Lavanche

no get a grip. He did what moaners asked and we lost. Try to find new excuse.

Dissapointing.. would have deserved at least a draw. Next time please, release Hoops from doghouse.. We dont have enough creativity and Snoddy''s delivery is just poor.

well players have to take a look in a mirror. Hughton''s tactics apart from defending have been spot on and we have been in dangerous areas trough the game. Both centrebacks were crappy today. Specially Bassong seemed to be out of position all the time, but at the end our midfield doesnt support them enough and again as against Tottenham space between our midfield and defence is way too big. Elmander has been drifting out of game from the start and RvW does great ammount of work, but he has to score from rare chances he gets.

inch higher or inch lower and wolf would have scored from that cross..

Why the hell outform player takes the penalty...

Well I wont be happy if we start with two pure strikers, that is for sure, But you can''t please everyone. I personaly want to see either Hoolahan or Howson front of Fer and preferably Tettey and mayby Redmond on right and Pilkington on left. RvW ofc at the peak.

Yeah I noticed how far for example Johnson and Fer were at times from eachother in the middle, because we got so streched. Not normal in Hughton''s style. I have wondered why our midfielders dont support more our fullbacks, but I think it is because of passing. For example Xabi Alonso and Busquets have very good passing ability and they have good centre backs who can deliver the ball very well. So they wont get trouble even when dropping in formation of 3 4 3 when attacking. Johnson and Tettey doesnt offer same kind of ability and Fer''s passing range is limited too. This is one of the reasons I was so fond of the idea of Biglia in canaries. What comes to Howson as a 10 I think Hughton thinks he doesnt have enough creativity or strenght to do the job there. This way or that outside of Hoolahan I think we lack a creative player in both positions and that will be a problem in other games too than Hull and Tottenham.

I have no doubt that Lambert wouldnt do good job as Hughton. They are different type of managers and in my opinion Lambert got us far as he could. Mayby he could have had one more high risk, high reward season, but I personaly believe we would have dropped down with him eventually. Great motivator, but there is always point when professionalism will overthrown enthusisam and in my opinion Hughton is quite professional manager. He could learn a bit from Lambert what comes to firing team up, but at the end he is solid coach and sometimes fired up team will run out of their positions and our defence would break apart.

I personaly hope Hughton doesnt become too obsessed to use "new signings" as Elmander and Redmond both have quite many weaknesses in their game. In my opinion Hughton''s greatest flaw is that he doesnt mix things up at all when they are working for a few games. Elmander might be a good option for some teams, but as said in starting post posession is quite big asset in modern football and Elmander always brings the long ball option "too easy to try" and he doesnt drop down enough to be a pure 10 which will make us suffer like against Tottenham. Redmond otherwise will be always good option if we get our passing somewhat working, but when we are without the ball he is almost useless, if he doesnt have the freedom to roam near centre of the pitch waiting for a counter and that is quite much asked from a Garrido or Olsson to defend alone in this level. I wouldnt also play him in the middle in free role as he still needs to know when to dribble and when to release. In my opinion we still lack playmaker and that is one of the reason why Hoolahan always make us look a bit better even thought he wouldnt do much on the field and as Purple said we are still playing like we would have intelligent passer in 10 spot with Elmander and that is something we need to fix. I personaly would prefer that we would continue using Hoolahan at least against the sides we know midfield is under pressure or even go for pure 4-3-3 with Pilkington and Redmond on the field at same time and Howson + Fer handling the ball with Tettey or Johnson taking most of defensive responbilities, but it seems Hughton prefers it otherwise ^^ I just feel Elmander doesnt have enough creativity in him to carry us forward and I know for sure Hooper doesnt offer anything more except mayby a bit more pace, but with loss of target player. But Hughton is the manager and I trust he will find the balance between strenght and creativity. Fact is that when we dont get our passing rhytm work, we will always look like lesser side and in my opinion we dont find any answers from using 3 players in the middle of the pack who are more familiar with brute strenght than creativity.

And sorry for my rant, but I cant belive what I just saw in a SUPPORTER forum...

