26 Dec 2014 19:07:20
Delighted for Mane to get a goal, assist and an all round excellent game under his belt. That should give the kid a boost and hopefully help settle him down now. He's got lots of talent, allied to bouts of wild headless chickenism, but I think he can still turn out to be a fine signing over time if everyone's patient with him.
Solid from Saints today against a pretty dire Palace side. Shame they gave up a late consolation goal as I thought the defence deserved another clean sheet - Gardos did well on his first league start, Forster actually used his height properly to deal with the numerous aerial balls lumped into the box.
No bookings, no suspensions and fingers crossed no new injuries (Clyne went off late, replaced by another academy graduate, James McCarthy). All in all a good day at the office.
Onwards to Chelsea. Let's give them a fright.
Edit: Jason McCarthy, not James.
27 Dec 2014 11:02:22
Somebody at the club has obviously been telling Forster to take command of his area, there were good signs yesterday that he was more prepared to come off his line. It didn't happen all the time and there was some hesitation especially late on in the game but from my, as you know, very critical opinion of him it was a big step in the right direction. All the lads had a good game yesterday and I think it is no surprise we are scoring goals again, and the reason is ? Answer : James Ward Prowse he is looking like quite a player and is getting better every time he plays. He is just about the only player in our team that can cross a ball and place it where he wants it to go. Fantastic prospect but can we keep hold of him ?
Lovely to see u even slightly positive towards fraser! Must be the Christmas spirit! Out of interest Chris who do you see replacing bertrand on sun if we stay 3-5-2? Targett?
27 Dec 2014 17:25:02
I think he will play Targett at full back but just an outside chance they might play 5 at the back and maybe use Yoshida as a centre half/full back as he has played there before along with Toby who is also used to playing as full back. Yoshida has been outstanding recently. This means 2 of our three centre halves can play full back if required. If we can keep Hazard and Fabregas quiet and squeeze them for space we could frustrate them and I think the likes of Mane and Tadic could cause them problems. If we play at our best and our star players perform we could beat them fair and square but there is no doubt Chelsea are rightfully at the top of the table because they simply are the best team in the league but if we just got a little of the luck we haven't had this season we could cause an upset.