Southampton (h) 18/19 ratings

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  • Total voters
    47
Selections

With Vertonghen suspended, Alderweireld came back in and partnered Foyth. Rose and Trippier came in for Aurier and Davies, this was almost certainly just about rotation, but both Aurier and Davies had been pretty unhinged at the weekend. In midfield, Winks came in for Sissoko, who’d been labouring against both Inter and Woolwich. In the forward area Alli, who was very insipid at Woolwich, was replaced by Moura.

These changes all seemed pretty logical to me. I think a criticism of Pochettino in season’s past has been has lack of willing to rotate his “favourites” and we’ve seen Eriksen flogged to death and Alli allowed to bumble while an on form Son twiddled his thumbs on the bench.

The world cup, Asia games and a litany of injuries have forced Poch’s to re-think his rotation strategy a little I think, and I hope we reap the reward as the season goes on. And if nothing else it keeps players on their toes. Except Dier of course, who’s passion for photography almost certainly includes a dossier compromising snaps of Poch dressed as a Parisian hooker, which he’s been using for three years to guarantee a midfield place.


Structure

It was the good old Poch favourite 4231 tonight, which matched up with Southampton’s. Dier and Winks played pretty much as a double pivot, Eriksen played in his old 10/ACM role with Son and Moura the wide AM’s.


The Game

This was a really odd game, it almost had the feel of a reserve match, with neither side really showing much intensity, the game oscillating as we dominated longer spells then they had phases where they looked quite threatening. Luckily, we scored with our phases of domination, they didn’t, but we shouldn’t fool ourselves, when it comes to chances, this game could easily have finished much closer that it did – we ended up with an XG of 1.40, theirs was 1.68 and this pretty much reflected the reality, and was yet another game we just lost all control of in the second half. This was Wolves all over again, in fact it was even worse, as Southampton created more and better chances and but for terrible finishing and some good keeping this game could have got very squeaky.

At three up, you expect a little more pragmatism, be compact, work hard and just snuff out the game, keep the ball, starve the opposition, but lately we seem incapable of this kind of maturity. Son’s still flitting around like a puppy dog, doing nothing very defensively meaningful, pressing passively, tackling nobody (has anyone ever seen Son tackle anyone?) leaving Rose very exposed, Moura’s a bit zippier but also lacks discipline. I thought with the ball our midfield duo were OK, no more, but without the ball, neither were great.

Poch’s substitutions have always been a very abstract concept to me. Like a David Lynch movie without my mate Dr Rocktopus Dr Rocktopus to explain the plot. I really don’t understand why at 3-0 our first sub isn’t taking off one or both of our two most important players - Eriksen or Kane – not Moura, who’d played less football than anyone on that pitch in the last 14 days. And we have a busy little fucker of a midfielder on the bench who could have come on and helped sure up the midfield, and at the same time maybe giving him a good 20-25 minutes experience in a reasonably safe environment. We and he may have learnt something valuable about each other. Did Sissoko need that 15 minutes? Did we also need to risk Alli at all, especially for 10 minutes, and did a game we had lost all grip on need another talented but bumbly attacking midfielder or would the more terrier like Skipp have been tactically more astute?


Individual

Lloris – Pretty outstanding game, several very good saves.

Trippier – OK. Crossing was poor by his standards. Pressed well for the third goal.

Foyth – Decent enough game

Alderweireld – Good game

Rose – First game back for a while, so bound to be rusty but pretty ropey game to be honest, offensively offered almost nothing and defensively was really shoddy at times. Didn’t get much help for Son at times either.

Dier – Uninspiring

Winks – OK/Meh - To be fair, playing with Dier would send anyone into a transcendental super.

Moura – Flitted about, took his goal well, but I’m struggling to think of anything else creatively tangible to hang a hat on.

Eriksen – A pretty standard game. Saw plenty of the ball, helped us tick over, hand in a goal.

Son – Was lively enough when we had the ball and posed some questions, good run for the goal, but a bit flakey when we don’t have the ball.

Kane – Good ball for Son’s goal, but otherwise a pretty poor game truth be told. Didn’t see enough ball, even when we were dominating, and didn’t work too hard without it. I think we could have rested him today and started Son up front.
 
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"another game we just lost all control of in the second half"

Hmmmm start of the second half ... 1-0 ... end of the second half 3-1 ... yup totally out of control ....

