Eddie Howe

[1964]

Make America Geordies Again

[duo]

22 hours ago, 54 said:

 

Mic's for the Journalists.

The new setup is so much better - can actually hear the questions being asked

[TBG]

Did he really need to start Schar?

[PauloGeordio]

 

[elbee909]

11 hours ago, TBG said:

Did he really need to start Schar?

 

Feels a bit captain hindsight this.

[Dokko]

Any idea why we were so shit yesterday? Only seen MotD and followed in here, but seems we were terrible bar the 1st 5mins and actually the sending off deflected from a really poor performance. 

 

Always tricky playing newly promoted teams 1st couple of games of the season, always with their tails up and without any fear, but didn't expect 70% possession in their favour, and that was before the sending off. 

[Smal]

3 minutes ago, Dokko said:

Any idea why we were so shit yesterday? Only seen MotD and followed in here, but seems we were terrible bar the 1st 5mins and actually the sending off deflected from a really poor performance. 

 

Always tricky playing newly promoted teams 1st couple of games of the season, always with their tails up and without any fear, but didn't expect 70% possession in their favour, and that was before the sending off. 

we were really poor, yeah.

 

As has often been the case the past few years the issues are in possession. We are poor at playing out from the back, especially without Trippier’s ability to play out of tight spaces and progress play. More often than not we were just booting the ball up the line or into channels. We never got going in possession at all.

 

We are definitely trying something different with our out of possession shape but I’m not sure it worked particularly well yesterday either. We were 4-4-2 out of possession with Gordon very high and narrow and Joelinton covering the left side until we backed off into our more regular 4-5-1 shape. We even kept this after going down to 10 in more of a 4-3-2. It was very easy for Southampton to keep the ball and we were just giving them it straight back.

 

Result was great and we showed some important characteristics, especially from some individuals, but performance-wise it was a big disappointment.

[Dokko]

4 minutes ago, Smal said:

we were really poor, yeah.

 

As has often been the case the past few years the issues are in possession. We are poor at playing out from the back, especially without Trippier’s ability to play out of tight spaces and progress play. More often than not we were just booting the ball up the line or into channels. We never got going in possession at all.

 

We are definitely trying something different with our out of possession shape but I’m not sure it worked particularly well yesterday either. We were 4-4-2 out of possession with Gordon very high and narrow and Joelinton covering the left side until we backed off into our more regular 4-5-1 shape. We even kept this after going down to 10 in more of a 4-3-2. It was very easy for Southampton to keep the ball and we were just giving them it straight back.

 

Result was great and we showed some important characteristics, especially from some individuals, but performance-wise it was a big disappointment.

 

Cheers. Lots of work then, and if we sell Trippier even more so. 

[Collage]

16 hours ago, PauloGeordio said:

 

Schär is gone then. "Fortunately for us it was a red for Fab". Does sound like he says that tbf but they could have changed the subtitles...

[Geogaddi]

I thought the most alarming thing even before the sending off was the lack of press , Southampton were just pinging it about at times and it seemed we had no urgency and the press was non existent.
 

When I think back to the Villa game first game of last season and even the Forest one the year before we just pressed and ran them off the park and yesterday was nothing at all like that . Gordon in particular looked like he couldn't be arsed and he's normally chasing and running after everything .

 

 

Edited August 18, 2024 by Geogaddi

[Smal]

I think our press was good for the first 5 minutes, and obviously it’s how we got our goal too. Not sure what happened after the first five though. Either Southampton worked it out very quickly or we just backed off.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

6 minutes ago, Collage said:

Schär is gone then. "Fortunately for us it was a red for Fab". Does sound like he says that tbf but they could have changed the subtitles...

Think they’re automated these days. Most of the time anyway. 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2024 by AyeDubbleYoo

[Dr Jinx]

We were really poor yesterday, a promoted team coming here and playing us off the park isn’t a great look.

 

But am choosing at this point to believe that we were instructed to sit back and play counter which were good at.

 

But again.. and I’ve made this point so many times. Why does it always look like we have to work harder than any other team to pick up a win?

 

Man for man we have a better midfield than Southampton but they were literally in our half (before the sending off) with one of their players with his foot on the ball deciding whether to pass left or right.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

I think we would have grown into the game with 11 and the end result would have been near enough 50:50 possession with us coming out 2-0 winners.