You know that you are privilidged to live enough near CR or away cities to at least participate the games or if we drop down to see our team at all... We really dont play that bad football people makes us in their talks, so if you los your love because of our style, you never loved the team. I had to pay near 500 euros to get to see one game when we were in league 1 and championship. I personaly prefer us to play top division even if we would play like Stoke year or two ago and I would still stand behind our players and manager. Under Lambert there were many games where we just sit back. At least under Hughton we try to play in every game, even against Tottenhams and Manure... For a god sake if you are supporter of the team stand behind it. You can moan when we lose, you can call Hughton out or bash our players, but when you are losing a faith for your team when they are quite much doing their job you were never real fan of the team. Even if this would be a continuation of previous season, we were fecking 11th! Most part of previous season we played good football.. Not a hoofball, but ->football

Main difference between what Ruddy said and what people here said is that Hughton told every player to sit behind the ball and what we saw yesterday was our game plan from the start. Those who say that, really dont know anything about football ^^ as it was quite clear that Tottenham forced us to do that by being far superior compared to us. I said already in match thread that Hughton got his tactics wrong that day, but I didnt see the intent to only sit back and take beating. Our players just couldnt do what was asked from them and our middlefield was forced for poor passes and only way to build up an attack was a long ball wich made us look even worse.

Well after seeing this appear after loss and not previous victory I would guess it is someone''s second nick. I could be wrong, but as these topics from new people always pop after losses there is quite big possibility that they come mostly from same people or trolls from other teams. Sadly this forum has made me this pessimistic, but if you would be a new poster I would guess you would start talking in other anti Hughton topic instead of making a new one as there is plenty to chose from. These forums could really use moderators... and I should learn to not read them after loss.

Bah.. for a crying out loud... we didnt drop our squad behind the ball.. We didnt get more than 3 passes together before losign the ball and were beaten in 1vs1s... We couldn''t do anything else than be under the ball. Closing up play was horrible so retaining the ball was also hard. Watch the game for a god sake. There are always two teams and at the end there are very few teams that dont drop 9 men under the ball while defending long periods.

Problem about dropping Snoddy is that we would have even less player that can make the play. --------------------RvW------------------------ Pilkington------Elmander----Redmond -----------Johnson-----------Fer------------ After two game of Elmander I''m not so sure he is that great link up player and he definently isn''t a pure 10. Redmond isn''t a great passer and Pilkington is a bit too straightforward to play as a wide playmaker. They both can carry the ball front, but first we would need to get the ball for them. We all know that Johnson can''t pass and for me Fer is more of supporting player than a playmaker. Without Snoddy that yesterdays formation just wouldn''t work. It would mean dropping two or three players and replace them with Pilkington, Hoolahan and Howson, if we dont want to play like a Stoke under Pullis. I probably would prefer us to drop 3 players, but then again I cant see us doing it, so dropping Snoddy would be a bit suicidal.

He was always clearly going to be 2nd striker after RvW and we clearly are not planning to play with two upfront, but one to link up behind striker. He will still get plenty of chances to prove himself and we will need him, that is for sure.

Redmond didnt get anything done in his wing. It wasn''t all his fault, but we hardly got any attacks trought the left wing. I would probably moved him to Elmander''s place as I said in other topic, but his wingplay was poor today, but as said he didnt get ball enough to do any better. Pilkington is also more versatile player and fresh legs was something we needed anyway. Also by looking our bench you can easily see why Tettey was brought in. We desperately needed more ball and Howson was already brought in. There was no other option than him. Only way around this would have been moving one of the starting wingers in the middle and brought Olsson for Garrido to get more advanced and pacy fullback. Bunn, Martin and Hooper clearly didnt fit the situation. With Snoddy problem I agree. I think Pilkington should have taken that free kick, but as Snoddy was so succesful previous season it is hard to not let him take them. For Olsson not playing instead of Garrido I have no explanation. Mayby it is something in the training sessions that keeps Garrido over him or his assets are thought to be more balanced than Olsson''s. I personaly would prefer Olssons pace to get more people forward faster.

Open letter to other fans from a Finnish fan. Could we make only 1 anti Hughton thread after the game. It is more frustrating to watch 20 threads about same topic to pop out in few hours than look us lose games and I cant describe how frustrating it is to lose a game..

The "pass" for a second chance was a missplaced shot and it got too close his body to get a shot without few touches. I doubt there is too many strikers out there who would have done better after that first touch. You could argue that he should have been more ready to take better first touch, but at the end on the other side of the field many millions more expensive player Soldado had a few equally poor touches. First chance he took well as it was possible and there is nothing to complain about it. Anyway even thought he drifted from game for a long periods mostly because our bad posession and his passing was poor as rest of the team I think he was second best player on the field after Bassong and his runs in the channels are so good that he keeps opponent defence busy even without the ball so I think he will be worth of money spend.

