad?

Don't bother watching it back, it was a bit of a bore-fest for the most part.

Yes, Che's misses were bad. He was in the 6 yard box on his own with just the keeper to beat with his first chance and missed.

Armstrong also guilty of missing two efforts in a congested penalty area.

[LaptopSaint]

1 hour ago, washsaint said:

I reckon Leicester will end up in 3rd....meaning two out of form teams (Saints and Leicester) and a streaking team like Norwich.

Does not bode well but we don't deserve promotion.

I think you’ve gotta hope Ipswich play Norwich in a brutal Old Farm play off semi and whoever wins collapses exhausted in the final against Saints. 

[OttawaSaint]

7 minutes ago, LaptopSaint said:

I think you’ve gotta hope Ipswich play Norwich in a brutal Old Farm play off semi and whoever wins collapses exhausted in the final against Saints. 

Have a feeling we'll choke in the semi though. We really struggle with closing out games.

[LGTL]

11 minutes ago, LaptopSaint said:

I think you’ve gotta hope Ipswich play Norwich in a brutal Old Farm play off semi and whoever wins collapses exhausted in the final against Saints. 

No chance we make the final. Absolutely nailed on to lose in the semi, regardless of who we play. 

[RedWillie]

1 minute ago, LGTL said:

No chance we make the final. Absolutely nailed on to lose in the semi, regardless of who we play. 

No we aren't 

[Galway saint]

7 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

We are though, aren’t we. It’d be a brave man to bet on us but we’re not out of it.

we are out of it after today 

to have any chance we would need to stop conceding goals and we show no signs of doing so

[Jimmy_D]

10 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

we are out of it after today 

to have any chance we would need to stop conceding goals and we show no signs of doing so

Is that the same way that Leicester were completely clear and not worth thinking about a few weeks ago?

[JustinR]

3 hours ago, SaintNewForest said:

Nah, a couple of Saints fans were booted out for trying to create an atmosphere by banging the advertising boards. 

I was near it and came out livid with them. They were acting like arses, winding the crowd up coz they got a bit of attention.

The stewards could've handled it better and the fans egging them on likely distracted the players a bit and they concede. I could see the players keep looking round. 

Ok they should be more professional but why would we even chance causing a distraction to our team. 

And our own fans cheering them on for 15 minutes was dumb.

Basically dumb all round and an unnecessary bit of self harm. Hope they are banned for rest of season we could do without the distraction 

[musesaint]

Why on earth does Russell Martin persist with Che Adams? He keeps starting him and he keeps failing to school goals. The few goals he has scored have come to him more or less on the goal line, where he even he can’t miss! Apart, of course, from today - where he managed to miss two completely open chances in exactly that position.

Unacceptable. Shouldn’t start another game this season but be kept on the bench for exceptionally desperate times! 

And no - despite what some people say he doesn’t even hold the ball up very well.

[Saint Gifford]

 

Plays offs it is I guess 

Edited March 29 by Saint Gifford

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

As this is written, Leeds are losing to Watford. Leicester lost today. Makes us conceding at the end all the more frustrating.

[Charlie Wayman]

35 minutes ago, musesaint said:

Why on earth does Russell Martin persist with Che Adams? He keeps starting him and he keeps failing to school goals. The few goals he has scored have come to him more or less on the goal line, where he even he can’t miss! Apart, of course, from today - where he managed to miss two completely open chances in exactly that position.

Unacceptable. Shouldn’t start another game this season but be kept on the bench for exceptionally desperate times! 

And no - despite what some people say he doesn’t even hold the ball up very well.

Wanna bet some clown will give him a new contract in the summer

[Saint Gifford]

Sorry, I don’t get to the ground as much as I would like. (Youngest plays at 3 pm Saturday)

I enjoyed today, ( Che 🤯🤯🤯) driving back though made me realise if we are going to lift the play off trophy need RM to ramp it up. He needs a lesson in positivity. 
 

Give Cameron Hughes a call and pay for his flight, we going to need that.

 

 

[Saint_clark]

1 hour ago, JustinR said:

I was near it and came out livid with them. They were acting like arses, winding the crowd up coz they got a bit of attention.

