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Episode 350: Matchday Review - Bleak in Brum
13 Plays1 month ago
Southampton – Well if Coventry was a point earned, this certainly felt like points dropped. Let's talk about it
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Transcript
Introduction and Host's Opening
00:00:06
Speaker
your daily soccer podcast with the Global Sports Podcast Network.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Daily Southampton.
00:00:20
Speaker
I am your host, Zach Ingo Finch.
00:00:22
Speaker
I am not joined by my co-host Gregory Elliott today.
00:00:26
Speaker
He is unfortunately indisposed.
00:00:29
Speaker
He is either full of booze, full of food, both.
00:00:32
Speaker
He has no idea what day it is.
00:00:34
Speaker
He is not back to his day job and he has a prior engagement that hasn't tied up tonight.
Southampton vs Birmingham City Game Overview
00:00:40
Speaker
And to be honest, of all the games that he could have been tied up for, I feel like a 1-0 drawing is Birmingham City is probably a better one to miss, right?
00:00:49
Speaker
Was it exactly the, well, 3-0 win that I predicted, based off entirely statistics that we had kind of delved into before the game, or the 3-1 thriller that he expected it to be because he knows we can't keep a clean sheet?
00:01:03
Speaker
No, it was much more reminiscent of the Coventry City game, where...
00:01:09
Speaker
I feel like that game felt like a point earned.
00:01:13
Speaker
This game far more felt like two points dropped.
00:01:17
Speaker
Maybe I feel a little bit different after the performance of the first half.
00:01:20
Speaker
It just feels like, yeah, we've just lost our sort of edge and ability to see off games.
00:01:27
Speaker
And hopefully we don't fall into a bit of a run, a rut after this.
00:01:32
Speaker
We've still got another two games over this, like sort of another game coming up very, very shortly where we have a chance to right wrongs, but we keep hearing that.
00:01:42
Speaker
So yeah, I guess let's talk about it.
00:01:46
Speaker
Let's go right to the start.
Team Lineup Surprises and Predictions
00:01:48
Speaker
So Team Sheep was interesting, wasn't it?
00:01:52
Speaker
So I will shout out my co-host, my absent co-host today, for his prediction before the game, which I think I described as both madness and ridiculous and definitely not going to happen, that Leo Sienza wouldn't be in the starting lineup.
00:02:08
Speaker
Greg called it quite early on, and he basically made our whole...
00:02:13
Speaker
What would it used to be team selection segment be?
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, but what if Siena doesn't play?
00:02:18
Speaker
And obviously, bear in mind, there's all the conversations that Eckert's had about his fitness and getting him up to the same level and, you know, wanting to make sure that we can utilise him the best way we can.
00:02:28
Speaker
He's not used to the intensity of the English game, blah, blah, blah.
00:02:33
Speaker
You know, that's kind of what Greg thought.
00:02:36
Speaker
Well, that's him not starting, isn't it?
00:02:38
Speaker
That's just trying to prepare us that...
00:02:41
Speaker
he is going to not be playing as many minutes as we would probably like him to play because he is not used to the level of intensity, especially with the level of physicality and the levels that he brings to a game.
00:02:55
Speaker
And the fact that he's not going to be able to manage the full, what would usually be 60 or 70 minutes a day.
00:03:02
Speaker
So yeah, shout out, Greg, for 100% predicting that one.
00:03:05
Speaker
I thought it would not be correct.
00:03:08
Speaker
And here we are.
00:03:09
Speaker
My prediction that quality would come in instead of Stevens was also failure and miserably wrong.
00:03:17
Speaker
Stevens did start, but, you know, that was by the by.
00:03:20
Speaker
It was kind of a more of, I don't mind which start, who and who.
00:03:25
Speaker
Don't mind which of them start.
00:03:27
Speaker
I think both of them would be more than capable of, I guess, taking command of the box.
00:03:32
Speaker
But maybe his physicality would have been better today.
00:03:37
Speaker
Lord knows there was a couple of hairy moments where anybody needed to take charge and that didn't quite happen.
Player Performances and Injuries
00:03:43
Speaker
So, yeah, a couple of other things about the team line-up I wanted to point out.
