Stockport v Saints

Reasons to be optimistic ...

At first glance, it looks like Stockport have found their shooting boots, hitting Brighton for FOUR away from home last week. But the truth is, The Seagulls were reduced to NINE PLAYERS, and County still needed a penalty and late strike to take all three points.

Stockport have lost both games at home this season, 0-2 against Bristol Rovers, and 1-2 against Carlisle. Their other away fixture was a 0-0 draw at Oldham.

It's noticeable though, that The Hatters are not prolific creators. They had just 2 attempts on target against Oldham, and only managed 3 against Bristol Rovers. Even winning 4-2 at Brighton against NINE, they only managed 5 on target ( one of them a spot kick ).

On the flip side ...

Saints are making better progress going forward, with 15 attempts on goal against Brentford, 8 on target.

But the worrying thing is, even with new additions Trotman and Hammond, Saints still aren't NEARLY compact enough defensively. The Bees had 12 efforts on goal!

Perhaps a few training sessions without a keeper between the sticks will sharpen them up in and around their own danger zone. There is far too much reliance on Super Kelvin Davis!
If they train without keepers it would certainly wake them all up to their defensive responsibilities. Pardew can black mark players that allow opponents to get a shot off, and / or assist.
I recommend they do this for 90 minutes!

So the question is ...

Can Saints take advantage of a defence that has allowed Bristol Rovers 12, Oldham 14 and even Brighton 14 attempts on goal.

If so, can they also improve upon their defensive record against a side that has so far shown little creativity up front.

Prediction ...

Stockport 1 Saints 1

I don't know about the game as a whole, but with regard to the penalty decisions given, I thought they were both valid shouts for the same reason. Arms were where they shouldn't be, and intervened.

Thought Saints should have had another penalty when Mellis was brought down, though. The 'County Culprit' made no attempt to get up quickly and have another go at the loose ball. I bet he couldn't believe his luck!

However, AP should focus on the things he has control over - FINISHING. Saints had 18 efforts on goal, and only 8 hit the target. A little bit of fine tuning, and things like injury time penalties, will represent consolation strikes and not levellers!.

Not sure if Saints were better defensively against County, as Stockport really aren't very creative ( as previously pointed out in match preview )

Fair comment.

But we're not getting a lot of decisions go our way at the moment.
I've lost count of the number of penalties we could or should have had so far.

They say it all balances out over the course of a season, so looking forward to an invincible surge of good fortune in 2010.