This was a game where minimum effort got maximum return, to expect players to be at 100% when 3-0 up against a side that scores less than one goal per game? ... who's win odds were 200-1 after 55 minutes? ... that's just naive ... To complain after the game that 'we lost control' ... that's just silly ....

Do the minimum to get the maximum return ... we played at 70% if that ... for me job well done ... Hugo as MoM just for staying awake when needed ....
 
Selections

With Vertonghen suspended, Alderweireld came back in and partnered Foyth. Rose and Trippier came in for Aurier and Davies, this was almost certainly just about rotation, but both Aurier and Davies had been pretty unhinged at the weekend. In midfield, Winks came in for Sissoko, who’d been labouring against both Inter and Woolwich. In the forward area Alli, who was very insipid at Woolwich, was replaced by Moura.

These changes all seemed pretty logical to me. I think a criticism of Pochettino in season’s past has been has lack of willing to rotate his “favourites” and we’ve seen Eriksen flogged to death and Alli allowed to bumble while an on form Son twiddled his thumbs on the bench.

The world cup, Asia games and a litany of injuries have forced Poch’s to re-think his rotation strategy a little I think, and I hope we reap the reward as the season goes on. And if nothing else it keeps players on their toes. Except Dier of course, who’s passion for photography almost certainly includes a dossier compromising snaps of Poch dressed as a Parisian hooker, which he’s been using for three years to guarantee a midfield place.


Structure

It was the good old Poch favourite 4231 tonight, which matched up with Southampton’s. Dier and Winks played pretty much as a double pivot, Eriksen played in his old 10/ACM role with Son and Moura the wide AM’s.


The Game

This was a really odd game, it almost had the feel of a reserve match, with neither side really showing much intensity, the game oscillating as we dominated longer spells then they had phases where they looked quite threatening. Luckily, we scored with our phases of domination, they didn’t, but we shouldn’t fool ourselves, when it comes to chances, this game could easily have finished much closer that it did – we ended up with an XG of 1.40, theirs was 1.68 and this pretty much reflected the reality, and was yet another game we just lost all control of in the second half. This was Wolves all over again, in fact it was even worse, as Southampton created more and better chances and but for terrible finishing and some good keeping this game could have got very squeaky.

At three up, you expect a little more pragmatism, be compact, work hard and just snuff out the game, keep the ball, starve the opposition, but lately we seem incapable of this kind of maturity. Son’s still flitting around like a puppy dog, doing nothing very defensively meaningful, pressing passively, tackling nobody (has anyone ever seen Son tackle anyone?) leaving Rose very exposed, Moura’s a bit zippier but also lacks discipline. I thought with the ball our midfield duo were OK, no more, but without the ball, neither were great.

Poch’s substitutions have always been a very abstract concept to me. Like a David Lynch movie without my mate Dr Rocktopus Dr Rocktopus to explain the plot. I really don’t understand why at 3-0 our first sub isn’t taking off one or both of our two most important players - Eriksen or Kane – not Moura, who’d played less football than anyone on that pitch in the last 14 days. And we have a busy little fucker of a midfielder on the bench who could have come on and helped sure up the midfield, and at the same time maybe giving him a good 20-25 minutes experience in a reasonably safe environment. We and he may have learnt something valuable about each other. Did Sissoko need that 15 minutes? Did we also need to risk Alli at all, especially for 10 minutes, and did a game we had lost all grip on need another talented but bumbly attacking midfielder or would the more terrier like Skipp have been tactically more astute?


Individual

Lloris – Pretty outstanding game, several very good saves.

Trippier – OK. Crossing was poor by his standards. Pressed well for the third goal.

Foyth – Decent enough game

Alderweireld – Good game

Rose – First game back for a while, so bound to be rusty but pretty ropey game to be honest, offensively offered almost nothing and defensively was really shoddy at times. Didn’t get much help for Son at times either.

Dier – Uninspiring

Winks – OK/Meh - To be fair, playing with Dier would send anyone into a transcendental super.

Moura – Flitted about, took his goal well, but I’m struggling to think of anything else creatively tangible to hang a hat on.

Eriksen – A pretty standard game. Saw plenty of the ball, helped us tick over, hand in a goal.

Son – Was lively enough when we had the ball and posed some questions, good run for the goal, but a bit flakey when we don’t have the ball.

Kane – Good ball for Son’s goal, but otherwise a pretty poor game truth be told. Didn’t see enough ball, even when we were dominating, and didn’t work too hard without it. I think we could have rested him today and started Son up front.
 