00:03:47
Speaker
So, we had Gillette come in for the first time in a long time, I think it was, since the Carabao Cup game against Liverpool.
00:03:55
Speaker
He both had his best performance and got injured, right?
00:03:58
Speaker
So, he hasn't had an appearance yet under Eckert.
00:04:03
Speaker
He has only had an appearance under Will Steele.
00:04:05
Speaker
And obviously, I didn't expect him to be starting.
00:04:10
Speaker
I did expect to see him later on.
00:04:12
Speaker
It makes sense that we have, you know, a right-back going position for fellows as opposed to either Ryan Fraser or a left-back.
00:04:21
Speaker
So, yeah, I thought it was quite interesting that he was on the bench.
00:04:25
Speaker
I was hoping to see him.
00:04:25
Speaker
And obviously, spoiler alert, you've probably watched the game.
00:04:29
Speaker
He definitely did make an appearance and had a good one at that.
00:04:33
Speaker
We also had Matsuki on the bench as well, who also got to make a little cameo appearance later on.
00:04:39
Speaker
Not as much of an incredible performance as Jiller.
00:04:44
Speaker
In fact, probably going to be remembered for a push in the 93rd minute, which almost gave Birmingham another chance to punish us from a set piece.
00:04:53
Speaker
Either way, it was sort of good to see that we still have options, right?
00:04:58
Speaker
After so many games of us just bringing on Jay Robinson, sort of Joe Aribo,
00:05:05
Speaker
an archer that to realise we actually do have quite a wider squad depth to see that Ekko is taking advantage of that is nothing but positive.
00:05:14
Speaker
So yeah, I was surprised about the team line-up.
00:05:17
Speaker
Romero missing kind of makes sense as, you know, he's an elder statesman at this point.
00:05:22
Speaker
So, you know, there are quite a few games coming up.
00:05:24
Speaker
It makes sense if they weren't intending to play him to kind of
00:05:27
Speaker
you know, keep him at home.
00:05:29
Speaker
And especially where Bragg was one of the ones that came in to do that job and performed admirably and, you know, was involved probably in the build-up to the goal.
00:05:38
Speaker
So, yeah, I was quite happy with the lineup.
00:05:41
Speaker
Other than the fact that Sienzo was missing, I kind of knew that, you know,
00:05:47
Speaker
kind of, there's a lot of pressure on Paul Jay Robinson, right?
00:05:51
Speaker
Like, supposed to be, not touted as like the replacement for Tyler Dibbling, but touted as sort of the next academy product, right?
00:05:58
Speaker
And a lot put on his shoulders earlier in the season, and we were a much better team when he was being brought on.
00:06:04
Speaker
And me and Greg, in previous episodes that you may or may have not listened to, have kind of rehashed this point a few times.
00:06:11
Speaker
So obviously it was kind of like, it's a lot of pressure to then go on and start.
00:06:15
Speaker
But he did start the game really, really well.
00:06:18
Speaker
It was just sort of that first half completely got away with us.
00:06:21
Speaker
But, you know, one of the few, you know, couple of shots that we had were from him.
00:06:27
Speaker
And he also set up a really good early clear-cut chance from a Zas that unfortunately wasn't being able to put away.
00:06:34
Speaker
So, yeah, I think that he did the role of trying to replace Leo Sienza very, very well, even if they were, like, sort of switched sides in the end.
00:06:44
Speaker
So, yeah, that's my thoughts on the starting line-up and sort of the pre-match.
Analyzing First Half Challenges
00:06:50
Speaker
pretty matchy bit.
00:06:52
Speaker
We'll dive straight into it after a quick message from our partners at Bionique.
00:06:58
Speaker
And we are back.
00:07:01
Speaker
So when we left off, the game had just started and we're going to talk to you about the first half, probably the second half, and then we can have some closing points later on.
00:07:10
Speaker
And this is more for me, dear listeners, because without Greg here, I have a tendency to ramble when he is here.
00:07:18
Speaker
So I need to give myself at least a tiny semblance of structure to ensure that I stay at least a little bit on point.
00:07:26
Speaker
So directly after I said we're going to talk about the first half, and obviously that chance that Azaz had quite early on, we're going to talk to you about the fact that Sky Sports talked about the seven game manager bounce, which is a thing I've never really heard of.
