Southampton v Aston Villa Saturday 5th December 3pm kick off

mefromhere wrote:What have we got to lose!?

I think we should put that on an enormous banner....

Dions_Bald_Head wrote:

mefromhere wrote:What have we got to lose!?

I think we should put that on an enormous banner....

Agreed, and we need a rousing new song to sing. I'm thinking 'The Only Way Is Up'.

Villa will win 11-2. Each player will score and they will kiss and fuck in the shower to celebrate this victory with coke and Champagne.

So same celebration's as when they lose then. felire  

They'll destroy us, 4-0 Saints win, only decent thing about this weekend is that Sunderland have a tough game too.

My money will be on villa to concede in first half, and depending on how quickly we concede i might roll my winnings onto next southampton goal by 60min, might as well make a few quid if I am forced to endure this shite.

After the trouncing they got in the week they will out for blood, and we are easy prey.

I'd be tempted to play 3 at the back, 2 up front and try and attack them as much as possible down the wings. Tell Richardson to push forward and not worry so much about defending (not like he does it anyway).

If, like Man City, we can have a go at them, keep the ball and stop them from scoring then maybe we can pinch a cheeky goal or two.

Score early and we could see Southampton heads drop and win handsomely. Of course, that goes both ways!

Definitely no Kozak again:

https://bellsareringing.forumotion.com/t1144p150-libor-kozak#116067

Given up being positive as I just don't see any light at the end of the tunnel, easy win for the Saints!

Not been on for a while as losing will to live with our lot, anyway, the common denominator in all this has been same main CB and GK, welcome back Okore, who I think will be a big factor in getting us out of this.

Get MR at RB when back and please God a new GK in January pls pls pls.

Amavi loss is big, Bacuna weak link today, but rot stops today, we gonna miracle a tight win or draw.

UTV

Unbelievable. We managed to get to half time without them scoring when they should have been heading towards double figures. To cap that absurdity we got them booed off by their fans. What the actual fuck?

Very lucky after this first half.

I know it's a decent point away at Southampton....but it's still so deflating. Not enough.

thegaffer6 wrote:I know it's a decent point away at Southampton....but it's still so deflating. Not enough.

At this point, anything less than a win still feels like a loss.

That's a good point even though we had three in the bag if we had some composure in defence. This shows at least the players have the fight to survive. Next up willl be have they the ability.

That's the back 4 sorted then with Richards replacing Lescott obviously. We need Rudy to have any outlet and give our defence a break which enabled them to stay sharp early on. Can swap him for Gabby when he tires and gabby's pace has more effect. Veretout has an incredible engine. Ayew looks like creating things that we normally don't. Sanchez is the best defensive shield in the league. He's also the worst midfielder with the ball at his feet in the league. Sinclair is excellent at tracking back, he is not excellent going forward. Westwood is not a left winger. Ilori is fit!

These are all things I've taken from today. Mostly positive. Good point. Team spirit is high in the camp. Just what we need for this Christmas period fight.

Arsenal home, Newcastle away, West Ham home, Norwich away. 8 points MINIMUM from this run for me. Anything less and we are effectively buried.

KMitch wrote:

thegaffer6 wrote:I know it's a decent point away at Southampton....but it's still so deflating. Not enough.

At this point, anything less than a win still feels like a loss.

It was a bit disappointing to concede having gone a goal up but ultimately I see it the other way. Out goal was a total mugging. After the absolute fucking hammering we took for a lot of the game, especially for the first quarter when we were lucky not to be a handful down, I consider that to feel more like a win.

I think the difficult thing for me is how hard it is to gauge how tough our opposition is and consequently how well or badly we are doing.  For example I thought it was a miracle result against man c but  watching stoke destroy them today not so sure.  Conversely saints might have been there for the taking after their midweek hammering but until I see if they are back playing well in the next couple of games its  hard to know whether we did really well to get 1-1 or actually it was nothing special.  Problem for me is teams I'm convinced we should be beating like Watford we're  not.
Hate to be defeatist and I don't even want to think it but sadly I'm seeing nowhere near enough to convince me we'll  avoid the drop.

thegaffer6 wrote:Arsenal home, Newcastle away, West Ham home, Norwich away. 8 points MINIMUM from this run for me. Anything less and we are effectively buried.