I agree 100% about Skipp. Why not give him 25 minutes and not 5 ? I found it a little irritating in the press conference when Poch was talking about how much he believes in Skipp , yet not enough to bring him on when we went 3-0 up . Shades of how he did similar things with Winks a couple of years back. If he is evaluating how much we need to bring in a defensive midfielder in January surely looking at Skipp as much as possible in the next month or so would be a smart move ?
 
A underwhelming game in a barren souless stadium , a bit of a Christmas turkey . Job done but against a poor fragile Saints side it would have been nice to have some stuffing.
The game just reinforced how weak central midfield is. Against poor opposition found it hard to create or dominate when they came at us in the second half . Even in more of a state than our fullbacks .
Lloris man of the match as so many outfield players lacked any dynamism but 3 points keeps us in the race for 3/4 place which seems the club's aim.
 
These changes all seemed pretty logical to me. I think a criticism of Pochettino in season’s past has been has lack of willing to rotate his “favourites” and we’ve seen Eriksen flogged to death and Alli allowed to bumble while an on form Son twiddled his thumbs on the bench.

This is something Poch has finally brought into his system but I think we should add Kane too....last night at 3-0 he should come off.
Something I’ve been demanding he do for the last two seasons, but not everyone was onboard.

I think we can all see that Dele and Eriksen should not “start every game every week”, and there are huge benefits to benching them, and it has nothing to do with “wanting them sold”.....

We’ve turned those draws into wins, which is what screwed us up the last few years before Christmas and always left us wondering where we could have been come May.

8pts better off despite a massive injury list that just seems to keep rotating around the team. And a supposedly powder puff midfield.
I’m not sure what people’s problem is with Dier, I love him, especially after the scum game.
He is not box to box, or there to carry the ball forward, so not sure why people demand it of him.
He breaks up play and gets stuck in and plays with passion. Get off his back.
Every week I hear that “this game showed why we desperately need a CM in January”, yet 11 wins and 4 defeats says otherwise.
That’s one less win than Liverpool and two less than City by the way.

Hopefully Wanyama comes back to form in the new year, with Dembele, a return to WHL, the emergence of Skipp, and some better fitness around the squad, and I can see a really good push.

Apparently Aubameyang and Emery “showed us”.......well, mind the gap again, you too Chelsea.

Not too bad for a team with a shit midfield and shit full backs.........
 
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This is something Poch has finally brought into his system but I think we should add Kane too....last night at 3-0 he should come off.
Something I’ve been demanding he do for the last two seasons, but not everyone was onboard.

I think we can all see that Dele and Eriksen should not “start every game every week”, and there are huge benefits to benching them, and it has nothing to do with “wanting them sold”.....

We’ve turned those draws into wins, which is what screwed us up the last few years before Christmas and always left us wondering where we could have been come May.

8pts better off despite a massive injury list that just seems to keep rotating around the team. And a supposedly powder puff midfield.
I’m not sure what people’s problem is with Dier, I love him, especially after the scum game.
He is not box to box, or there to carry the ball forward, so not sure why people demand it of him.
He breaks up play and gets stuck in and plays with passion. Get off his back.
Every week I hear that “this game showed why we desperately need a CM in January”, yet 11 wins and 4 defeats says otherwise.
That’s one less win than Liverpool and two less than City by the way.

Hopefully Wanyama comes back to form in the new year, with Dembele a return to WHL, the emergence of Skipp, and some better fitness around the squad, and I can see a really good push.

Apparently Aubameyang and Emery “showed us”.......well, mind the gap again, you too Chelsea.

Not too bad for a team with a shit midfield and shit full backs.
I dont think we can afford to drop Eriksen as he is one of a kind . Alli yes but he really is the only one who can create anything consistently . Winks has his moments but they are few .
 
I dont think we can afford to drop Eriksen as he is one of a kind . Alli yes but he really is the only one who can create anything consistently . Winks has his moments but they are few .

But we came through his injury period unscathed and have been bedding him in ever since...

He is unique, but certain types of opposition nullify him (see gooner game) and then we are better off with Lamela imo
 
1 game every 3-4 days until mid January.... give me results and performances like this when we don't need to get out of third gear so fatigue doesn't kick in all day long!

3rd in the table after Arsenals incredible unbeaten streak of 19/20 games now and Sarri being the first manager not to lose in his opening 12-13 games in the Premier League. Above them both!
 
I thought Son was almost Bale-esque at times last night. Absolute nightmare to defend a guy who can run full pace at you all game long.

