Thoughts on Southampton (9 replies)
Just wanted to unpack a hot take on that game away from the mudpit of the match thread.
To begin at the beginning, I thought CD set the starting XI up well given the barebones nature of the squad at the minute. Sampsted starting as a more conventional right back was the commonsense thing to do, and - despite his atrocious run in front of goal - we do just look more threatening with both Jay and Kyogo on the pitch. More on that to come.
I felt we edged the first half and did what we needed to grow into the game. Kyogo should probably have taken one of his two chances, but that's just a reflection on where we are now with him. Between him, Stansfield, Willumsson, and Roberts, the first line of the press was generally excellent and we were winning balls high up the field after forcing Southampton into mistakes. I thought the decisions on when to press and when to drop were much better today too.
It seemed we got the ideal start to the second half and were in the hunt for more. Then players began to tire, and here is where I begin to have questions. For me, Roberts looked absolutely knackered. We all know that introducing Koumas brings with it a cliff in quality, so if we had to bring him on, why not on the right first of all? Ducksch for Kyogo and Stansfield being withdrawn at the same time absolutely killed our high press and throttled our outlet. Southampton continued to build pressure.
On the ref, if it were me, I would use my common sense and stop the game when a collision clearly disadvantages one of the teams. Nothing can go wrong from resetting with a drop ball. As I mentioned in the match thread, it's entirely at the ref's discretion, but I saw exactly the same circumstance calmly progress to a drop ball in AFCON just the other day. What the ref has ended up doing is inadvertently making himself part of the story, which is always the last thing any official should want.
All that said, yes, we still had chances to defend better and clear our lines. Koumas goes to sleep and loses his man. Sorry if this sets anyone's kids off, but he was at sixes and sevens trying to cover the left with Cashin (who along with Robinson and Sampsted had a good game) through not knowing where he was supposed to be engaging or covering. I really hope that's his last outing in royal blue and he's back off to Liverpool by the end of the week. I think we have every right to question the ref, still. In that situation, it's understandable that our players' attention is going to get divided. The common sense action is to stop the game if you block off a player from receiving the ball, and that's a hill I'd die on.
Davies' headloss was silly, but I think his game management choices had already been the kiss of death by that stage anyway for the reasons mentioned. I understand the fury after the goal and the booking, but the thing he ultimately got himself sent off for was not worth it. He is clearly feeling the pressure.
Our substitutions continued to be puzzling after Davies walked. Leonard was the obvious sub, but to not use any others, even just to kill time late in the game as we were increasingly looking just to see it out, seemed like another basic failure of game management.
Paik's late free kick was infuriating.
Mostly, I wanted to start this thread as a bit of therapy and an excuse to get my thoughts out. What had been discussed has inevitably come true, and the home form has dropped off before we've come close to solving the issues away from home. It's a bit depressing, it has to be said.
Given we've now had three reds in three games, I think we also need to talk about discipline. The last thing we need when things are already a struggle is making matters harder for ourselves. Doyle, Klarer, and Davies have now badly let the side down when we're already up against it.
Still a long way to go, and things are still tight-ish. We need to find winning ways again soon, otherwise we'll find ourselves on the wrong side of the spread as the table opens up.
Frustrated of Philadelphia, 34 years and 11 months old, still Davies in, eating experimental home-made goose pizza for dinner.
To begin at the beginning, I thought CD set the starting XI up well given the barebones nature of the squad at the minute. Sampsted starting as a more conventional right back was the commonsense thing to do, and - despite his atrocious run in front of goal - we do just look more threatening with both Jay and Kyogo on the pitch. More on that to come.
I felt we edged the first half and did what we needed to grow into the game. Kyogo should probably have taken one of his two chances, but that's just a reflection on where we are now with him. Between him, Stansfield, Willumsson, and Roberts, the first line of the press was generally excellent and we were winning balls high up the field after forcing Southampton into mistakes. I thought the decisions on when to press and when to drop were much better today too.
It seemed we got the ideal start to the second half and were in the hunt for more. Then players began to tire, and here is where I begin to have questions. For me, Roberts looked absolutely knackered. We all know that introducing Koumas brings with it a cliff in quality, so if we had to bring him on, why not on the right first of all? Ducksch for Kyogo and Stansfield being withdrawn at the same time absolutely killed our high press and throttled our outlet. Southampton continued to build pressure.
On the ref, if it were me, I would use my common sense and stop the game when a collision clearly disadvantages one of the teams. Nothing can go wrong from resetting with a drop ball. As I mentioned in the match thread, it's entirely at the ref's discretion, but I saw exactly the same circumstance calmly progress to a drop ball in AFCON just the other day. What the ref has ended up doing is inadvertently making himself part of the story, which is always the last thing any official should want.
All that said, yes, we still had chances to defend better and clear our lines. Koumas goes to sleep and loses his man. Sorry if this sets anyone's kids off, but he was at sixes and sevens trying to cover the left with Cashin (who along with Robinson and Sampsted had a good game) through not knowing where he was supposed to be engaging or covering. I really hope that's his last outing in royal blue and he's back off to Liverpool by the end of the week. I think we have every right to question the ref, still. In that situation, it's understandable that our players' attention is going to get divided. The common sense action is to stop the game if you block off a player from receiving the ball, and that's a hill I'd die on.
Davies' headloss was silly, but I think his game management choices had already been the kiss of death by that stage anyway for the reasons mentioned. I understand the fury after the goal and the booking, but the thing he ultimately got himself sent off for was not worth it. He is clearly feeling the pressure.
Our substitutions continued to be puzzling after Davies walked. Leonard was the obvious sub, but to not use any others, even just to kill time late in the game as we were increasingly looking just to see it out, seemed like another basic failure of game management.
Paik's late free kick was infuriating.
Mostly, I wanted to start this thread as a bit of therapy and an excuse to get my thoughts out. What had been discussed has inevitably come true, and the home form has dropped off before we've come close to solving the issues away from home. It's a bit depressing, it has to be said.
Given we've now had three reds in three games, I think we also need to talk about discipline. The last thing we need when things are already a struggle is making matters harder for ourselves. Doyle, Klarer, and Davies have now badly let the side down when we're already up against it.
Still a long way to go, and things are still tight-ish. We need to find winning ways again soon, otherwise we'll find ourselves on the wrong side of the spread as the table opens up.
Frustrated of Philadelphia, 34 years and 11 months old, still Davies in, eating experimental home-made goose pizza for dinner.