The stewards could've handled it better and the fans egging them on likely distracted the players a bit and they concede. I could see the players keep looking round. 

Ok they should be more professional but why would we even chance causing a distraction to our team. 

And our own fans cheering them on for 15 minutes was dumb.

Basically dumb all round and an unnecessary bit of self harm. Hope they are banned for rest of season we could do without the distraction 

I thought this watching the stream. The atmosphere disappeared and was replaced with jeering, chants of "wankers", "you don't know what you're doing", etc, it was obvious something was going on for 15 minutes and it coincided with the players stepping off the gas a bit. 

[Give it to Ron]

18 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

I thought this watching the stream. The atmosphere disappeared and was replaced with jeering, chants of "wankers", "you don't know what you're doing", etc, it was obvious something was going on for 15 minutes and it coincided with the players stepping off the gas a bit. 

You keep saying that it had no effect on players not shutting down crosses or leaving players unmarked on 6 yard line. 
They didn’t step off the gas we didn’t play with any for 80% of the game.

There is no justification for Adams misses you can’t blame that on crowd for piss poor stewarding. 
Had you been in the ground and not on a stream you would have seen it was obvious it wasn’t aimed at players we were winning why would they be shouting that then?

[saintstowin]

At the game today. I wish we'd tried a few over the top passes out wide or centrally, because these caused a few issues for Boro at times. But we hesitated to get it forward like that most of the game. 

Yes if we had a bit more luck we'd have scored again. Notwithstanding Che's misses. Leeds 2nd today a case in point, we didn't get a lucky break like that sadly. 

Comments about the noise and distraction. I was in the Chapel and it was ridiculous that just when we could have got the whole ground roaring (like when someone gets played into acres of space down the wing and the team charges forward), instead a vocal section cared more about someone being kicked out and abusing stewards. Whatever the injustice it definitely detracted from the atmosphere. Not why we didn't hold on, but unhelpful. 

[vectraman]

1 hour ago, Saint Gifford said:

Sorry, I don’t get to the ground as much as I would like. (Youngest plays at 3 pm Saturday)

I enjoyed today, ( Che 🤯🤯🤯) driving back though made me realise if we are going to lift the play off trophy need RM to ramp it up. He needs a lesson in positivity. 
 

Give Cameron Hughes a call and pay for his flight, we going to need that.

 

 

I’ll confess my ignorance. I had to look up Cameron Hughes. I assumed he was some footballer I’ve never heard of. Worse than that, he’s a nobody I’ve never heard of 🤔🤷‍♂️

[Saint_clark]

40 minutes ago, Give it to Ron said:

You keep saying that it had no effect on players not shutting down crosses or leaving players unmarked on 6 yard line. 
They didn’t step off the gas we didn’t play with any for 80% of the game.

There is no justification for Adams misses you can’t blame that on crowd for piss poor stewarding. 
Had you been in the ground and not on a stream you would have seen it was obvious it wasn’t aimed at players we were winning why would they be shouting that then?

I could tell on the stream it wasn't aimed at the players. It's still obviously going to be a distraction when the crowd stops chanting in support of the team and instead all react angrily to an incident in the corner of the ground. 

And there WAS a noticeable difference in the effort levels from the players during and after the incident. For large parts of the second half we were pushing forward and hitting them on the counter, that stopped. 

[SaintBobby]

Well, that was grim. Should have been out of sight by 65 mins. 

Also, Smallbone. Can anyone explain Smallbone to me? I don't hate him, but he is nowehere near out starting XI, surely?

Props to Captain Jack - he was bloddy excellent.

[Chez]

6 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

I could tell on the stream it wasn't aimed at the players. It's still obviously going to be a distraction when the crowd stops chanting in support of the team and instead all react angrily to an incident in the corner of the ground. 

And there WAS a noticeable difference in the effort levels from the players during and after the incident. For large parts of the second half we were pushing forward and hitting them on the counter, that stopped. 

Their goal had absolutely naff all to do with a ten second "wanker" chant and everything to do with us failing to keep the ball or pressure the opponent when they had it.