00:07:39
Speaker
Apparently, that's how many games a new manager bounce is supposed to last, which considering the new managers that we have had previously over the last couple of seasons,
00:07:52
Speaker
I don't believe it.
00:07:54
Speaker
It's like, how long was Ivan Jurich's new manager bounce?
00:07:58
Speaker
What, the draw against West Ham on Boxing Day?
00:08:01
Speaker
And, you know, to give you a bit of an indicator of how far we've come, as much as it today was frustrating, you know, a year or so ago, we were probably in the darkest depths of the most recent experience of being a Saints fan, right?
00:08:15
Speaker
Like, we just got this new manager that was supposed to sort of take us to the next level or...
00:08:21
Speaker
replace Russell Martin and potentially save our season and play heavy metal football.
00:08:26
Speaker
And me and Greg were very much not behind him, but we kind of had to get behind something, if not anything else, right?
00:08:34
Speaker
Especially after what we'd seen before Christmas.
00:08:37
Speaker
So, yeah, it could be worse.
00:08:39
Speaker
It's just that how much progress is being 13th in the championship?
00:08:44
Speaker
Probably not as much as we'd have liked.
00:08:47
Speaker
But alas, it just feels that it was a bit of a funny comment to make because, yeah, seven, if you won six of those games, I don't really have much of a problem.
00:08:58
Speaker
If that's the new manager bounce we get, that's still significantly better than any new manager bounce we've had previously.
00:09:05
Speaker
So that's that.
00:09:07
Speaker
A lot of the rest of the first half, what else should I talk about?
00:09:10
Speaker
Well, Kyogo's terrible finishing for Birmingham is probably one of the only reasons we didn't go down in the first half.
00:09:17
Speaker
Whilst he was a bit of a menace due to... I noticed that when we started doing the standard, like kicking around with the back, not really deciding what to do, he was pounced on a couple of those balls.
00:09:29
Speaker
Like there were a couple of times where if he managed to latch himself on, that, well,
00:09:34
Speaker
I still think he'd have probably been able to miss.
00:09:36
Speaker
But there were a few shaky moments, but honestly it was more than anything else, it was just dire finishing that absolutely saved us.
00:09:44
Speaker
We really struggled to get free for a lot of that first half.
00:09:50
Speaker
I don't like the faffing that we do.
00:09:53
Speaker
Sky Sports also pointed out, we don't look quite at it and we can give so much more.
00:10:00
Speaker
And it's another point we've constantly made.
00:10:02
Speaker
Although we have players that are offensive, fair play to Archer for scoring tonight, but it was also his first goal since August.
00:10:12
Speaker
Armour, it's really taken a while for him to get going.
00:10:14
Speaker
Well, he is top of the championship.
00:10:16
Speaker
I don't know if he still is.
00:10:17
Speaker
I need to check that.
00:10:19
Speaker
but he really, really struggled last season and even when he went on loan, but that's more to do with West Brom.
00:10:26
Speaker
So, yeah, it was just very... It just felt... It didn't feel like we were going to cut through in that first half.
00:10:32
Speaker
And there were sort of
00:10:36
Speaker
25 minutes in, we finally got to a point where Armour could get free a little bit more.
00:10:42
Speaker
And we fought a little bit harder.
00:10:44
Speaker
And, you know, speaking of fighting, there was the instant where Downs absolutely clattered Stansfield.
00:10:49
Speaker
But he does get the ball.
00:10:52
Speaker
It just comes to nothing.
00:10:53
Speaker
But, like, we started to kind of manage a few more breakaways.
00:10:56
Speaker
And I got in the 38-minute mark.
00:10:58
Speaker
Jay Robinson managed a really good shot.
00:11:00
Speaker
I actually hit a defender and he got a corner.
00:11:02
Speaker
But I see the corner end, and I'm just going straight to the keeper.
00:11:06
Speaker
And then we had sort of the reverse again, where we were doing the silly things, where sort of Manning accidentally gave away the ball, and then Wood got a silly yellow for a silly foul.
00:11:17
Speaker
And there was just a lot of standing at bowing,
00:11:22
Speaker
And then obviously they had their really, really good free kick, which did clatter the bar, which they're probably more annoyed that he went for goal rather than trying to cross it in.
