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Saints V Manchester City The Verdict
at 11:29:09

For once I disagree with your analysis. I think there was a game plan in the team selection.

It appeared that he was planing to have Lemina/Hodjberg/Romeu sitting in front of the back four to break up City's play. Ward Prowse was on to cover Sterling seemingly as when we we did not have the ball he fell back into an almost back five. With Ramsay taking the inside. My main criticism was this formation looked to be set up to take pressure and counter attack. The selection of the front three, however, did not lend itself to this style. With Austin and Elnousyi being not known for their pace, and Ward Prowse being to deep. On the flip side, to me it looked like he was resting players for the Chelsea game, perhaps he thinks we have a better chance of getting points of them. Also he clearly realized after West Ham that the team are not fit enough, which is why Redmond, Ings and Armstrong were on the bench. All players who looked off the pace in the previous game.

On the goals, the first was Leminia ball watching and not following his man. When the ball was laid off instead of following Silva's run he stoped to cover the man Targett was already shadowing. Honestly Leminia both in this game and at West Ham looks like he is carrying an injury. The second Ward Prowse was unlucky. The third was the damning goal, if we had gone in 2-1 down at half time its all to play for, but both center backs lost their man.

Overall it was a frustrating game, and again exposes that we never replaced Fonte with a defender who will captain the defense (we dont need an able defender we need somone who is experienced and will keep them disciplined). If Hodjberg hadnt been stupid I would have felt it was a game were the manager learnt a bit about some of his fringe players, and were we showed a clear improvement over the 6-1 beating under Hughes.

To one of the commentator on the high pressing game. It was there, particularly with the goal but we did put a lot of pressure on the keeper. In the second half with the 2 goal cushion, City sat back to hit us on the break if we committed two many players forward. Which was why in the second half you did not see us committing players forward.

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