[Chez]

53 minutes ago, saintstowin said:

At the game today. I wish we'd tried a few over the top passes out wide or centrally, because these caused a few issues for Boro at times. But we hesitated to get it forward like that most of the game. 

 

I would argue it was the complete opposite. Our CBS tried it (long diagonal to Sulemana) four or five times, but Ayling cut them all out easily. Decent idea but poor execution. There was a lot of that today.

[Give it to Ron]

5 hours ago, Chez said:

Their goal had absolutely naff all to do with a ten second "wanker" chant and everything to do with us failing to keep the ball or pressure the opponent when they had it.

Agreed , Plus management making wrong subs he could have shut it down , put on Rothwell and Aribo given Bednarek 10 minutes not to get booked in gone 5 at back but it’s all to do with crowd. 
Missing the point that these two were trying to get fans going because the team were playing sterile walking football and a forward who couldn’t hit a cows arse with a banjo and flat performance 

Edited March 30 by Give it to Ron

[Mr X]

Still frustrated it was just so obvious the equaliser was coming today the commentators knew it the whole stadium knew it ust a matter of when! I think it would have been slightly more palatable if it had been a wonder goal or deflection that we could do nothing about but no a free unmarked header! 

[Whitey Grandad]

7 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Still frustrated it was just so obvious the equaliser was coming today the commentators knew it the whole stadium knew it ust a matter of when! I think it would have been slightly more palatable if it had been a wonder goal or deflection that we could do nothing about but no a free unmarked header! 

A 5ft 9 inch player unmarked on the penalty spot with a stooping header.

[austsaint]

1 hour ago, SaintBobby said:

Well, that was grim. Should have been out of sight by 65 mins. 

Also, Smallbone. Can anyone explain Smallbone to me? I don't hate him, but he is nowehere near out starting XI, surely?

Props to Captain Jack - he was bloddy excellent.

I doubt many will take up your question about Will Smallbone, and why he seems to be an automatic selection.  There's a solid base of praise for him on the forum which is hard to understand.   A steady mid-table  Championship midfielder who wouldn't get into the Leicester, Leeds or Ipswich starting line-ups.  Why ours?

Aribo has demonstrated, at Championship level, he is a much superior attacking midfielder, better at retaining possession and more dangerous in linking up with our front four.       Charles has shown himself to be a better holding mid, though far from the finished article.    If we are not promoted this season it's a valid question to ask of RM's team selection.   Why so much faith in Manning and Smallbone?

[Fabrice29]

4 minutes ago, austsaint said:

I doubt many will take up your question about Will Smallbone, and why he seems to be an automatic selection.  There's a solid base of praise for him on the forum which is hard to understand.   A steady mid-table  Championship midfielder who wouldn't get into the Leicester, Leeds or Ipswich starting line-ups.  Why ours?

Aribo has demonstrated, at Championship level, he is a much superior attacking midfielder, better at retaining possession and more dangerous in linking up with our front four.       Charles has shown himself to be a better holding mid, though far from the finished article.    If we are not promoted this season it's a valid question to ask of RM's team selection.   Why so much faith in Manning and Smallbone?

None of this is true though. That’s why Smallbone rightly starts.

[whelk]

I was a better player than that useless fucker Adams 

[whelk]

2 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

I thought this watching the stream. The atmosphere disappeared and was replaced with jeering, chants of "wankers", "you don't know what you're doing", etc, it was obvious something was going on for 15 minutes and it coincided with the players stepping off the gas a bit. 

It was at stewards in Kingsland/Northam 

[Saint_clark]

6 minutes ago, whelk said:

It was at stewards in Kingsland/Northam 

I fully understand that it wasn't aimed at the players. 

What i'm saying is that the crowd stopped chanting in support of the players and drew everyones attention to what was happening in the corner. The players were distracted by this, as multiple people have said they kept looking round to the corner. 

[austsaint]

31 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

None of this is true though. That’s why Smallbone rightly starts.

It's not true in your mind - it is in mine.   Truth and opinions are two different things. 

