You follow the wrong team/sport if you want balanced coverage. All the media care about is the top 6 as that is what the majority of the audience care about
The way I see it, in the Championship you will finish top 6 if you have an average team with just a couple of Premier League quality players. Whereas in the Prem an average team with just one or two Championship level players, will see you finish the bottom 6. Most games we line up with one or two Championship level players. But we still have mostly a decent Prem team. Stu Armstrong’s injury has really held us back, as it’s the reserve playmakers Walcott, Djenepo and Elyou who are not Prem quality.
Sorry. I see no difference at all in quality between 6th place in EPL and 15th place in the Championship. So I haven’t got any problem with people saying our players are Championship standard. The model for a club like us is to pick up those prospects that the coaching staff can work on and improve before they move on to bigger and better things.
What we haven’t done recently is ‘uncovered’ a world class gem, like a Mané or a VVD (I know they were both known before coming to us, but you know what I mean). We could really do with digging one of those up again. I guess you could say Tino is one, but we need another higher up the pitch.
Yeah. And they had a number of teammates who were very comfortably above the 'lower mid-table' level, even if the squad had some notable flat spots. It's telling that, Tino excluded, we're more worried about our best players being taken by Villa, Everton or Leicester than we are Liverpool, Chelsea and the Manchester twins. I'm hopeful that the new management will make a real difference in our recruitment, but they're also operating under fairly difficult financial restrictions.
Don't know that it took him a full season. His early performances were uneven, but from Christmas on (at age 22) he scored 9 times in 19 games.
There's hope then that Adam and co might do the same! I seem to recall Pelle took a while too. I actually think that if, and it's a big if, we could import a tactical brain to work with Ralph, this team could be more consistent. Others have mentioned about players possible uncertainty with what they're being asked to do etc, sort that out and who knows, the points will build again.
I was listening to an interesting interview with a Leicester supporting journalist who was talking about Vestergaard and how the best CB outside the Big Six has declined so far since joining them to where he is now classed as a total liability by the Foxes fans. Never understood the medias love of Vestergaard as I always felt he was a major part of our defensive problems last year that have now pretty much been sorted by bringing in Salisu and sticking him in the Foxes back line have resulted in conceding so many goals
Tbf he was getting a lot of love from Saints fans this time last season as his form before Xmas was much improved from the previous season and it was getting noticed nationally. What got a lot of attention were his raking diagonal passes to KWP in particular which was a big part of our attacking armoury. His form did dip after he got injured in the new year but then the whole team's tailed off as well.
Problem is that likely as not, once they are identified as craftsmen one of the big building firms will poach them.
We need desperately another Rickie Lambert or Pelle who you just “know” is going to score. I firmly believe that opposition players see those types and also believe they will score, whereas with our current lads(bless ‘em) the fear factor is just not in opposing defenders’ minds
Lambert scored 27 goals in his Championship season with us. Adam Armstrong scored 28 with Blackburn last year.
And Blackburn finished 15th, so not exactly as successful a team as us in 20011/12, when we scored 20 more goals than Blackburn did last year.
I'd be a lot more worried if he wasn't getting chances or not having any impact on the game but he is getting into the right places to score he just needs to be a little calmer with his finishing.
That's always been his MO, though. He scored quite a few goals in the Championship last season, but it's because he took more shots than anyone in the history of the Championship (he took 30% more shots than Ivan Toney, who was 2nd in shot attempts, Toney played 700 more minutes!). His actual chance conversion rate was fairly bad compared to other strikers in the division. Now, he's getting fewer shots, but still converting them at a poor rate. Perhaps he'll become a good finisher, but in his career to date he hasn't really demonstrated that he is one.