QuoteYou'd have made a cool £4 from that I reckon.Originally Posted by tricky_colour
Should have had a hat trick, I actually looked at the price for that, was about 125-1 iirc.
You'd have made a cool £4 from that I reckon.
£625 if I had put my free £5 bet on it. Well if he had got three which he didn't so it wowuld have been £0.
Long was immense tonight. The reason he wasn't given MOTM in the first place was because he was only on one goal at the time it was awarded and the goal was somewhat dubious- not sure whether it was deliberate or not, but he managed to trip Koscielny who was tracking his run. The result was that Long was unmarked at the backpost to finish the pass from Mané. The referee missed the trip which would have been deemed a foul, regardless of intention or lack thereof.
The second goal he got was much more clear cut. In fact, he should have had a goal in the first half too. He made a terrific run off Mané who played a lovely ball over the top for him. Long was through, with pressure from Merstesacker, but took a delightful touch with his head to tee it up for the shot. Long tried to lob it over the oncoming Cech with his right but drove it high and over. The lob would have been beautiful if he had executed it correctly but the best option appeared to be a low left leg.
Overall, he was immense and was singled out for it on BT. He constantly ran the channels and was fundamental to Southampton's gameplan i.e. play deep, suffocate Arsenal's attacking options (Walcott, Giroud, Ozil) and then break with Mané supporting Long. Long's runs and hassling of the two centre-halves was crucial to 3 of the 4 goals (the first from Martina will be among the goals of the season, a brilliant finish from nothing). He gave Koscielny and, in particular, Mertesacker a torrid time.
Watching the game, myself and the lads felt that he did well not to get a second yellow. The first was just about warranted but he was such a pest to the two centre-halves that a second could have eventually came about. Wenger admitted that his side didn't have the luck of the decisions but that was always going to occur when such pressure was being applied by Southampton. Not that the pressure was high-pressing, it was more of a counter-attacking press that was dangerous. On the other hand, Arsenal looked completely blunt and were thwarted going forward. They had very few chances at all.
It was the Shane Long performance that you all can imagine, even if you haven't seen the game. They had almost zero attacking options on the bench (Juanmi and Tadic, one untried and the other a midfielder moreso) so Koeman persisted with him after a simply decent first half. It paid dividends in the second as the gameplan was perfectly executed by Long in his relentless and physical hassling of the last line of defence of the opposition.
There was even a lovely moment in the post-match interviews. It was Long and the goalscorer Martina and Long was spoken to first to discuss his MOTM performance. They moved on to Martina and basically asked him how surreal it was to get such a cracking goal having barely featured. Martina stumbled through a tough one to respond to but Long intervened saying how well Martina was going in training and that he had said to Martina his chance had to come and it was a credit to him for taking it.
Last edited by Olé Olé; 26/12/2015 at 11:40 PM.
Please don't direct that type of spectacular after eventing to the betting forum. It was bad enough to read in here!
Seems like I can't win!
Anyhow maybe Long will get to start more games now?
Or will he be back on the bench again?
I would not be too surprised if he was.
Was Pelle injured or dropped?
Assist for Long, Southampton 1 up
In light of the legacy banter about Long-Cox on this thread, I just noticed Pugh-King in the Bournemouth line up. Sickening.
As a precaution against flooding Leicester City have been playing King Kanute in midfield
Third start in a row today for Long. First time this season he's started more than two games in a row for the Saints, never started more than four in a row.
They've Palace next week in the cup, be interesting to see if he starts that or not.
Good and bad from Shane. Aggressive and good in the air. Pretty good all round performance… but one too many touches on a good chance and did not convert.
Yeah, was thinking the same but it wasn't easy by any means. He had a lot to do and it'd have required a really good first touch to set it up right. Keeper did well too. Koeman looked frustrated which doesn't look good.
Great header by Long to score the first goal against Watford. Smart run to get in front of the defender and a firm header from about 12 yards out.
Last edited by osarusan; 13/01/2016 at 11:17 PM.
Interesting how we go on about Long missing chances, however he has 5 goals in 839 minutes, the average for the other player on 6 goals is about 1400 mins (for all 5).
His shots per goal (2.4) is about average or maybe slightly above, but not as high as Rooney (2.6).
There are only about 7 players who have fewer minutes per goal, and not many of those play for Southampton.
ah stuff the stats though, just seeing him over the years is enough to doubt his reliability in front of goal. Maybe not so much this year as he looks to be doing better. Lovely headed goal on Wednesday, super stuff.
Newstalk felt the need to mention the Irish Daily Star linking him with a move to Tottenham or Liverpool this morning.
A lot of our players are in good form, it's kind of scary.
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