I think 6 would be acceptable if it came from the Newcastle and Norwich games. Otherwise we're definitely looking dodgy if we lose those. Let's not get downbeat just because we didn't beat a very good Saints side.

Bournemouth result hasn't helped....................

I don't think we were that bad at the back considering Hutton is the only settled player in defence - Lescott has been crap when he's played, Okore's been out for months and Bacuna is a midfielder. There was finally some spirit on display, especially from Okore, Veretout and Ayew. The latter screwed up when one-on-one with the goalie (and one of their defenders caught up) but I doubt Gesetede would have done any better.

I have a few bones to pick with Garde though. Sinclair doesn't work on the right. He was the only player trying to make runs and was generally ignored until late on in the game, when Veretout had a few goes at playing him in with some good balls behind the oppostion defence. Gestede was there to win the long balls from Guzan but not much else. I really don't see the point of him when we're not playing a 4-4-2 with wingers and someone for him to play with down the middle. Ayew for me can play anywhere up front but in a 4-1-4-1 should be the striker, but as with when he played at Everton and was completely isolated, Gestede was winning balls today and had little support to try to knock the ball down to. Long balls to a big striker went out with Lambert and Benteke, surely? What happened to trying to play the ball up the pitch? Even once Gestede had gone off, Guzan was still punting them long and losing pretty much all of them. Back to the good old days of give the ball back to the opposition so they can have another go. All very civilised. I thought we were in the thick of a relegation battle though?

So we have two strikers and a left sided winger playing on the right, but hardly getting the ball because Hutton just didn't seem to be clicking with him. Gestede goes off injured, and on comes... Westwood. WTF? I mean I like Westwood in the middle of a 4-3-3 when Sanchez isn't on the pitch but on the left, alongside Ayew now in the middle with Sinclair still on the right? Westwood plays on the right. So in the absence of Grealish, why not stick Sinclair on the left and bring on Traore or Gil on the right? Next up we have Bacuna off (I thought he did really well) and Richardson on. Needs must.

Veretout I thought played really well, Gueye was ok. We need creativity and attacks being driven down the middle and both wings, with Veretout on the right integrating properly with Hutton and someone creative (Gil or Traore) and Gueye on the left with Bacuna and (hopefully) Grealish, or Sinclair. Sanchez looked ok (with the usual mistakes) down the middle but again, we need him, Veretout and Gueye actually attacking together. We need players actually playing with each other (Sinclair mostly ignored again). We need Gestede nowhere near the starting 11 but as an impact sub.

Our players need to continue to get stuck in, closing down and tacking like their lives depended on it (or like they played for Bournemouth, going on their gritty performance tonight against Chelsea). We need players bringing the ball into the box, Ayew looked scared today and often players get to a certain point and then look for someone to pass to (Grealish is guilty of this). When was the last time we drew a penalty, I can think of once this season (Sinclair scored?)?

One thing that bugs the hell out of me is we have no players trying to bust a gut getting up the pitch PDQ as soon as Guzan gets the ball. Ayew had a few goes at it but we need more alert players ready to start running off in opposite directions, even if it's just Sinclair heading towards the opposition RB and Ayew to their LB. We just don't seem to have a counter attack threat at the moment.

So many holes, so many things for the manager to work on. I'm still pissed off with him for bringing on Westwood instead of Gil or Traore. Pissed off with playing players out of position when it's not necessary and we have better options (Sinclair in Traore or Gil's position, with Ayew in Sinclair's position and Gestede in Ayew's). Having said that, Ayew looks very good on the left, right or in the middle, and he was getting back to defend. He's going to be an important player for us this season and if we go down, one of the few we should be working hard to keep.

Veretout was impressive and our best player. Can't believe that moron Sherwood hardly ever picked him.

I agree with Foxy on Gestede. He doesn't fit in with our other players so cannot understand why he keeps getting picked!

EbeneezerGoode wrote:Veretout was impressive and our best player. Can't believe that moron Sherwood hardly ever picked him.

I agree with Foxy on Gestede. He doesn't fit in with our other players so cannot understand why he keeps getting picked!

He gives us a target for clearances and does hold it up or lay it off well most of the time to be fair to him. By 60 minutes yesterday though he was finished and should have been taken off. It became one way traffic because he wasn't mobile enough to go and win that first ball out of defence. Eventually the pressure told and we conceded.

He plays an important role but only whilst he's fit enough to move. He won't start scoring until we deliver a good cross though