00:11:30
Speaker
Because again, like later on, as they prove from set pieces, they know who they're playing.
00:11:36
Speaker
And it's the same thing I would like to again shout out my wonderful co-host with his ball knowledge, where...
00:11:42
Speaker
Players have just started testing Baz.
00:11:45
Speaker
They're just kicking at him.
00:11:46
Speaker
And a couple of times, sometimes it's completely not paid off at all.
00:11:51
Speaker
But it's a kind of worry that they're starting to suss that out a little bit more.
00:11:55
Speaker
And it's not really his fault, but he probably needs to work on that aspect of the game a little bit more.
00:12:00
Speaker
We all know.
00:12:01
Speaker
We've had the keeper conversation how many times now?
00:12:05
Speaker
It's becoming like an ongoing in-joke between me and Greg, if either one of us bring it up.
00:12:09
Speaker
Because...
00:12:10
Speaker
we won't know until January.
00:12:12
Speaker
And I also just feel like I just have a sneaking suspicion we're not going to get what we want out of it anyway, especially with Ramsdale still technically being on the books.
00:12:22
Speaker
So yeah, that was kind of the first half.
00:12:24
Speaker
I don't know how everybody else felt about it, but I kind of got the half, kind of got the end of the first half and was just,
00:12:31
Speaker
Sort of like, oh, good, another one of these type games.
00:12:34
Speaker
And again, it's the absolutely over-reliance we have on Sienzo.
00:12:39
Speaker
And that's not just as a creative outlet, but just sort of to raise the energy.
00:12:46
Speaker
I don't know if it's just because of the fact that he's so willing to run and be so physical and take players on and it moves the entire line up or what, but we just kind of felt like we were sort of
00:12:59
Speaker
let Birmingham come to us.
00:13:00
Speaker
There was a lot of second balls missed, a lot of passes misplaced.
00:13:03
Speaker
You know, standard stuff that was more reminiscent of what we got annoyed about under Will Steele than we were seeing initially under Eckert.
00:13:12
Speaker
Flinging back to the seven-game new manager bounce thing, what talked about in the last game, the pace at which Eckert is trying to keep everything together is very unsustainable long-term.
00:13:27
Speaker
And you can see what it does to some managers and some managers are.
00:13:32
Speaker
And so, you know, and I think that he's doing a really, really good job and he has been able to, but then there's a lot of experience and learning that he's needing to do on the job, especially he talks about like, oh yeah, Leo is learning to keep up with the pace of the English game.
00:13:48
Speaker
When I originally like read that, you know,
00:13:51
Speaker
it's a learning experience.
00:13:52
Speaker
I thought he'd been more talking about himself and sort of having to balance all of these different games of the championship and deal with these, like, almost tackling them as pockets of games, right?
00:14:02
Speaker
And we've tackled this pocket, but so far, the preparation has been great.
00:14:06
Speaker
We've lost to Oxford and drawn against Birmingham, two teams that, you know, I know it's on paper, we should be beating, right?
00:14:14
Speaker
Football is played on grass, et cetera, and arguably, you know,
00:14:19
Speaker
We'll talk about the controversy later.
00:14:21
Speaker
You know, the point that we got out of today can be kind of placed maybe a little bit on the referee.
00:14:30
Speaker
I think too much happened after for it to necessarily be entirely that.
00:14:36
Speaker
And from a team... Actually, let's just talk about
Second Half Strategies and Controversies
00:14:40
Speaker
it, right?
00:14:41
Speaker
So, we...
00:14:43
Speaker
First of all, we'll talk about... We won't talk about it.
00:14:47
Speaker
Look, we'll talk about the goals and stuff a bit later on.
00:14:51
Speaker
But it's just... We'll talk about all of that.
00:14:54
Speaker
We'll talk about the second half.
00:14:56
Speaker
We'll talk about both the goals.
00:14:57
Speaker
We'll talk about all the subs, etc.
00:15:00
Speaker
After a word from our partners at Zencaster.
00:15:04
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:15:29
Speaker
Rightio.
00:15:29
Speaker
So we are back.
00:15:31
Speaker
We come out.
00:15:32
Speaker
Really good call there.
