Saints Negative Tactics

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DodgerCherry

New Signing
Saints game plan was to disrupt our attacking style of play by blocking out our wingers, which they achieved quite effectively. Brooks and Fraser had two sometimes three players man marking them which nullified their effectiveness. Eddie will need to have a plan B if this becomes a regular occurrence as our strikers will not receive the service they need from the wings.
 
...Plan B not in the planning as far as I have seen?...

I often think that we should mix it up a bit and go through the middle more...we have the players who can play that way in Lewis Cook and Jermaine Defoe? (even Ibe when he was central once caused problems?)
 
Garbo said:
...Plan B not in the planning as far as I have seen?...

I often thingk that we should mix it up a bit and go through the middle more...we have the players who can play that way in Lewis Cook and jermain Defoe? (even Ibe when he was central once caused problems?)
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Totally agree. It does seem that no matter what, Eddie is determined to play with width no matter the formation or situation
 
They are not the first side to do this to us. Eddie will normally tweak things and find a way. The difference was that on Saturday we had too many players off colour or were playing to script against saints.
 
Southampton came for the draw, other teams will play with a lot more freedom and attacking style meaning they can’t free 2-3 men up to mark certain players.
 
Lerma seems to be able to put balls through teh middle. I'm sure this is something Cook also has the vision to do. It is a tactic that is much higher risk, liable to interception and counters when exposed though, so Eddie hasn't used it often.
 
On Saturday several times our final ball was misplaced.
Saints were set up for the draw with the potential for a breakaway goal if they could get one.
I thought they played OK for what they set out to achieve (apart from the 'injuries' time wasting.
We were off colour and they so easily could have scored in the last few minutes.
So in the end I was a) happy with the point and b) grateful I didn't support Saints.
 
TCherry said:
On Saturday several times our final ball was misplaced.
Saints were set up for the draw with the potential for a breakaway goal if they could get one.
I thought they played OK for what they set out to achieve (apart from the 'injuries' time wasting.
We were off colour and they so easily could have scored in the last few minutes.
So in the end I was a) happy with the point and b) grateful I didn't support Saints.
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I think that sums it up pretty accurately.
I couldn't stand to watch Mark Hughes' patented brand of anti-football week in, week out.
 
We've always played with narrow wingers. This is especially true with Fraser and Brooks playing on their other side. When teams open up against us, we get a lot of space in the middle and have done well like this so far this season.

Saints had obviously spotted this and set up narrow. Really we should have looked to play slightly wider on Saturday. I don't think having Smith at LB and Francis at RB is ideal as they don't have the same threat on the overlap compared to say Smith at RB and Rico at LB.

I don't think we need a plan B or anything yet. A lot of PL teams will concentrate on their game rather than try to stop us. I'm sure Brooks and Fraser will get plenty of space inside against Fulham. The main issue on Saturday was not Saints tactics, more our own performance
 
the co-commentator (Tony Gayle I believe) noted that what southampton had done is basically marked the channels. Which is what got us success against Watford, playing it round the back, sucking in their midfield (or their "press") then releasing King and Wilson down the channels. What southampton did is effectively press us and then prevent any success when we went long. Their CBs were well drilled on it it seems.
 
Always puzzled when people ask about a plan B....we have surely seen enough times that Eddie changes things around, even in the same game. This season, we have been playing slightly more direct than we did before, as an example.

I feel Saturday was purely because: Stains had done their homework and executed their game plan well, however negative it appeared to us. And also, our usual flair players had off games and / or were well looked after.

Simple as that.
 
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