Southampton manager Mauricio Pochettino has bemoaned his sides lack of cutting edge against Cardiff City in Saturday's defeat at St Mary's.
Mauricio Pochettino is right to be worried about our lack of goalscoring form on Saturday, but although some of that can be put down to the loss of top scorer Jay Rodriguez, a loss that is probably harder to cover than mot other positions in the side, the Saints boss also has to look at what other circumstances have contributed to our lack of firepower on Saturday.
In other home games this season we have failed to hit the target, being honest the issue when attacking is our lack of invention in midfield going forward, I don't completely blame the midfielders here, but our system does not allow for creativity, Gaston Ramirez would thrive in a side like Liverpool where he would be able to thread balls through for pacy strikers, but we don't have that, Rickie Lambert is a legend but he isn't a channel runner and this season he has often found himself isolated in our system, to his credit he has still scored and created chances, but in many game he has been passed by for large chunks and as we found on Saturday, this wasn't the first occasion where once a side has got the behind the ball and dug in, we have found ourselves lacking invention to break them down.
Cardiff themselves are embroiled in a row over a leaked team sheet, no one needs to leak ours, in most games injury apart the team is little changed from the previous week and our opponents know exactly how we are going to play, substitutes are always like for like and we dont seem to have the ability to change games.
It's fine for Pochettino to highlight the performance of David Marshall "Their keeper made three or four outstanding saves" he said in the post match interviews, but thats not how I saw it, we only had six shots on target in total, although Marshall made one outstanding save and perhaps one more decent stop, apart from that it was routine for him and yes as Pochettino says we had "Control control control" the fact is Cardiff dealt with it fairly easily.
Perhaps if we had varied things a little, why did we leave four at the back all game, why did we have a bench where the only attacking option was Gallagher and to a lesser extent Guly . why did we not change formation ? there were other options other than what we used.
But the core of the problem goes back to the signing of Osvaldo, back in September I warned that Osvaldo and Lambert both wanted to play in the same position and that Osvaldo had fallen out with Roma over where he was being played, I would imagine the Italian would have been given assurances of his role at St Mary's, after all he wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to come here, we had to entice him with big wages and I would assme the promise of playing in his preferred position.
But the manager didn't seem able to make a decision on playing one or the other, often trying to play both in a hybrid set up that suited neither of them, hence by Xmas we had one player who looked demoralised and out of form and another who clearly felt he was lured to the club under false pretences.
Perhaps Pochettino didn't want Osvaldo, perhaps it wasn't his decision to bring him in, after all we know what our ex CEO was like for his marque signings, but having got him here a situation has been created where we were stretched for attacking options once Osvaldo had gone and now with J Rod's injury we are over stretched to breaking point.
So it is fine to bemoan missed chances, but we should look at the circumstances that have now led to us having to rely on an 18 year old kid coming off the bench or a 32 year old who has scored 1 league goal in 2 1/2 years.
Im not blaming either, Guly has been a good servant to this club but isnt up to the Premier League Standard, Gallagher is not ready for it yet and if we are not careful we could ruin his career before its even started, some players are ready at 18, some take time to mature, Gallagher is the latter, he is an undisputed talent, but he has not yet learnt his trade and it won't help him to try and do so in the current situation.
So our problems on Saturday have been brewing since September when for the sake of the vanity of our former CEO we had to spend a club record fee on a player who didn't really want to be here in the first place, history shows when we have signed players early in the summer and gone for potential we get value for money as shown by Rodriguez, Clyne, Davis and Lovren, when we get involved in Dutch auctions for players who are being sold by their club to the highest bidder we fare less well.
It should be noted that Pochettinos strengths lie in taking promising talent and making them better, thats what happened at Espanyol, they are as yet relatively untested as to whether he can operate at a higher level than that and motivate superstars, in their own heads or otherwise.
Hopefully now we have learnt our lessons and those in charge will be better placed this summer to do things the right way. Perhaps this season will now peter out, it needn't do though, yes Gallagher needs to be taken out of the firing line, but we have other youngsters, why don't we freshen things up, play to Rickie's strengths in the final games, get in one of the young wingers, change shape perhaps.
The last four games arein the hands of the manager, but as have always said, in football iof you do the same things you get the same results, fine when you are winning, but the best managers know how to win a game by changing it sometimes and surprising opponents.