Awful game no doubt about it and I see that it summoned again from +20 people back to the forum from their sleep while we won 2 games. Anyway no positives. Not a single player performed well. Bassong was closest to get clean papers, but made few bad choises with the ball. Even Ruddy made 1-3 errors. Again if you blame us about defending too deep you were not watching the game. We were forced to sit deep because we couldnt pass the ball. Everyone were too slow to react, we lost almost every 1 vs 1 situation with the ball and gaps were too big. Normaly Hughton has very solid unit, but today we were falling apart all the time. In my opinion biggest problem was again that we did go for Elmander in 10 spot and didnt bring third midfielder. So everything went wrong in this game. Subs were sensible. Mayby instead of changing Tettey we could have brought Olsson and Pilkington for Elmander and Johnson and move Redmond or Snoddy in the mid. I know many people will cry for Hooper, but in the situation where we cant get a hold for a ball even for a 20 second attack. What the hell we would do with a another player that isn''t comfortable of keeping the ball? Only way to get him on the field would have been switch for RvW who found himself in dangerous areas trought the game so wouldn''t have made sense. Also I cant get why we suddently have started again long balls from defence to attacking third. Every goalkick, freekick and even more than half open play advances were made by trough long balls.. I can understand that this is reason we play Elmander, but it really makes it even harder for us to keep the posession and get our unit forward. Snoddy and Johnson need to improve their game,.. they are nowhere near the level of previous season. Dont know if Johnson finds it hard to play alongside of Fer, but he doesnt seem to cover the ground he used to and his closing up game is awful. He left so much space and specially the one situation where he was tracking dembele in the box and gave him easy option to get past him. But at the end we have to remember we faced Tottenham in their home arena. A team who is considered to be a candidate of top 3 places. Our managment and players made errors, but I have seen better managers and players look equally bad against side whose roster looks good as todays Tottenham. Only way to go from today is upwards.

I personaly dont understand shouting and moaning for players when they are playing the game and I dont understand bashing players for the bashing sake that has nothing to do with their performance, but who they are and what they look. BUT... Mainly for keeping discussion alive in this forum it is quite understandable that it is pointed out after game who had a bad game and who didn''t to clear out where we are doing fine and where we could use strenghtening. Not that this would have any use for the club or players would hear our opinions.

We had similar games previous season... Nothing new under the sun except we have new quality players and their quality show on the field. Only thing that was new and working in some perspective was that we had two strikers on the field We had similar tactics previous season with Kamara and Holt, but that didnt work out too well. So good to see that specially our midfield and fullbacks were up to task when we were outmanned in midfield as Elmander didnt drop that deep to help them with build up. (He should have thought). I know it is hard to change your opinion when you have made it clear public, but as I said before dont start to make excuses or twisting the facts for your favor. Hughton did what he did previous year. Build a tactic and tried to get all the point availeable for him out there. This time we used more longballs than usual, but we tried it few times previous season so shouldn''t be surprise for anyone.

[quote user="Unhinged Canary"][quote user="Herman "]That''s better. Played well and deserved the win. Bit of added pressure when he subbed Elmander but other that that, no complaints. Ruddy and Fer best. What will happen to Johnson during Ramadan?[/quote]I''m loving that beard! A proper mans man beard.Not enough quality beards in football these days![Y][/quote] Completely agree. Loved when aussies had a great bearded fellow in under 20 WC, Joshua Brillante http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Joshua+Brillante+Young+Socceroos+Farewell+LTRLVWxkB0ax.jpg Hopefuly he developes himself a great midfielder and we will sign him and his beard.

Southampton gave a good opponent, but well deserved three points. Dont know if Hughton got his tactics spot on and few of players need to really improve for the next games. Snoddy hopefuly will find his ball delivery skills back, which was a big dissapointment today. Also Elmander should drop a bit more down or at least be a bit more lively, if we play him with Wolf. Howson change didnt do any favor for the team nor the player. He isn''t defender and again he was too slow with the ball when he had a chance, but at the end he came for the very hard spot on the field and I think it wasn''t his fault this time that he looked awfully out of place. If I gave a bit suspicious eye for Bassong at the first half his second half bravery made him a man of the match for me and Redmond was good second and third man to give a shout was Ruddy. Great to have him back as he is so dominating in the box. Anyway good game for lads and they deserved those points and hopefuly this gives nice confidency boost for our Tottenham game.

Redmond*