Match Thread Southampton - Coventry City Match Thread - Saturday 20th Dec (7 Viewers)

[Covcraig@bury]

3-1 win with Grimes ( yes you heard correctly) Grimes to score or Lampard walks 🩵🩵

 

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[alexccfc99]

We're going down to this. Quite like the early KO. Going to be a tough game. Would settle for a point now.

Staying over the night, going after work on Friday - I can't be arsed for the early alarm on Sat morning

 

[Paxman II]

Another interesting fixture. Difficult to predict. Saints on a run but just got halted so not so sure they are that good. Teams they played on that run not special. i would like to see us not lose at least. A loss and players heads will start questioning themselves. Up to FL to ensure that does not become a thing. If everyone plays well we can get our 3 points.

 

[sc1940]

I would say 3 at the back is the best way to start, we can always change mid game as we did at Preston.

 

[Lamps]

Another interesting fixture. Difficult to predict. Saints on a run but just got halted so not so sure they are that good. Teams they played on that run not special. i would like to see us not lose at least. A loss and players heads will start questioning themselves. Up to FL to ensure that does not become a thing. If everyone plays well we can get our 3 points.

A minimum of 9 points above 3rd place if we lose after our hardest run of games for the whole season and the players would question themselves?

The same people questioning our players now were hoping to be within touching distance of the top 2 after this run of games. We even played the team in 2nd away twice in succession away from home and won both games. November and December were difficult but we've W6 D1 L1 so far. That's 2.375 points a game. Even if we lose to Southampton we will be averaging over 2 points a game for the difficult run. Then we have Swansea and Ipswich at home to see out the year.

We're on a fantastic run. W 12 D 1 L 2. That's 37 points in 15 games or 2.46 points a game. If we only get 37 points from our last 25 games the teams in 3rd or below would still need a minimum of 2 points a game to catch us up. We could do that losing 12 games out of the last 25. The best of the chasing pack are only averaging 1.66 points a game. If it continues like this promotion could be confirmed with about 8 games to go.

 

[quinn1971]

We don’t lose unless we’ve got 3 or 4 missing, full squad 2-1 cov,

 

[SIR ERNIE]

Saints away is my nearest fixture. Would love to be there but I'll be in NY about to fly down to Ft Myers. Will catch what I can on my phone hopefully.
Feeling very confident we'll put on a show. We're a very good side and Saturdays win has put us back on the rails.
Soton 0-2 cov

 

[Lamps]

Saints away is my nearest fixture. Would love to be there but I'll be in NY about to fly down to Ft Myers. Will catch what I can on my phone hopefully.
Feeling very confident we'll put on a show. We're a very good side and Saturdays win has put us back on the rails.
Soton 0-2 cov

Doesn't that make it your furthest away fixture?

 

[Joe King]

Sometimes wish I still lived on the Isle of Wight. Zip over to Southampton on the Red Jet, taxi to the ground, watch game and back home by about 4pm.

 

[StrettoBoy]

Id go

Wright , Simms
Rudoni,
Grimes, Eccles,
Da Silva.............MVE
KITCHING, WOLF , THOMAS
RUSHWORTH.

I'm not sure about that.

Our attacking game is largely based on us getting the ball down the wings and either putting a cross into the centre for our striker or pulling it back to the edge of the box for Torp or Rudoni. You propose playing without proper wingers, presumably relying on JDS or MVE to give us width.

It might work defensively, with the extra centre back, but I'm doubtful if it will work offensively.

 

[Gint11]

Wow. Most Saints fans expecting us to pump em.

Not sure if I like that

 

[SkyBlueMatt]

At the start of the season, I thought the away games against Ipswich, Leicester, Southampton, Boro & Preston (no particular order) were the toughest games of the season.

Only one more to go and I would be happy with a point but I see no reason we can't take all three.

I'm glad this game is on Saturday after a week break, rather than Wednesday or the end of a 3 game week.

We are the best side in the league and we will have our best starting 11 (valid argument for BTA) fit and ready. So I think it suits us more than them.

Sent from my M2101K6G using Tapatalk

 

[Hutch11]

Surely Haji will start scoring again, law of averages would suggest so
He's not going to keep.on missing chances He's far too good for that

 

[SleepyGinger]

Surely Haji will start scoring again, law of averages would suggest so
He's not going to keep.on missing chances He's far too good for that

I’d be worried if he wasn’t getting the chances. He is a proven goal scorer, could have had 4 or 5 in the last 2 games. The goals will start flowing soon I’m sure of it.

 

[SwanLane]

Feels like the time for Haji to start firing again. Southampton are good so it won’t be easy. But I saw their game on Saturday. Scienza is tricky. He started well but by the second half, Norwich were bullying him and he started hiding.

 

[mmttww]

I’d be worried if he wasn’t getting the chances. He is a proven goal scorer, could have had 4 or 5 in the last 2 games. The goals will start flowing soon I’m sure of it.

Yeah, I can only think of one big chance he should've taken or done better with in the last couple of games (header vs. Preston). He's looked sharp. Reckon he'll go on a scoring run if he gets one on Sat.

 

[Perennial Lurker]

Think we beat these quite comfortably, keep Armstrong quiet and they are pretty toothless

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

I’d be worried if he wasn’t getting the chances. He is a proven goal scorer, could have had 4 or 5 in the last 2 games. The goals will start flowing soon I’m sure of it.

His performances overall have been reasonably good (apart from not knowing the offside rule).

But he has to start scoring again soon or he's going to have to be dropped for Simms. For Simms to be dropped after winning player of the month and getting 5 in 3 if the player brought back in for him hasn't scored in something like 10 games then that's poor management, especially when you know the player dropped is very much a confidence player. I expect Simms will start a couple of games over the busy Christmas schedule but after that if Wright isn't hitting the net but Simms is any sensible manager would have to play Simms.

TBH I feel a bit similar over Rudoni. We looked excellent with BTA filling in there and even Eccles filling in we looked pretty good. Rudoni has come back in straight away and I think we've looked weaker as an attacking force, which is surprising as Rudoni is a superior player to both of them. He's playing the role differently though, so maybe Lampard needs to tell him to play more like we have done with other players there.

 

[Perennial Lurker]

His performances overall have been reasonably good (apart from not knowing the offside rule).

But he has to start scoring again soon or he's going to have to be dropped for Simms. For Simms to be dropped after winning player of the month and getting 5 in 3 if the player brought back in for him hasn't scored in something like 10 games then that's poor management, especially when you know the player dropped is very much a confidence player. I expect Simms will start a couple of games over the busy Christmas schedule but after that if Wright isn't hitting the net but Simms is any sensible manager would have to play Simms.

TBH I feel a bit similar over Rudoni. We looked excellent with BTA filling in there and even Eccles filling in we looked pretty good. Rudoni has come back in straight away and I think we've looked weaker as an attacking force, which is surprising as Rudoni is a superior player to both of them. He's playing the role differently though, so maybe Lampard needs to tell him to play more like we have done with other players there.

BTA has been excellent for us this season but Rudoni is light years ahead of him as a player , suggesting dropping him is absolute folly

 

[Gleneagles65]

Southampton are a good side with home advantage. But I don’t think they are invincible. But we need to be at our best.

We have a full week to rest and prepare. Can’t see any changes to the starting eleven unless illness or injury intervene.

The way I look at it is, any points we pick up at Southampton are bonus points.

We’re top and they’r tenth, I’m shitting this one.

 

[skyblue025]

I still shudder at the thought of Collins inept goalkeeping and a missed penalty by Haji the last time I went to St Mary's in the league. Threw that game away.