[LuckyNumber7]

1 hour ago, Saint_clark said:

I fully understand that it wasn't aimed at the players. 

What i'm saying is that the crowd stopped chanting in support of the players and drew everyones attention to what was happening in the corner. The players were distracted by this, as multiple people have said they kept looking round to the corner. 

I think what you're missing from not being there is that those two blokes had helped get the atmosphere going in the first place, something the jobsworth stewards obviously took offence to. Hence the fully merited reaction to them.

[Zorba]

Today was a missed opportunity. This is how I see it..

Baz. Flaps about too much but has good distribution. Good back-up option. We need a new keeper.

KWP. All good.

THB. All good.

Jack. Good back-up.

Bree. Good back-up RB. We need a decent LB.

WS. Not good enough. What is he? I don’t see an attacking midfielder. Aribo is no better. We need a new threat from this position.

FD. All good

Stu. Looks like he’s slowing down to me and runs at defenders less. We have no one else.

AA. All good in this league. Stick him in the middle.

Che. Not up to it. Sub.

Sulemana. Please start scoring soon. Move over to the right. You can fight it out with DB, the one who scores most goals wins.

Wee man. Should start every game. We look much more dangerous with him. Always determined.

RM. If we’re going to play Russball, we need to score more goals. Sort it out!

 

 

 

[east-stand-nic]

Pre-season prediction, I said we'd finish 9th. We have done much better than I thought. But I also said we will NOT go up under RM. We won't. We are where we are to some degree in spite of him and because the teams from around 10th down are poor. This style of football will not work in this league with players of this level.

[Saint_clark]

3 hours ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

I think what you're missing from not being there is that those two blokes had helped get the atmosphere going in the first place, something the jobsworth stewards obviously took offence to. Hence the fully merited reaction to them.

I'm not missing anything at all. I am not commenting on the rights or wrongs of the two lads or the stewards. All i'm saying is there was a noticeable difference in how the Saints players were performing while that was going on and as others have said, not just me, they were looking round to see what was going on. It was clearly a distraction that didn't help. 

Personally I think however heavy handed the stewards were being, the crowd would have been better off focussing on supporting the team. 

[Chez]

6 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

I fully understand that it wasn't aimed at the players. 

What i'm saying is that the crowd stopped chanting in support of the players and drew everyones attention to what was happening in the corner. The players were distracted by this, as multiple people have said they kept looking round to the corner. 

The crowd didn't stop chanting in support of players. There was no chanting on that period until the two guys got fans chanting... and then it stopped, with a very short burst of wanker wanker lasting maybe five seconds. The players weren't distracted at all. There was no noticeable difference in how they played. It had zero impact or bearing on the game.

[Chez]

3 hours ago, east-stand-nic said:

Pre-season prediction, I said we'd finish 9th. We have done much better than I thought. But I also said we will NOT go up under RM. We won't. We are where we are to some degree in spite of him and because the teams from around 10th down are poor. This style of football will not work in this league with players of this level.

I think it's worked ok this season because we have some pretty good players at this level. It won't work when the quality of players goes down. Whether that's as soon as next season, we shall see. Swansea without Flynn saw them freefall.

[JRM]

11 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

We are though, aren’t we. It’d be a brave man to bet on us but we’re not out of it.

FFS stop being a troll

[gammon cheeks]

7 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

None of this is true though. That’s why Smallbone rightly starts.

Aribo is a superior player to a Smallbone ...much more of a physical presence in midfield ..more of a goal threat ..more drive going forward....and actually sprints !   Smallbone very good technical player and can pass and pass and pass and that's why Martin loves him .

[Give it to Ron]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

The crowd didn't stop chanting in support of players. There was no chanting on that period until the two guys got fans chanting... and then it stopped, with a very short burst of wanker wanker lasting maybe five seconds. The players weren't distracted at all. There was no noticeable difference in how they played. It had zero impact or bearing on the game.

Come on someone watching on a stream knows far more than us actually being there and I was less than 100 yards away from it! Despite several saying it didn’t affect them and why would anyone shout wanker etc when we are winning? Our tempo never changed it was still bloody slow until Fraser got it.

