Saints vs Gooners - Cup Run mk 2

I have decided to cycle across the Pyrenees in April in order to raise money for BS and his poor children. I will set up one of those “give me the fucking money” web pages.

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Well I’ve had better nights at St Mary’s - but if you ask me in ten years time about this week, I’ll be able to talk you through Shane’s goal at Anfield in every detail and won’t remember this game at all.

Swings and roundabouts - the swings were crap but we had some serious fun on the roundabouts!

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well I’m glad you can get over it all so quickly and easily but maybe you should think about people like Bath saint who has really suffered today. Just try to be a little less selfish, RB.

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It sucked but we are still in a final. I am sure no one deliberately set out to lose and let’s face it, we have shit loads of injuries and three points to play for in a couple of days time.

Bath’s kids have learned some valuable lesson todays - life can be shit, and football will kick you in the bollocks while you are still celebrating the last little high.

Keep your feet on the ground kids - and some other random stuff about the man in the glass.

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Look at my attempt on the Other FA cup games thread so probably yes :lou_lol:

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Fuck off you mad cunt.

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Just upon the surface…waiting…

kcjj;lk’’’’’’’’’’’’’’ dc900000000000cmp :lou_is_a_flirt: ,mm,///////////////;l,ml m

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Hehe, just had a look Phil … worrying

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Picking up on Bathsaint’s experience, there were quite a few parents near me who looked like they had taken advantage of the lower-priced tickets to take their kids to their first match; I can’t imagine those kids being particularly inspired by their local team’s performance; and thinking back to how excited I felt when my dad took me to my first match, or to how happy I felt when I took my son to his first match makes me feel quite sorry for those parents and kids last night.

The other people I feel slightly sorry for is the players who were picked to play in that match. It seems a bit odd to write that because part of me is thinking that those players must have been pleased to have been given the opportunity to show what they can do in front of a large crowd and TV audience; but, it can’t be easy to perform in a team that looked like it had been cobbled together in order to fulfil a commitment rather than present a serious challenge to the opposition. Take Jack Stephens for instance: he performed brilliantly against Liverpool alongside our ‘first-team’ players, and his confidence after that match must have been sky-high, but I can’t imagine he’s feeling the same self-confidence after last night’s performance.

Look, I know it’s a squad game these days, I know squad rotation is a necessary evil, I know the Premier League is all-prevailing, I know we’re in a Cup Final next month, I know we’ve got injuries, I know the fixture list is crazy, I know we’ve got to give the younger players and fringe players a chance … BUT how often does a team comprised almost entirely of young players and fringe players ever do anything other than short change themselves and the paying public? Very rarely.

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I don’t fall for rotation bollocks, if players used to be able to do it why can’t they now? I’ll say it again some of our players aren’t of the required quality and let’s not let the previous game mask that.

The only positive for me is it should have made it clear to the board we cant compete on all fronts with a shoe string squad.

Reed is good enough back up for defensive midfield

Stephens and Gardos partnership doesnt work as back up for Van dyke and Yosh

Coco on RB isnt good enough but we have Pied when he is back

The young keeper isnt good enough yet but we have Mcarthy

Isgrove isnt good enough for LW/attacker

The board have not spent on quality at the depth we needed to beat a team like Arsenal. Its a gamble that hasnt payed off. I dont blame claude for the team last night but equally if the board are treating the club as an ‘entertainment business’ then they failed to entertain people who paid money to get in.

I like to look of the Hull CB who looks like an IT manager, Im sure we can get a DF midfield destroyer such as Huddleson, and at right back there seems to be a few young English players around.

Istead of relying SO heavily on our academy I wouldnt mind dipping into the Champtionship for players such as we did for Clyne

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Totally, this exposed the academy and the realities of it i.e you still need to buy compete, Hojbjerg is no where good enough and I’ll hold my players rant there for now!

It isn’t Puels fault but things will have to be said and acted upon, not good enough and more worrying is the complacency.

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Puel gambled…we lost.

Oh yeah…and I had 5 tiny kids sat in front of me last night…robbed me of 75% of my football vocabulary when I desperately needed all 100%. :lou_sad:

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There’s some truth in that, but as Big Prescient Bob posted the other day we have got some squad injury issues.

As I said yesterday, I’d have played Yoshi and/or Davis so that there were some grown-ups on the pitch where it mattered.

I think that would have stopped us being so humiliated, but we would still have probably lost to that Arsenal team playing that way on that day.

I was OK playing McQueen because he needs some game time and I’ve seen Martina do a job this season at times, so that was OK too.

Playing an inexperienced Stephens alongside a returning Gardos was the one area where I think Claude got it wrong.

Then again, there may be slight niggles affecting Davis and Yoshida that we don’t know about.

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Intrigued as to what was in the 25% that still came out of your mouth.

Were Fs in but Cs out?

Were Ns out but Ts in?

We deserve to know.

That might be true, but I’m not sure that yesterday showed this.

Our academy isn’t good enough to beat an Arsenal team that had a lot of first-teamers in it.

Sims, McQueen and Stephens have each done excellent jobs this season when partnered by experienced first teamers. Targett was also starting to look more comfortable at Prem level.

I have to believe that if we had Fonte and VvD, if we had Jay Rod and Austin, if we had JWP and Boufal, then we wouldn’t have dug so deep into our academy.

What I think it did show us is that if we are to challenge in the league, we need to buy a decent CB and striker in THIS transfer window, and that if we don’t we’ll have a WLDWLDWLD finish to the season.

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Too many permutations to list but those that…apparently…were deemed unacceptable involved the loving inertaction between two people and the parts of the body used for that purpose.

The world’s gone mad!

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