00:15:33
Speaker
Taylor Hall and Bellis gets on the end of it.
00:15:35
Speaker
You know, anywhere else, fine, really powerful.
00:15:38
Speaker
Fortunately, he hits the keeper straight away.
00:15:40
Speaker
And then we go back to the complacency.
00:15:42
Speaker
And then Yander misses, you know, a tackle, sort of a professional foul at that point.
00:15:49
Speaker
Picks up a card.
00:15:50
Speaker
Hopefully nothing came of it.
00:15:52
Speaker
Unfortunately, it did.
00:15:54
Speaker
You know, ball kind of comes in.
00:15:56
Speaker
We think it's going to be kept out.
00:15:58
Speaker
They had a player that did a really good job keeping the ball still in play.
00:16:02
Speaker
We managed to scramble enough, you know, and Baz managed to save the first ball.
00:16:07
Speaker
The second ball recycled, messed about, managed to eventually go in.
00:16:12
Speaker
At so many different points of time, we should have got rid of it.
00:16:16
Speaker
We had a similar moment in the first half where the sort of ball scrabbled into the, to the swallet, where, you know, into the goal, like near the goal, into the box.
00:16:26
Speaker
And we just like sort of, everyone could like stood around.
00:16:29
Speaker
And I was hoping, really hoping this doesn't pay off.
00:16:34
Speaker
But it did.
00:16:35
Speaker
It paid off for them.
00:16:36
Speaker
So what it is about us just not being able to get rid of it properly is infuriating.
00:16:40
Speaker
Even if it's just like up for a throw, just something to slow it down.
00:16:43
Speaker
But we have this real bad problem of set pieces even now.
00:16:47
Speaker
And again, I don't even think it's necessarily just the defense.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's like the entirety of the team just seemed to...
00:16:53
Speaker
I don't know.
00:16:53
Speaker
I don't know if it's like wanting to keep possession to then run onto a counter.
00:16:57
Speaker
But if we're already thinking about that as opposed to just defending, it's sometimes just infuriating.
00:17:03
Speaker
Either way, we just got complacent.
00:17:06
Speaker
I genuinely think we were complacent thinking it went out in the first place and were surprised it came back in.
00:17:12
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:17:14
Speaker
then, you know, it's what it is.
00:17:17
Speaker
We then end up having the substitutes.
00:17:21
Speaker
So, Robinson's a fellow off, Sienza and Juller on.
00:17:25
Speaker
And it didn't quite start, the Sienza magic, whatever you want to call it, didn't quite kick into gear.
00:17:32
Speaker
They were still coming at us.
00:17:34
Speaker
And then we would pass the ball back to them.
00:17:36
Speaker
And then very, very early on, we ended up having, I think it was one of Gillette's first things that he did being on the ball infuriated me because he kicked it directly to a Birmingham player, gave him another go.
00:17:48
Speaker
Luckily, they did nothing with it.
00:17:50
Speaker
And then we started to go at them a little bit more.
00:17:53
Speaker
And then we started to build.
00:17:54
Speaker
And I think one of the points that I wrote down was it's just like, you know, it was the thing that was after the Harbour-Belle strike.
00:18:01
Speaker
just having Siena just makes us so much stronger.
00:18:03
Speaker
We're able to get faster.
00:18:04
Speaker
Everything moves up quicker and it's just upsetting that we need to rely on one player to do it.
00:18:10
Speaker
And then obviously Armstrong and Yander come off in the 67th minute and we brought Archer and Bragg on.
00:18:17
Speaker
And I kind of thought Bragg on for Yander makes sense.
00:18:19
Speaker
There's already a yellow card there.
00:18:22
Speaker
I was a bit surprised about Archer for Arbon because obviously we know Arbon likes Goldings, Birmingham,
00:18:29
Speaker
asking us them last time around obviously i know they're trying to manage his minutes and he was a bit knackered but like we are still at this point one nil down and then we play much better however which results in the goal there is the the point of attention that the ref kind of got in the way of one of the birmingham players caused the whole problem their their manager picked up a yellow card
00:18:56
Speaker
And then there was a lot of stuff that happened after, maybe because they were concentrating too hard on the game not stopping.
