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Southampton v Manchester City
St Mary's Stadium, Southampton

Saturday 7 December 2013
Kickoff: 3:00 PM

Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: M McDonough & R West
Fourth Official: Kevin Friend

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Phew ... the last 5-7 minutes weren't that great last night but I am glad it happened. Because now it SHOULD wake the team up and be alert all of 90 minutes in our next away game, which will be a lot tougher than last night, so taking naps while playing is not really an option. Had we won a comfortable 3-0, some of the lapses of last night would have been easily forgotten ... well, they still might but hopefully Pellegrini drills the importance of playing for the full 90++ minutes once again before the Saints game.

Southampton on the other hand were expected to have put things right against Villa in their home game, but lost that, which makes it three in a row for them now. Well, they were expected to lose at Arsenal and Chelsea away but then were also expected to bounce back from those two at home and be ready and geared up for us ... that didn't happen, now I still have to watch the MotD but what I gather from radio reports this morning and last night was they probably played well but Villa scored three out of their three chances and somehow managed to take all three points. Whatever the reason, them sitting on 8th with same points as the Scum has to have an ill feeling in that camp given the start they have had. I think one of their fans summed their moods up nicely in the after-game call-in to the talkSport last night ... he said they are where in reality they should have been and the start of the season was a bit unusual. Not very optimistic and also said they'll now probably lose fourth in a row to Man City on the weekend as well who apparently have sorted their away woes ... I wish it was that simple though.

If we see Garcia, Dzonkey or Kola's name anywhere in that starting XI ... I am telling you now, a draw will be a good result for us. I really hope Pellegrini has seen what we all saw last night and have been seeing all season really and keep these three out. Also take Demi out of that CB position and get Lescott in with Komps. I hope he was just 'seeing' how these two play together last night and will want to 'see' the Lescott-Komps pairing now ...

Here's the line-up we should (and probably will) see:

Panti
Zaba - Komps - Lescott - Clichy
Milner - Ferdy - Yaya - Nasri
Aguero - Beast

The only two spots I am 50/50 about is that I have a feeling he'll probably start Navas ahead of Milner (again) and maybe (a fair bit of maybe) Joe might come back in for Panti.

Score Prediction: Once again, fuck predictions, I'll take three points whether they come in at a nervy 0-1, 2-3 or an easy on the heart 0-4.

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And for the overall picture .... looking at the table we are a lot closer to Liverpool and Everton who are just a point behind than we are to Chelsea and Arsenal who are 2 and 6 points ahead ... so a loss here or even a draw could potentially send us right back to 5th place if we are not careful.

Next three fixtures for all could (and probably) will shuffle it all up and I hope for the better ...

Arsenal play Everton (H), Us (A) and Chelsea (H) ... Chelsea play Stoke (A), Crystal Palace (H) and Arsenal (A) ... we play Saints (A), Arsenal (H) and then another away game at Fulham ... Also, in the next three Liverpool and Spurs play each other, Saints also play Spurs and Newcastle, who (Newcastle) also play Scum ... so quite a few games within the top eight (well, nine) of the table within the next two weeks.

Agree and hope we see that line up mate!

Can't see big pants loosing his place for this one, is silva not fit yet? If not navas for Milner.

I think that will be the lineup except without Lescott. Though if it was me I'd pick the exact lineup you gave there.

This could be a good time to play them because they seem to have hit a bad run suddenly, and I think a win here will give us tons of confidence before the Arsenal game. Win those two and the season will get very exciting.

Kola has been better then Clichy this season, also, he had a pretty great game last night, assist and a penalty...

Duckman wrote:Kola has been better then Clichy this season, also, he had a pretty great game last night, assist and a penalty...

I agree with Duck.

Kolarov much improved this season. He looks happy and focused. Clichy has been ordinary at best.

kolorov is ok going fwd and can put in a decent ball, but his "defending" remains fucking shocking. last night he nearly gave away a pen that would would have changed the entire complexion of the match.

Sideshow Bob wrote:kolorov is ok going fwd and can put in a decent ball, but his "defending" remains fucking shocking. last night he nearly gave away a pen that would would have changed the entire complexion of the match.