There was no change in way we played from it and any blame in my eyes solely at management and players.

[Chewy]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

The crowd didn't stop chanting in support of players. There was no chanting on that period until the two guys got fans chanting... and then it stopped, with a very short burst of wanker wanker lasting maybe five seconds. The players weren't distracted at all. There was no noticeable difference in how they played. It had zero impact or bearing on the game.

Sorry but that’s just not true. The specific “wanker” chant might have only been a few seconds but the whole incident lasted a good few minutes. “Getting sacked in the morning”, “don’t know what you’re doing” some other song … That entire corner were chanting at the stewards when Boro almost scored and would have missed it. Whole thing was bizarre and quite frankly tin pot. I’d expect that from Pompey fans, I’d hope for better from our own.

The atmosphere was fine, that 5 minutes distracted the entire stadium and did filter onto the pitch. You probably didn’t notice because you were too busy being angry at people who had nothing to do with the actual game. You know, the game we needed to win, the game we should be supporting our players in.

Fucking tin pot.

To be clear, the stewards were probably wrong. And more relevant to our defeat were misses by Che, bit of bad luck and poor substitutions not managing the game well. But the incident in the corner didn’t help and added to the unease all around the ground at a critical stage in the game, and quite frankly our season. The game should have been over but it wasn’t and the crowd in the corner were a hindrance, not a help at this stage. Irrespective of whether the stewards were wrong.

Grow up.

[BallBoy]

That's promotion gone in my opinion. In a heartbeat. Pathetic goal but typical. On balance, I don't think we have the mental strength to get an automatic place or win the play offs. We live in hope but it is fading fast.

[Wade Garrett]

8 hours ago, Saint_clark said:

I fully understand that it wasn't aimed at the players. 

What i'm saying is that the crowd stopped chanting in support of the players and drew everyones attention to what was happening in the corner. The players were distracted by this, as multiple people have said they kept looking round to the corner. 

That’s on the players then.  Should not be distracted by that.

[for_heaven's_Saint]

[austsaint]

1 minute ago, for_heaven's_Saint said:

Has to be said - that was an awful miss.  Photographic evidence is damning.

[Galway saint]

2 hours ago, Chez said:

I think it's worked ok this season because we have some pretty good players at this level. It won't work when the quality of players goes down. Whether that's as soon as next season, we shall see. Swansea without Flynn saw them freefall.

‘ok’ is about right. it’s a valid question about what Russball can achieve.

in his defence he hasn’t been given a proper striker at number 9 but i feel this season is his best chance as next will be a very different team.

i dont see why we can’t win the play offs but our form since February has been very ordinary.

when was the last time we  had proper control in a game ? maybe west brom. it’s crazy really given the amount of possession but it reflects the fact that we are very vulnerable without the ball. maybe that’s down to the 4-3-3 he plays. 

[CB Fry]

4 minutes ago, Galway saint said:

‘ok’ is about right. it’s a valid question about what Russball can achieve

No higher than 13th in L1 with MK Dons and 10th with Swansea. Nowhere near the play offs any time. Defensive record at Swansea was absolutely appalling.

We are much weaker than the sum of our parts this season, because of the manager. Next season we will have weaker "parts". So let's see.

Still perfectly possible for us to nick promotion at Wembley though. Let's hope we do it.

Edited March 30 by CB Fry

[Fabrice29]

1 hour ago, gammon cheeks said:

Aribo is a superior player to a Smallbone ...much more of a physical presence in midfield ..more of a goal threat ..more drive going forward....and actually sprints !   Smallbone very good technical player and can pass and pass and pass and that's why Martin loves him .

 

8 hours ago, austsaint said:

It's not true in your mind - it is in mine.   Truth and opinions are two different things. 

It’s literally not true Aribo is more of a goal threat. Smallbone has more goals and more assists. He also creates more chances per game and has more shots per game than Aribo. 
 

So yeah truth and opinions are two different things but just to reiterate Smallbone is literally a bigger goal threat than Aribo when he’s on the pitch.