:saints: Saints v Leicester :leicesterfc: (PL)

I’m in :grin: Burn 'im and Eddie Needswecki and someone to blame!

Suddenly Claude Puel doesnt seem such a bad coach

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Well, that was grim. About the only positive I could see was some crisper one-touch passing in midfield, but that was followed by the usual toothless attack/comedy defending. A long season beckons…

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If it was passing crisps and not crisper passing @Fatso would have been involved

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& stark bollock naked apparently

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Thanks for that image.

A worrying aspect of yesterday was half time. Until then, our wide players were looking really effective. Clearly Puel did something that tightened up Leicester and we had a less effective outlet.
Puel changed something. When has any Saints manager done that these past 3 seasons.
24 points lost from winning positions in 2018.
Every stat about us atm is awful.
Do not think Yoshi/Bednarek are fully fit yet
Armstrong had a knock so did not start. Gabbi failed a fitness test.
Not sure what other team Hughes could have picked.
God it is depressing

My pleasure

No charge.

match against Burnley or Everton (can’t remember) when Hughes went from 5 at the back to 4. This season.

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I’d like to see a bit more of this from Hughes:
https://twitter.com/DirtyFootbaIIer/status/1033723752054489088

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A sensible write up from TUI. It’s such a shame the forum there is dominated by twats

Its the same old same old, we’re still not winning games we should, 24 points lost from winning positions since the start of 2017/18, its the same shit but rehashed.

Are you talking about your posts?

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Doesn’t make it wrong, similar to our excuses in always pointing to defeats.

Agree with a lot of that but the stuff about being a bit more like the side we were a few years ago was premature in the extreme.

Like you after half a pint and a bit of lipstick.

Perhaps better wording would be that we are finally not looking like the side of the last 2 years?
:roll_eyes:

Dunno, “We’re scoring more goals, a couple of players have hit some form, but we line up either 4-4-2 or with 5 at the back and no longer press high and as a team” would be closer to the truth.

On Saturday we played much of the game with a back line of Vestergaard and Hoedt, with Lemina dropping deep as a third defender much of the time. This allowed the full backs to push forward a lot more, also giving greater freedom to Redmond and Elyounoussi. We did press Leicester; not to the extent that we did under Pochettino, but a lot more than we’d been doing for the past couple of seasons.

I liked the way we were set up and the way we executed the plan. We should have had a draw at the least from that game, but it was a somewhat familiar story of failing to take chances that we created, then falling to a real sucker punch.

If we continue to play as we did on Saturday I’ll be pretty happy. It was far better to watch than we were for all of last season, and a lot of the one before. I’d also stick my neck out and say that if we do carry on in that vein we’ll win more than we lose. That’ll do for me.

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Flyd, my response was to the Ugly’ article saying we were more like the team from a few years ago.

We weren’t. We’re unrecognisable in formation and appraoch.

I don’t agree we pressed as a team more at all throughout the game. We had a good spell in the first half where, as is their plan, Leicester defended deep.

When Leicester players came into our individual players’ zone they pressed with energy.

Some individuals really came to the fore and we dominated for large parts in a part of the pitch that Leicester cede to every team they play - as part of their plan.

Don’t know if you saw Wolves, Fulham or Brighton play at the weekend. If you watch their game and then ours it’s clear we don’t press as a team and I’d suggest it’s by design and not a failing.

Before either of us draw season long conclusions from a single game, we played Leicester - a team renowned for counter attacking. We got forward, in part, because that is in their plan too.

I said much the same in the match day thread.

But I want more than winning more than we lose. I don’t want to be Stoke.

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