I disagree, free hit against Everton for me. Haven’t won there in about 300 years, we should get something against Sheffield Utd. Then a free hit against City....then home to Brighton where we should win and also get some injured players back , well at least KWP please.
I don't think any games are free hits after returning 1 point out of a possible 24 - maybe the City game is an exception because they are so good. Everton is certainly not a free hit though, a very important game which we need a point from.
In reality with our injuries,away at a bogey ground, a draw would be exceptional. Watched them against Liverpool and they were very good.
OK, I changed it, I am fairly laconic and laid back about the Saints and their pitfalls, taking the blows on the chin and moving on each time, that occasion is one where I got very emotional, it's time it was avenged and Monday would help if we got a result.
No doubting that they are a good side and if we had been picking up points against the likes of Newcastle then you'd be right. But when you lose to those sides you should beat you need to pick up points against better sides. A point would be a very good result and would help ease just a little pressure ahead of the sheffield united game. Although Everton win @ Evens is pretty tempting!
........to play the next game and get a point. The season is what it is, any big changes now are, in my view, counterproductive and as yet totally unnecessary. We will pull through this trough of poor results but it's not going to be a stress less time, but then when has it been much different for very long!
Unfortunately our inability to convert possession into goals means that we will always be open to the football version of Muhammad Ali’s “Rope-a-Dope” tactics. Even if we were to take a 2 goal lead, we are prone to switching off either side of halftime giving our opponents the upper hand, before we start committing more and more players forward, only to be picked off by a quick counterattack. Maybe we need to go out and play as we did against Chelsea. Let them have the ball but give them no space behind or between the lines, to feed balls in between the CBs. Not confident that we can keep this below a 3 goal defeat, but hope to be proved wrong.
The good news going into this game is that Ralph and the team will have had almost a week to recover, and prepare for this one. We are typically better when Ralph has time to run sessions rather than simply recovery. There should be a game plan and the players will have had time to absorb and work on it, as well as more time to recover than what we are used to. But obviously the injuries we have are going to make this extremely difficult regardless. We kinda need Everton to have a bad game as well as us to play a blinder to come away with a result.