Yeah right man

Without his assist and the pen, we would have lost the match...

We scored two almost identical goals yesterday, with fullbacks overlapping and then cutting the ball back, like the third goal against the sheep shagers. But, gael cant fucking cross, so what do we do then?

I say play gael against pacey wingers and/or against strong teams when we play away, other then that, kola all the fucking way.

Cheers

A point to these at the minute would be a good point. I'm not expecting a win.

I'm with the initial line-up except that I err towards Kolarov over Gael for all the reasons given above.
I do, however, think that Gael will get match-time and get better as the season progresses though because he's a better player than he's looked recently.
Training reports also suggest that Gael's been getting some one 2 one attention in training with the purpose of getting him back to his best.

Oh, and my thanks to AG7 for the excellent introduction to the game. Nicely done.

Herb wrote:I'm with the initial line-up except that I err towards Kolarov over Gael for all the reasons given above.
I do, however, think that Gael will get match-time and get better as the season progresses though because he's a better player than he's looked recently.
Training reports also suggest that Gael's been getting some one 2 one attention in training with the purpose of getting him back to his best.

I have a feeling the one to one was more about a little injury niggle than anything else.Personally I don't mind which left back plays.

I don't think Negredo was injured but it was felt he needed a rest and I expect him back for this one and resting other players is more likely at Bayern.

Sideshow Bob wrote:kolorov is ok going fwd and can put in a decent ball, but his "defending" remains fucking shocking. last night he nearly gave away a pen that would would have changed the entire complexion of the match.

Won us a penalty and played a great cross for Toure. Put in another beauty and our strikers fucked it up.
Would Clichy have done any of that? Probably not. Neither can defend, but at least Kolarov gives us something going forward.

ashton287 wrote:A point to these at the minute would be a good point. I'm not expecting a win.

I'm of a different view where I think a point would be the least we should get and I'm expecting all 3. The Saints play a high octane game, pressing the oppo and getting forward very quickly. The problem here is that it expends so much energy that if you haven't got a big squad it starts to take it's toll. Also, they don't have the quality up front when it counts.

Southampton are now hitting a difficult period where games come thick and fast and unless they change their tactics I think it's going to hurt. Look at their recent games. They had a very hard game at Arsenal but put up a decent fight and then went off to Chelsea a week later where they went in front early, only to lose 3 goals in the second half. They were then at home and you'd expect against a team like Villa that they'd put them to the sword but yet again it failed beause they didn't have the quality up front. I seem to remember Villa only having about a quarter of the possession and less than half the shots. The difference was that Villa's shots ounted whereas Southampton's were more out of despair as they chased the game.

If we can control the game early on and give them the runaround (you hear me Frank Butcher) then I envisage a few goals in our favour. What I wouldn't like to see is them getting a stupid early goal where they will sit back, soak up pressure and hit us on the break.

Still, I'm going for a 3-1 for us.

I am hoping for a win, but the manner in which we conceded two goals against WBA is concerning. Hopefully Kompany, Lescott, Clichy and Zabs at the back. Negredo and Aguero up top as well, enough cock stroking for that Bosnian fuck, he can earn his way back in if he has the stones or just fuck off completely.

Hoping DS if fit for this match!

Slim wrote:I am hoping for a win, but the manner in which we conceded two goals against WBA is concerning. Hopefully Kompany, Lescott, Clichy and Zabs at the back. Negredo and Aguero up top as well, enough cock stroking for that Bosnian fuck, he can earn his way back in if he has the stones or just fuck off completely.

Surely it is in our interest to have Soton think they can get something out of the game?

EDIT:

btw, the foul and abusive language about City players that have moved our club to a higher level , a higher level of football, is most unbecoming of you.

looks like they will be without wanyama, schneiderlin, boruc, clyne and ramirez...

Oh! The Mr.Man has gone . Rip.

Thanks for the unofficial previews AG7. It's appreciated.

dazby wrote:Thanks for the unofficial previews AG7. It's appreciated.

You are welcome!