Lloris kept us in it, but most things were hit straight at him to be fair.
 
Performance doesnt really bother me. We have 10 games in 38 days and another tough week coming up with Leicester away and then the big Barcelona game at the Nou Camp.

Job was to go in there, get it done and do so without too much energy. We done that, we move on to a game that's going to require alot more energy in 2 days time.

Lloris the clear MOTM with some unbelievable saves.
 
This is something Poch has finally brought into his system but I think we should add Kane too....last night at 3-0 he should come off.
Something I’ve been demanding he do for the last two seasons, but not everyone was onboard.

I think we can all see that Dele and Eriksen should not “start every game every week”, and there are huge benefits to benching them, and it has nothing to do with “wanting them sold”.....

We’ve turned those draws into wins, which is what screwed us up the last few years before Christmas and always left us wondering where we could have been come May.

8pts better off despite a massive injury list that just seems to keep rotating around the team. And a supposedly powder puff midfield.
I’m not sure what people’s problem is with Dier, I love him, especially after the scum game.
He is not box to box, or there to carry the ball forward, so not sure why people demand it of him.
He breaks up play and gets stuck in and plays with passion. Get off his back.
Every week I hear that “this game showed why we desperately need a CM in January”, yet 11 wins and 4 defeats says otherwise.
That’s one less win than Liverpool and two less than City by the way.

Hopefully Wanyama comes back to form in the new year, with Dembele, a return to WHL, the emergence of Skipp, and some better fitness around the squad, and I can see a really good push.

Apparently Aubameyang and Emery “showed us”.......well, mind the gap again, you too Chelsea.

Not too bad for a team with a shit midfield and shit full backs.........

Why does 11 wins and 4 defeats say otherwise? Davies has played most of them, does that mean we do t want a better LB?

We are beating teams that are mostly very inferior to us (and unconvincingly in many cases) and losing to our closest rivals. With one exception in each of those categories.

If we want to be better, whatever that encompasses (better results against rivals and more convincing against others) then we need to evolve and improve. A dm who is more dynamic, can play out under pressure, can inject some tempo, can pass with at least a modicum of alacrity and can press ferociously when required, without fear of being spun and left trailing, is an obvious area of necessary improvement.

As for the silly bollocks against Woolwich, if he’d given it the large and played to the crowd after we’d got it in the bag it would be more loveable, as it was he just made a wanker of himself, because all he did was stir up their team and players, and the player he told to sit back down, spent the second half running fucking rings round him.

Shades of the fucking debacle at Chelsea a couple of years back when if he’d been professional and made sure we didn’t fuck away a two goal lead, instead of trying to prove what geezer he is,we wouldn’t have given a bitter rival the pleasure of thinking they’d won the title for Leicester.
 
Was promising seeing the rotation. It will really help in the long run i'm sure. I do think in games like this we need to be walking away 4-5 goals up as GD could cost us in the end when margins are so tight. Maybe Llorente would have been ok for the last 25mins... height in defence and maybe another goal...
 
Why does 11 wins and 4 defeats say otherwise? Davies has played most of them, does that mean we do t want a better LB?

It says we don’t desperately need a new midfield or LB if we are the third best team in the PL, behind two that spend about 300M in the last year.

Some may want that, it doesn’t mean we desperately need it though.

We are beating teams that are mostly very inferior to us (and unconvincingly in many cases) and losing to our closest rivals. With one exception in each of those categories.

We have beaten Chelsea and Utd and lost to Pool, Scum, Watford and City.

Two of the four we lost two are the only teams above us.
Sounds like you need to check your complaints.....we can only beat what the fixture list gives us and we’ve done that on 11 of 15 occasions.

You say if we want to be better....we are better.
The same squad is 8pts better off.

If we had signed a CM and a LB in the summer and were 8pts better off, would you be saying it’s not enough of an improvement and we should be 15pts better off?

Or would you be lauding the “fact” that signings = improvement
 
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It says we don’t desperately need a new midfield or LB if we are the third best team in the PL, behind two that spend about 300M in the last year.

Some may want that, it doesn’t mean we desperately need it though.



We have beaten Chelsea and Utd and lost to Pool, Scum, Watford and City.

Two of the four we lost two are the only teams above us.
Sounds like you need to check your complaints.....we can only beat what the fixture list gives us and we’ve done that on 11 of 15 occasions.

You say if we want to be better....we are better.
The same squad is 8pts better off.