00:19:03
Speaker
They kind of just ignored the fact the game was continuing.
00:19:06
Speaker
And I think of two moments instantaneously.
00:19:10
Speaker
One, I think of the fact that most recently we have had a handball scored against us and as frustrating as it is, sometimes that's just the way of the game.
00:19:21
Speaker
That was significantly more infuriating because it was an actual goal.
00:19:24
Speaker
Obviously, this was moments that led up to a goal and it was equally frustrating.
00:19:28
Speaker
So I can understand why Birmingham fans are infuriated by it.
00:19:33
Speaker
If it happened the other way around, I would equally be as infuriated to be clear.
00:19:37
Speaker
But it's just the way that it is.
00:19:40
Speaker
And I would much prefer any occasional mistake like this than if you have VAR, where we have to sit there for 20 minutes to find out that he probably should have stopped it.
00:19:48
Speaker
And then half the time, because if something's an on-field decision, they can't overturn it, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:19:54
Speaker
Like, either way, what I don't want to take away from was the fact that
00:19:58
Speaker
the sobs had an impact, right?
00:20:00
Speaker
Like, Bragg was part of that build-up.
00:20:03
Speaker
Gillette had a fantastic cross-in.
00:20:05
Speaker
And then Archer managed to finish it off.
00:20:07
Speaker
Archer being, obviously, ex-Giller player, really, really happy to score against Berlingham, as, you know, he would be.
00:20:15
Speaker
especially where he was given sort of the pantomime villain treatment when he came on.
00:20:19
Speaker
And yeah, for, you know, our striker who's not scored since like, I want to say August, it was, you know, I think that was what he said at the end of the, the end of the game.
00:20:28
Speaker
I think it was August he last scored, which is madness.
00:20:31
Speaker
It was, it was a really good goal.
00:20:33
Speaker
And Jalert, who again, like when he was first, when he first came on, I was quite critical, but I was like, oh no, this doesn't really feel like we're trying to see the game off.
00:20:42
Speaker
And then,
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, and then obviously you could tell that their manager was mad.
00:20:47
Speaker
He was already picked up a yellow card and was going to miss the next game, kicked the ball away, get sent off because he's rightly furious for a decision that didn't go his way.
00:20:57
Speaker
And then I've not really got a lot else happening because it kind of just died down after that point.
00:21:03
Speaker
We kind of kept going and, you know, eventually...
00:21:07
Speaker
As Alex came off, Masuki came on, which was exciting to see, especially with, you know, the last time he came on, he was able to make a difference against Norwich.
00:21:16
Speaker
Not so much this game.
00:21:18
Speaker
I think I mentioned it earlier, you know, his
Game Reflection and Final Thoughts
00:21:20
Speaker
only contribution to the game was essentially pushing over a Birmingham City player and giving them a free kick.
00:21:28
Speaker
But, yeah, even at 87 minutes, it's just kind of like we were trying and testing the waters.
00:21:34
Speaker
Very much sort of
00:21:36
Speaker
tiptoeing around the idea of getting the ball into the goal and it just didn't feel like a second goal was coming and it very much felt you know like
00:21:47
Speaker
game against Oxford City or even the game against Coventry.
00:21:50
Speaker
The game against Coventry was much more of an attempt, but this sort of inability even with now Sienza on the field.
00:21:57
Speaker
And he was really giving it a go.
00:21:59
Speaker
You could see up to the last minute or so, Hayman Archer, I can't remember what point it was, but Beedle, the run keeper, and the ball go to him, and it was just literally from two diagonal points, Archer and Sienza sprinting directly at him, and he had to shoot it right down the middle.
00:22:16
Speaker
They were hungry to try and score, but again, the whole build-up, there was a lot of times where we could have had really attacking, promising positions.
00:22:24
Speaker
We were like, oh no, better pass it back.
00:22:27
Speaker
It's infuriating because we need to win these games.
00:22:30
Speaker
They're not going to get easier going out from here.
00:22:32
Speaker
The fact that it was only 27 days ago, we beat them 3-1.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, okay, it was a good point away from home, I guess.
00:22:40
Speaker
Yet, their home form is significantly better.
00:22:44
Speaker
But we should have been seeing off that game, but it just didn't really feel like we did.
