Match Day Thread Wigan Athletic vs Southampton 18/03/2018 BBC 1 @ 1:30pm

Have you seen them play this year Archers? They are a very well organised, good footballing team. They play in a similar way to us, but with the added part of getting the ball forward quickly, when it is on.

Oh and they have a creative number 10 who can be a liability at times, but they realise the value of the creativity outweighing the negative, so play him regardless.

 

Like Tadic, you mean


I certainly don't expect a pushover. Far from it.

 

Thought he was your fav?

 

He'd be the first name on the team sheet every week if I was picking the team, yes. Despite occasionaly being a passenger.

That was my point.

 

Or, crazy idea, if the fear is that we'll end up playing agricultural football, don't play agricultural football. Leicester won the title playing two strikers for much of the year; they most certainly didn't surrender the midfield while doing so. Under Pellegrini, Manchester City made a habit of playing the likes of Negredo and Bony alongside Aguero; it definitely didn't end in them resorting to hoofing the ball forward. Deploying two forwards won't immediately result in our uniforms swelling to be three sizes too big, nor will it result in Boyz II Men ascending back to the top of the charts.

 

Saints unveil evidence of their new approach...

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It's a joke btw.

No need to tell me how it fits in with a fluid 3-1-2-1-3 formation with overlapping goalies

 

Obviously we had it much tougher in the earlier rounds than Wigan

And we are doing so well in the league

Can only see a Saints win

 

We'll ****ing smash them.

That is all.

 

Same as MP then - 28/30 to date I believe.
Edit: 27/30 - MP’s 2nd most used player, only behind Bertie.

 

That's probably our two best players, so I'm not arguing with MP there.

And whilst it's getting more and more difficult to defend our manager - results speak for themselves, after all - I don't consider him nearly as clueless as most of our fans do. In fact, I don't consider him nearly as clueless as most of our fans are.

His methods aren't working, there's no arguing with that. And if he gets sacked this morning no one will really be in a position to argue that it isn't worth the gamble. But I do not buy the assertion that he is what's wrong with our club.

I'll say it one more time, then I'm done - if you keep selling your best players every summer, then regardless of who is picking the team out of what's left, you will pay the price eventually.

 

Got my ticket

 

<ahem> Boufal ........

 

Yeah, that's who Fats meant in the first instance, I know.

I'd love to see more of Boufal, and hope we do next season (and what's left of this). He's not a playmaker though.
And I wouldn't put him in the team ahead of Tadic - <ducks>

Edit; I'd probably play them both.

 

Given his poor return since Graziano left, I’d leave him on the bench until he starts to play properly ......
OR play him on left and NOT the right!

 

Do you think that his tactics are getting the best out out of our saviour signing, Carrillo, Archers?. Since he has been playing as the the lone Striker, how often has had a headed attempt on goal? he isn't getting anything like the service he needs to score the goals that we need and often just looks isolated, feeding for scraps and chasing passes he will never get to, he must be as frustrated as I am at watching it.
You said it, it's a results business and we don't have the time to wait until he finally finds his feet, employing him was like making an apprentice the foreman IMO.

 

If Wigan beat us they will have defeated four Premier League teams just in the cup. We've beaten five all season. They're gonna be well up for this.

 

Absolutely baffled by how highly you rate Tadic. He was good three years ago, this season he has been absolutely appalling. I agree he is probably our most creative when played on the left, but he’s been a used incorrectly and therefore been a liability all year. His Newcastle performance was embarrassing for a professional footballer.

 

The answer to the first question is, clearly not. I think Carillo would be (hopefully, will be) a very effective player with others getting close and playing off him.

The reason, imo, that our lone striker - whoever it is - is inevitably isolated is due to poor movement and passing in midfield. It's not that we never pass forward, it's that when we do, the passing isn't great and inevitably gets intercepted. It's fine saying we should put another striker on and tell him to get close to Carillo, but we still need to get the ball into dangerous areas, and when we do we need pace and movement in and around the box. How do we do that by going lighter in midfield?

This is where the club really let Pellegrino down imo. They took the decision not to sack him in January, then only did half a job in the transfer window. Carillo plus Theo, or Carillo plus the Spartak Moscow bloke, might have had three times the impact of Carillo on his own.

Carillo linked up beautifully with Tadic for the second goal vs West Brom, btw. Maybe he only does it in the Cup.

 

As illustrated by my suggested XI yesterday, even I've reached the point of leaving Tadic out. And I never leave Tadic out.

 

Didn't go to Newcastle, so can't really comment on that.

Tadic has been consistently the most creative player on the pitch in the games I have watched this season, though that might not be saying a lot. I keep hearing about how predictable we are; if there is one player who isn't predictable, it's him.

He has gone missing at times, but not nearly as often as everyone else.