 

It was however a bit of a repeat of the second half of last season where we started a few games very poorly and needed to grow into them. We need to get that switch on from the whistle to get the best from Howes philosophy and style of play. It will come

[Izakaya]

13 hours ago, Collage said:

Schär is gone then. "Fortunately for us it was a red for Fab". Does sound like he says that tbf but they could have changed the subtitles...

I think he just mumbles 'unfortunately' or it was a slip of the tongue. I don't see any situation where Howe says a red for one of our players is fortunate. 

[Ellis H]

They were known in the Championship as a team that will keep possession to an extreme level, making many pointless passes. Their average per game was about 65% I think. 

[janpawel]

34 minutes ago, Dr Jinx said:

We were really poor yesterday, a promoted team coming here and playing us off the park isn’t a great look.

 

But am choosing at this point to believe that we were instructed to sit back and play counter which were good at.

 

But again.. and I’ve made this point so many times. Why does it always look like we have to work harder than any other team to pick up a win?

 

Man for man we have a better midfield than Southampton but they were literally in our half (before the sending off) with one of their players with his foot on the ball deciding whether to pass left or right.

I do worry, or hope that we do develop the ability to control a game at our own pace, and not constantly seek transitions to score our goals. But with our personal, I'm not so sure 

[Superior Acuña]

I'm not going to judge us on the 60 mins with ten men - that's a long time to play with ten men whoever the (PL) opposition, but was concerned by the first 30 mins, especially given how poor we were in many games the second half of last season, and we had most our key players there (incl no Dubravka to blame). Still, was only 30 mins so hopefully can't read much into it....

[r0cafella]

We weren’t great, that goes without saying. I can’t help take positivity from the result though, we lose this game last season imo. 

[Zero]

I don’t understand the negativity here. May be people expected us to crush Soton easily but I am very pleased we are able to execute pressing for once and steal a goal, and then able to grind it out till the end. You couldn’t ask for more given Schar being sent off unfairly.

 

Krafth and Kelly both look reliable. Livra able to handle the pressure for 90 mins. Hall got a lesson but redeem himself with that goal line save. Pope back on form after a disastrous season. Joe in beast mode, finally looks fresh. Bruno didn’t lose his position like last season.

 

I have lots of positives to take from this match. Probably the only negatives are the front three - Murphy a bit unlucky but he did fuck all within his limited playing time. But that’s not on Howe.

 

May be last season was so disastrous (especially on the defence side) that my expectation is lower. I think Howe and the players did pretty well and shouldn’t get any stick, except Schar

 

 

Edited August 19, 2024 by Zero

[Guest]

People were moaning last season that his tactics were causing injuries. We press less, people are moaning we didn't press with the same intensity. Some people just like to moan. 

[ATB]

4 hours ago, janpawel said:

I do worry, or hope that we do develop the ability to control a game at our own pace, and not constantly seek transitions to score our goals. But with our personal, I'm not so sure 

I been banging for this for years. But I have given up the thought of that happening. Its either the players or Howe, or both.

 

But for us to take the next step I think we have to be able to controll games.

[ATB]

2 hours ago, Optimistic Nut said:

People were moaning last season that his tactics were causing injuries. We press less, people are moaning we didn't press with the same intensity. Some people just like to moan. 

Less press is ok, if we can keep the ball.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, ATB said:

Less press is ok, if we can keep the ball.

 

We had games like the first 15-20 mins a few times last season, then got a foot hold and blew teams away (Sheff Utd at home being best example). Pretty confident with 11 men we'd eventually have got there. 

 

I'm also not sure we have the keeper to play a possession based game necessarily. If he's kicking it out for a throw-in, we naturally have to try and win the ball back more often tham we'd like. His other attributes cover it to a big extent so it's one of those things we have to deal with.

 

Similarly, Burn was a colossal on Saturday, his pass % was 20% less than Bednarek and Stephens for Southampton though. His average is around 78-80% normally so we'd expect a bit less given the scenario on Saturday with 10 men, and it also looks like we're trying to solve that with someone like Guehi who averages 10% more which is significant. 

 

Guess we just need to find the right balance.

 

[ExiledGeordie]

I don’t think we were terrible or awful. Yes it was disappointing we didn’t come out of the traps straight away but Gordon looked a little off the pace and I think we just lacked a little zip which effected the press. It was a flat start to the game for sure but I was fairly confident we’d make our quality count as the game went on then the red card happened. 
 

The first few games some players are always finding their form and fitness. I think we would’ve gone on and won 11 v 11 and as it was we dealt with a difficult situation really well in the end and still won.

 

Im interested to see what we look like this coming weekend though as we’ll have to be a lot sharper.