If we had signed a CM and a LB in the summer and were 8pts better off, would you be saying it’s not enough of an improvement and we should be 15pts better off?

Or would you be lauding the “fact” that signings = improvement


You are disingenuously over simplifying a more complex scenario.

Football, or any business, isn't just about now, and a team/company don't exist in isolation without competition. If you are selling stuff, but you know it's quality is flawed, then your current accounts will look healthy but when people start realising the stuff you are selling is shit and buying from your competitors, in the mean time damaging your "brand name" your accounts in two and three years time are looking very shit and your competitors are booming.

If we are getting results, but we can all see performances are down, and we can measure some performance indicators, like possession, like XG (quality of chances we are making and conceding), shot ratios and see that we are currently out performing reliable indicators then we can perhaps assume that the goods aren't quite what they seem.

And if our competitors around us, above and below are improving their performance (quality) by adding better quality players then medium, long term they are more likely to come out on top.

We've finished third below Leicester and Woolwich three years ago with Dier. We then upgraded him with Wanyama and finished above everyone bar a Chelsea side without CL football (and way ahead of City). So by your reckoning we shouldn't have upgraded Dier?

Then last year Wanyama goes awol with injury, Dier plays more and we are 3rd again, behind ManU and miles behind ManC. Teams we'd finished above the previous two years.

We are now below Liverpool, a team we've finished above for most of the last few years, they improved key positions.

We are not performing as well as we were. If that continues, we will be very lucky to finish where we did when we were performing well because history tells us that few team buck performances indicators radically and for very long. Which as why the likes of ManU and Burnley are struggling this year for example. Or why Woolwich stagnated and then finished below us two years running etc.
 
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You are disingenuously over simplifying a more complex scenario.

Football, or any business, isn't just about now, and a team/company don't exist in isolation without competition. If you are selling stuff, but you know it's quality is flawed, then your current accounts will look healthy but when people start realising the stuff you are selling is shit and buying from your competitors, in the mean time damaging your "brand name" your accounts in two and three years time are looking very shit and your competitors are booming.

If we are getting results, but we can all see performances are down, and we can measure some performance indicators, like possession, like XG (quality of chances we are making and conceding), shot ratios and see that we are currently out performing reliable indicators then we can perhaps assume that the goods aren't quite what they seem.

And if our competitors around us, above and below are improving their performance (quality) by adding better quality players then medium, long term they are more likely to come out on top.

We've finished third below Leicester and Woolwich three years ago with Dier. We then upgraded him with Wanyama and finished above everyone bar a Chelsea side without CL football (and way ahead of City). So by your reckoning we shouldn't have upgraded Dier?

Then last year Wanyama goes awol with injury, Dier plays more and we are 3rd again, behind ManU and miles behind ManC. Teams we'd finished above the previous two years.

We are now below Liverpool, a team we've finished above for most of the last few years, they improved key positions.

We are not performing as well as we were. If that continues, we will be very lucky to finish where we did when we were performing well because history tells us that few team buck performances indicators radically and for very long. Which as why the likes of ManU and Burnley are struggling this year for example. Or why Woolwich stagnated and then finished below us two years running etc.

Heard it all before.
Our style of play is not down to personnel.

It’s the same players that used to tear teams apart most weeks, like we did against Chelsea. The problem for me is that we don’t adopt a pressing game enough.
 
Heard it all before.
Our style of play is not down to personnel.

It’s the same players that used to tear teams apart most weeks, like we did against Chelsea. The problem for me is that we don’t adopt a pressing game enough.

Bingo. Dier can’t press very well, he’s too clunky and slow on the turn. Ergo our performance is effected by our personnel.

Our general style ethos comes from our manager, but our ability to carry that out is absolutely effected by the ability of personnel. It’s ridiculous to say otherwise.

You don’t think we improved by swapping Dier for Wanyama in 16-17?
 
Dier can’t press very well, he’s too clunky and slow on the turn. Ergo our performance is effected by our personnel.

Thats odd because Dier has been part of our team when we pressed the shit out of Chelsea the last two times we played them, winning 3-1 twice.

Was also there when we battered Utd 2-0, and when we beat Woolwich 1-0 (which should have been 6-0).....all high intensity pressing.

Oh, and when we hammered Real Madrid....

So he can press, but unless he goes rogue and does it when the manager doesnt tell him too, its not really down to him.

You don’t think we improved by swapping Dier for Wanyama in 16-17?

Dier played 36 PL games that season
 
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