Southampton story: 2nd season: Decent start!

Hello all, sorry for the long hold up! I have just returned from my 3 week trip to Sweden, and as a result, I have not posted anything. Sorry! Back to the action, and things are looking quite good for my Southampton team:



As you can see, it’s been a solid if unspectacular start to the new season. A particular highlight was getting into the 4th round of the League Cup, beating struggling Premier League side Reading in the process. Bad points were the 4 league defeats already, coupled with a few draws. Because of this, we weren’t going to be in the upper echelons of the table, but I think we are in a good place, especially considering last year. Take a look:

9th place, not too bad. We are only 3 points off the play-off places as well, so I am optimistic that we can go into a run of good form and push up near the top. What is surprising is that recently relegated Hull and Portsmouth are below us, surprising because they have some of the best players in the division. Also, it seems that Swansea are regretting letting Ferrie Bodde go for free, as they lack creativity going forward, and Bodde was just the man to fill that void. Well, we’ve got him now! Anyway, let’s see how our players have been doing:

Overall, pretty good scores, though I would like an improvement from our strikers (how many times have I said that?!). Top scorer is Stephen Appiah, with an amazing 7 goals in 13 starts. Marek Saganowski is second, grabbing 3 goals in 6 starts, and 3rd being a tie between David McGoldrick (2 in 4), Cameron Jerome (2 in 5) and Oliver Lancashire of all people (2 in 14). Best assister is a tie between Rudi Skacel (5 in 7) and Nathan Dyer (5 in 12), which is encouraging because they are my wide players, and they are putting decent crosses. Third place goes to Morgan Schneiderlin, with 3 assists in 12 starts. Top rating goes to Appiah, with 7.24. Second goes to Jake Thompson, with 7.17 being received over 3 starts. Third place goes to Franco Zuculini, my Argentinean wonderkid. He has collected a score of 7.14 over 12 starts. Finally, my best passer is Marek Saganowski, amazingly 85% of his passes finding their mark. Coupled with being my best rated striker, I shall give him a good run in the team to see whether he can still cut it at this level. Second place goes to my 3 best midfielders; Stephen Appiah, Morgan Schneiderlin and Franco Zuculini, all getting 80% of their passes on target. 5th place goes to my other great midfielder, Ferrie Bodde, with him having 77% passes completed. It’s looking very good player rating wise!

Anyway, that’s it for this post, more to come very soon! Take care.