00:22:48
Speaker
So, I mean, the whistle blows at the end.
00:22:50
Speaker
And, yeah, how do you feel after a 1-0 draw, right?
00:22:55
Speaker
Like, it's not a win that we want.
00:22:57
Speaker
It's not really helpful.
00:22:59
Speaker
It's not as frustrating or annoying as the game against Oxford.
00:23:05
Speaker
but it was just a whole lot of not really a lot.
00:23:10
Speaker
It's nothing to write home about.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's nothing to get too excited about.
00:23:12
Speaker
I'm really happy for Archer.
00:23:14
Speaker
I'm really happy that we managed to have some substitutions that made an impact.
00:23:19
Speaker
But again, it's the worry that I have is this over-reliance on Sienza, and that's clear, in my opinion.
00:23:30
Speaker
people can have different opinions.
00:23:32
Speaker
I'm sure if Greg was here, he'd probably have something else to say.
00:23:35
Speaker
And you're more than welcome to let us know your thoughts.
00:23:38
Speaker
We do read pretty much everything that comes through and we appreciate it.
00:23:43
Speaker
Both people that agree with us and people that massively disagree with us.
00:23:46
Speaker
We never pretend to be anything other than we're like, you know, just fans.
00:23:52
Speaker
I can promise you now that I at no point think that I should be taking over a football team, nor do I think I should be commenting on it on Sky Sports.
00:23:59
Speaker
We do this for fun.
00:24:01
Speaker
But, you know, a one-on-all draw against Birmingham City, I think most of us are in agreement, isn't a good outcome.
00:24:09
Speaker
as much as, you know, the pundits wanted to say it was a good outcome for us, I'm kind of like, no, you should have won that.
00:24:15
Speaker
And I think that's one of the few things that I did like about the post-match interview with Baz, is that Baz said, like, yeah, it was a good point, but we want three points.
00:24:23
Speaker
We want to win as many games as possible.
00:24:25
Speaker
And, you know, he also complimented the substitutes that did make a very, very sort of
00:24:32
Speaker
make a large impact on the game.
00:24:35
Speaker
You know, we could have ended up, if we carried on the way we were playing the first half, it could have been a lot worse and we could have actually lost.
00:24:43
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm rambling a little bit, as you can tell, because we're running towards the end of the run time.
00:24:48
Speaker
But yeah, Archer's first goal since August.
00:24:52
Speaker
Another hot slash and cold performance from Laz.
00:24:56
Speaker
another hot slash cold performance from the team.
00:25:00
Speaker
We saw both Middlesbrough and Coventry pick up losses.
00:25:04
Speaker
but we can't rely on things around us.
00:25:06
Speaker
We need to really, really start taking the ball by the horns.
00:25:08
Speaker
And if they want to pick up promotion and do the things that they set out to do, both personally and as a club at the beginning of the season, then they're rapidly running out of time to do it.
00:25:22
Speaker
And yes, there's plenty more games, but we're over the halfway point now.
00:25:29
Speaker
So they really need to start mucking their ideas up a little bit.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
00:25:34
Speaker
That's my opinions on today.
00:25:36
Speaker
Thank you, all of you wonderful people who have tuned in to listen to me and my ramblings and my late-night insanity of recording directly after the game.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:25:50
Speaker
We will be back...
00:25:52
Speaker
maybe tomorrow.
00:25:54
Speaker
We might take New Year's Day off.
00:25:55
Speaker
We haven't quite discussed it yet in break, just because, you know, we wanted a bit more time off over the holidays.
00:26:02
Speaker
But we super appreciate everybody that tuned to their lessons.
00:26:05
Speaker
We are, on all social medias, we are on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Blue Sky, TikTok,
00:26:14
Speaker
We usually put one or two things up a day.
00:26:17
Speaker
So yeah, if you want to connect with us, if you want to, you know, share your opinions, please let us know.
00:26:24
Speaker
We love hearing from you.
00:26:26
Speaker
So yeah, thank you very much for listening.
00:26:29
Speaker
Have a wonderful morning, afternoon, evening, and we will see you in the next one.
00:26:36
Speaker
Goodbye.
00:26:38
Speaker
There's something cringe like hashtag we march on.