Southampton v Peterborough (Tuesday 1st November) Match Thread

Is the pitch narrower this year, it seems to be and a lot of our diagonal passes are being over hit, by a yard or two. Also several players tonight when taking shots were guilty of the schoolboy error of leaning back instead of getting their head over the ball. More practice needed in the finishing department!

 

The annoying thing was that after we conceded a few of our fans wanted the team to get the ball forward quicker instead of just playing it about easily like we had done for the previous 75 minutes. If you have the ball the opposition can't score. De Ridder was quality when he came on, great impact player.

 

Funny old game, football. The performance against Middlesbrough, the performance against Peterborough. Exactly the same 3 points. I may feel different about the two, but the table says that they are the same.

 

Agreed, and when I considered that fact anew; like one could do every time Saints win ugly [or at least, not as prettily as they can], the post match good feeling I had from Saturday reappeared, albeit in slightly diluted fashion. In the distant past, during a topic discussing whether people wanted Saints to be entertaining or effective, I've said that I wouldn't mind going through a season of 1-0s in order to be promoted. But then I wouldn't really be sure whether Saints were capable of anything more. The fact that the Lads have so raised the bar of expectation, that we go into a match often debating not whether we'll win, but by how much, shows how far the Team, and the Club, has come. 3 points achieved and 5 points clear. Can't be bad.

 

This made me giggle. If Frecks hadn't been sent off, we'd have given you that thrashing as you sat back straight after the sending off. Maybe you should play with ten every week because it's the first time you've defended as a group all season. Before the sending off, Posh just bombed forward with your midfielders "cheating" on their defensive duties.

Credit due though, as you defended well sith the ten.

 

I was looking at that last night SaintDon. I'm convinced it's narrower.

 

They're counting the run of wins from the end of last season aswell.

It's actually 19 wins in a row in all competitions not 17.

 

Just one game to go before another international break but I think its the last one

 

i bloody hope so, i hate the international breaks

 

I've been convinced that it's narrower since the start of the season. Looking at it from the Chapel stand, there looks to be a lot more space between the touchline and the itchen stand this season.

 

I know we're in the automatic promotion slots right now, but isn't it bloody nice to be 11 points clear of 7th place!

 

I was shouting this out, especially towards Fonte had his long/diagonal balls, long before Posh scored.

At one stage, a guy behind decided he'd come back at me by saying that pumping the ball forward is the better option, because it gets the ball closer to the opposition goal and increases our chances of scoring. Despite being a season ticket holder, I assuming he hasn't actually been watching us this season!

 

That's all I have ever looked at this season. Sure it's nice to be five clear of 2nd and six clear of 3rd. But all I care about is how far clear we are of 7th. If we're still in this position come February, then I'll start to concentrate a little more on 3rd place.

 

Were you sat in front of Sam Allardyce by any chance?

 

And for the confirmed, dyed-in-the-wool pessimists among you, we are currently 21 points ahead of 22nd place!

 

That game took me back to L1 - teams piling men behind the ball and not pressing us at all. Bloody boring. Still, its a good win.

 

No disrespect to them, but Peterborough are basically a League 1 team punching above their weight

 

Yes, but they are correct in that it is 17 League Home wins in a row, going back to last season. We may be 15 games in, this season, but that includes Away games, of course.

I like the way the records keep bouncing about. Remember when we were 100%, a few games in at start of the season..? They all said we'd made the best start in 102 years. That statistic was obviously from when we were dominating the Southern League over several seasons. Then we lost to Leicester City. That took us back to somewhere around 50 odd years, when another Saints side had obviously started some seasons very well, and we've been keeping pace around that form since. The other week, it was 52 years, now it's 55. Not much chance of getting back to the 102 year old record, because there was one season where the Southern league side didn't lose.

 

I was talking about this on the way home yesterday. When does a start stop being a start? Like you say, it was our best start for 100+ years after our four straight home wins at the start. Now four games into a season, I can accept being called "a start". But 15????

At this rate after game 24 it will be "our best start ever", and after game 31 it will be "our best start in 73 years" and after game 44 it will be "our best for 89 years".

 

Or 17 points ahead of PFC for the more tribal supporters!