Southampton v Bournemouth - Sun 1st Nov - 16:00

[Whitechapel]

Match day chat.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Crikey, this has the potential to be rather unpleasant, because we're not in a good state at the moment. Such awful timing for us to come across Saints! We're in full on experimental mode at the moment, trying to see what may work best given the available resources at our disposal. With no obvious starting 11 it'd be rather hard for me to predict our lineup.

Will be interesting to walk to an away game, lol. At least I know plenty of alternatives to f**king Yates as the usual away bar that the Police will try and shepherd everyone into. I can try anyway.

Boruc's agent tells us he's been looking forward to this meeting ever since he first rocked up at Dean Court last season, and that he'd be gutted to be dropped now. But frankly, he's walking a very thin line currently and patience is at the limit. Federici played last night and did ok, it's a real tossup.

In attack it's basically, get the ball to Matt Ritchie and Glenn Murray as much as possible, they're the quality that will create and score the goals.

We just have to keep them out at the other end. Easy, right?

My tip, Harry Arter to make his first PL start of the season. He'll smash the Saints central midfield into the stands within 5 minutes, certainly get booked and possibly get sent off. But hearing his name on the team sheet will give the 3000 or so away fans a huge boost,

 

[Jamie_SFC]

Crikey, this has the potential to be rather unpleasant, because we're not in a good state at the moment. Such awful timing for us to come across Saints! We're in full on experimental mode at the moment, trying to see what may work best given the available resources at our disposal. With no obvious starting 11 it'd be rather hard for me to predict our lineup.

Will be interesting to walk to an away game, lol. At least I know plenty of alternatives to f**king Yates as the usual away bar that the Police will try and shepherd everyone into. I can try anyway.

Boruc's agent tells us he's been looking forward to this meeting ever since he first rocked up at Dean Court last season, and that he'd be gutted to be dropped now. But frankly, he's walking a very thin line currently and patience is at the limit. Federici played last night and did ok, it's a real tossup.

In attack it's basically, get the ball to Matt Ritchie and Glenn Murray as much as possible, they're the quality that will create and score the goals.

We just have to keep them out at the other end. Easy, right?

My tip, Harry Arter to make his first PL start of the season. He'll smash the Saints central midfield into the stands within 5 minutes, certainly get booked and possibly get sent off.

I think he's more likely to be kicked into the stands if Wanyama and Romeu start.

No surprise that Boruc is well up for this one. Him and Koeman didn't see eye to eye.

Hopefully Koeman puts Mane in the middle for this one. Have him running at their CBs.

All in all, I'm expecting a close game.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

I think he's more likely to be kicked into the stands if Wanyama and Romeu start.

No surprise that Boruc is well up for this one. Him and Koeman didn't see eye to eye.

Hopefully Koeman puts Mane in the middle for this one. Have him running at their CBs.

All in all, I'm expecting a close game.

If the midfield area is going to be rather crunching both ways, then I hope the referee is sensible and even handed accordingly.

 

[Jamie_SFC]

To be fair I can't see us starting with both Wanyama and Romeu. Romeu seems like he could be a good buy for the small fee we got him for but he loves a yellow card, he flies into challenges and is lucky to have no red cards to his name. Our fans were amazed he wasn't booked last night.

Suspect it'll be Wanyama/Davis or Clasie for us. Wanyama needs to improve massively on his form so far this season. Him and Schneiderlin last season were one of the main reasons we done so well and now that Wanyama is the main man he's gone missing. He clearly doesn't want to be here.

Feel a tad sorry for you lot Mark, our clubs decision to make this a category A game is a weird one. The game hasn't sold out and feels like the club have just cashed in on a large away support. Although I'm sure the travelling away fans won't care what the ticket prices were if you get something on Sunday!

