Mainly in the first half I will grant you, but we had what seemed to me at least, quite a lot of shooting chances but we seemed to want to walk it in. I would agree that we did have some shots.......but man those we did have were woeful. Nice return for Puncheon he had a good game, when he was pushed into more central midfield we seemed to have a bit more punch (excuse the pun) but even then the shooting was practically non existent from out side the box. Plenty of crosses were again over hit and very little into the danger area at low level. I agree Cardiff came to get at least a point and their game plan was the same at St Mary's, as it was down at Cardiff to hit us on the break. Both our full backs have had better games. We seem to want to crowd out midfield as both wingers/wide midfielders seemed to want to move inside at every opportunity. That's ok if the full backs can over lap but that rarely happened. Mind you it was still a much better game to watch over all, despite my criticisms, than some of our recent offerings. The prospect of having Lambert Lee Tan and Sharpe as an attaching three is just mouth watering!
Beddy. I was absent last night (with due cause and I do have a note) but this is something I've said for a while. This Arsenal-esque desire to "make sure" is a trait of the team. Even Rickie's caught it. One game recently (Coventry I think) I couldn't believe the number of times the ball came to him on the edge of the area and he would try to slide the ball in to Guly who was perhaps 5 yards further forward. The man has a kick like a mule! I understand he was having a few cracks last night, but your general point still holds. We know we have players who can hit the ball, so when there is nothing else on you have to have a go. We are both old enough to remember Celtic winning the European Cup when Inter Milan scored early and then put up the shutters. Celtic then stopped trying to thread the ball through a packed defence and hit the bloody thing! Gibson's goal for Everton last night was a good example. If you have a pop against a packed defence you have a great chance of catching the keeper unsighted and/or getting a deflection. Agree totally, it needs sorting! Of course, we still love 'em though!
In Nigel's interview last night he was hinting that he is trying to instil a "if in doubt, shoot" mentality into the side but it obviously still needs more work. It was interesting that when Rickie was suspended and there was no obvious target man the midfielders were more inclined to have a pop, and this led Schneiderlin to score a rare goal. I'm not saying they should stop trying to supply Rickie obviously but there has to be a balance. Looking at the videos of Tadanari Lee he looks like a shoot-on-sight type of player so maybe he can help with Nigel's plan to score more goals from distance. With Sharp and Lambert and Guly (and Lee himself) following up how can we fail?
I have thought for a while that because we are a good passing side we try to pass the ball into the net (a la Arsenal). At the beginning of the season everyone was having a go, but being league leaders for so long affected our game and no risks were being taken. Have to get balance right I suppose. However, still second and just signed some good players. May have to consider that possibly Adkins knows more about football than me
Completely agree we need to shoot more from outside the box. In our last few games our best performance came against Forest when we had numerous shots from outside the area, most of which tested Lee Camp in their goal. Hopefully, after Nigel saying he wants us to shoot more from outside the box, we will see more goals and with the likes of lambert, sharp and lee up front I dont see why we cant.
Proof that modesty is your only fault! I would never claim more football knowledge than The Boss, but I am conscious of how a culture can develop in any place of work - and these lads are at work. The passing game was being more successful than we could dream at the start of the season, and it is always hard to stop doing things that have been previously successful. I am convinced that in St Nige we have a deep thinker and clever man-manager and this point (together with 128 things I never thought of) will not have passed him by. As I have said before, I've supported Saints for a long while, and this current situation is up there with the best.
Look what happened to puncheon last year when he used to shoot from outside the box, he got booed and fell out of love with the club
You need a mix of the two. Sometimes use silky legwork to walk it into the net, other times whack it on sight and see what happens. If you stick to one mentality or the other the opposition work you out. If the opposition don't know what you're going to do, you can take them by surprise.
Most of the fans last night were ridiculous, calling them to shoot every time from 18 yards, even though there was 4/5 blue shirts in front of them. Just because you're in the box it's not always the best idea to shoot. Admittedly there were a couple that should have been hit, but cardiff got numbers back which made it very hard.
there are other effects of taking a pop, it can make a defender back off, it can make a defender lunge in resulting in a free kick for rickie,a defender may throw up his arms if previously a shot hit him in the torso or face (the tactic used by jimmy case in free kicks) which results in penalties. but most importantly it keeps the defence and keeper guessing and on the back foot. Rickie, Lee,Spider,Hammond even Lallana (who has improved alot in the last 2 years) have good, strong and generally well directed kicks- but fail to use them.
Always think Hammond is good for a having a pop when outside the box. Would like to see it more but again in the right place.
We saw quite a few efforts against Forest. I'm pretty sure this is something Adkins has decided he wants to see more of.
I have to say that this one pass forward and three back then two sideways football is driving me mad. Last night the lovely Mrs Godders kept telling me to "Calm down you are not doing your blood pressure any good." I am thinking of buying one of those blood pressure monitoring devices and wear while watching the Saints. It will probably go right of the scale. I counted the number of passes it took on average for Cardiff to get the ball into our box and cause havoc and it was three passes! With that same number passes we would still be inside our own penalty area.
In all fairness our possession football came up trumps in the second half it's not just about looking good its about tiring out the opposition and thus making them leave space. This worked because our domination of the second half was clear for all to see. Adkins did try and induce shooting from outside the box when he brought on hammond who in my opinion is our best striker of the ball outside of the penalty area baring lambo.
I agree Joey, shooting for the sake of shooting can be counter-productive. There were a few times when we could have got shots off if they had taken them earlier, but that cardiff box was often packed full of bodies. I thought that Saints passing game was what finally took the energy out of Cardiff hence the frenetic last 20 minutes when we hardly let them out of their half of the pitch. More of a mix would be good though, just to keep opposition teams guessing. What annoys me is when players pass a ball, only for it to be intercepted because our players are stood waiting for it to come to their feet - can we not pass to a moving player any more?
This is an area where we miss Chaplow as a direct midfielder. Of all the midfielders at the club he is arguably the lesser talented one on the football, but his energy levels and direct runs at goal caused the oppo all sorts of problems. Before his injury when he was playing on the right of midfield he would easily have at least three decent chances a match. This was not because the team were putting in any less of a performance than they do now but because he would run beyond the strikers and gamble to get on to a Lambert knock down or a Lallana cross. Since his absence and the need to play Guly up top we have lost that side of our game and neither Schneiderlin or Cork have been able to adapt there more defensive mindsets to compensate. It may come across as slightly over critical but I think Cork inpaticular needs to learn when to attack the opposition defenders as a couple of times last night the ball would break to him and his 1st instinct was to shield the ball even when not under great pressure.