 

[ArmchairDiehard]

Southampton 2-1 Bournemouth

 

[SALTIRE]

So'ton 2 - 0 B'mouth

 

[JimJams]

Saints: 2 Unluckiest side in the division: Zero

 

[PDS]

Expecting nothing from this and I'll more than likely be correct. But we need to come out with some positives ahead of a big game next week. It's clear we need to tighten up the back and cut out the errors, but I really want to see some leadership out there, you'd hope Distin with Yao experience would take the lead and calm things down but he's been one of the worst offenders. Sadly the only otther option is an 18 year old without a league game to his name so Cook-Distin has to work.

Have a feeling we might hold After back for Newcastle. That one is infinitely more winnable and giving him a week to get fully fit could work wonders.

I'll go for 3-0 with Mane and Pelle running riot but lets be honest we'll probably gift them a couple anyway and lose our heads.

 

[PDS]

To call Distin a carthorse would be an insult to cart horses everywhere. Sadly we can't even drop him.

Going to be a long second half

 

[Gassy]

Saint's were so comfortable in the 1st half it was unreal. Did they even get out of 2nd gear? 2nd half was completely different though, Bournemouth looked good, but just didn't have the cutting edge up top to score. Good game to watch, that.

 

[Jamie_SFC]

Comfortable win. Heard some Bournemouth fans after the game say they deserved a point but not a chance. For all their possession in the second half, they created nothing.

First half was quality from us, went into half time thinking this could be 4 or 5, suspect Bournemouth fans did as well. Second half, not sure what went wrong with us, it was like Leicester again except we were playing a side that had no creativity.

Wanyama is a fool. Don't understand why he got a good reception after the sending off.

 

[SamScfc]

Thought it was a decent game, Southampton were brilliant in the first half and had the game won, as good as they were Bournemouth were bad.

They did better in the second half, they're just getting no look lately, their defence is nowhere near their strongest and Distin looks uninterested/shit.

Would have kept Murray on for the second half, King doesn't look like a natural goal scorer

 

[PDS]

Will go into more detail when I get off this packed overheated train, but the main feeling is devastation that in probably our only ever top flight season we have been so decimated by injury that we're can't put out a competitive team.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Well in patches that was better. We looked a little more solid, if less creative than we normally are. Not sure if that was a coincidence or if we intentionally sacrificed some intent. I'd say we deserved a goal out of the game, but you'd have to go some to say we deserved a point Jamie, Saints were a step ahead, all be it without being overly impressive. Perhaps they had another gear. But I really liked how quiet we kept Saints attack second half.

I know we're trying all sorts at the moment to plug the gap left by Elphick's injury. But playing our best full back at cetre back I'm not convinced by. Francis doesn't do much wrong there, but it's just not ideal, and stifles one of our biggest attacking threats with his crossing.

I would really like to see Baily Cargill given more of a chance. I know he's a teenager, but every single time we've cautiously thrown him into a game, be it Exeter or Liverpool, he's never really done a lot wrong. He's naturally composed and he'll know our other defenders, perhaps better than Distin seems to, seemingly preferring to play at least 20 yards away from his centre back partner at all times, again creating big gaps. Distin cops some flack for both Saints goals. God knows what he was doing for the first, and for the second the ball in from Tadic was fantastic, but Distin should have done more to interrupt Pelle connecting with it.

I liked Stanislas' contribution second half. That Arter got through 70 minutes is a bonus, hopefully he'll continue getting stronger. And in Federici we have a keeper who the side seem more comfortable with, prepared to pass back to without fear he'll do something idiotic.

But the fact that we're trying this and that, chopping and changing to find what might work, shows the trouble we're in.

Interesting day as a whole, more lively than I anticipated. Cordoned in a pub by Bedford Place by Police before the game, police escort to the ground, and after the game some handbags and someone decked and knocked out on Northam bridge, with a Saints fan immediately jumped on by about 5 coppers for it!

Big game next week against Newcastle.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Bugger, I see the bloke who got knocked out arrived at hospital unconscious and is in there with a 'serious but not life threatening head injury'. Bloody hell. A middle aged Saints fan has been arrested and detained for it. And much credit goes to a passing Saints fan who was a nurse and administered CPR to keep the bloke going.