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My take on yesterday's game
at 22:54 27 Oct 2024

I have had a good weekend in Manchester interrupted by a football game. This is my take on the game and wider. It is just my opinion, many will see things differently which is what forums like this are for.

Few, if anyone thought that it would be anything but a rout and that it would be damage limitation at best. That feeling was not dispelled when we had not even managed to get to the 5 minute point of the game and Man City were in the lead courtesy of a Haaland goal. The surprise is that it proved to be the only goal of the match and thus the winner.

The match to be truthful, was dull and largely insipid. Man City having got the lead seemed content with it and barely broke out of first or second gear and I doubt never broke sweat. They were content for us to have spells of possession and we rarely threatened. We did hit the bar at the closing stages of the first half and had that gone in, could it have been a surprise outcome to the game or would it merely have poked the bear and woken it up? - on evidence of previous games, I suspect the latter. The second half felt like both sides were going through the motions but we had a flurry at the end which bought a little hope to the ever patient away fans. Fernandes, Lallana (his experience showed in the first half and I can't help but wonder, had he not left as he did and we Saints fans had been a bit more forgiving we could have enjoyed and benefited from his return much earlier) and KWP had good games and we did show some endeavour and we kept our structure but then it was not really tested that much. Man City have loads of games, bigger ones than Saints and it is as if they decided this was a game that they didn't feel they needed to take risks. Against other sides they may have been made to pay for that approach.

The officials did not give much, if in fact, anything. Gary O'Neil dared to suggest that there is unconscious bias. Of course he got in trouble for that comment and PL loving pundits said he was wrong. I think most of us know what O'Neil meant and it is difficult to disagree with him.

Those of us in the away end felt at the end that the team deserved some recognition for the effort and really because we had not got the thrashing we all expected. In many ways, that is almost a sad reflection of what we now deem as acceptable. Celebrating a defeat in which neither side exactly busted a gut. Had we lost 3-2 or something then you could have walked away saying that we had seen a good game and we were unlucky.

But, pundits, commentators, Guardiola and Silva praised Saints. Is it meaningful or patronising? What I find hard to accept is that somehow us Saints fans are supposed to be grateful for losing and being bottom. That we are being unrealistic and unreasonable for expecting anything more. Imagine if it was one of the so called big teams without a win, barely a goal to celebrate - there would massive noise. I (and I believe a majority of Saints fans) was realistic what this season would bring and many of us thought relegation was the most likely outcome and we would be mildly happy to finish 4th from bottom and then build from there.

Few of us really thought that we would be looking at almost certain relegation by the end of October/early November but if we don't beat Everton (and they looked awful against Fulham) next week then you would have to say that relegation is all but confirmed - I appreciate that is defeatist but when people say that yesterdays game and result will not define our season and we did well, that may be the case, but the games against Ipswich, Leicester, Brentford, Bournemouth and next week do define our season and whilst no game is easy, there are some games you would have expected more than the 1 point we currently have and would have kept us in the pack.

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Glimmers of hope extinguished by the same old problems.
at 23:03 19 Oct 2024

There have been glimmers of hope in our games recently but that hope has been extinguished by what is now age old problems:-

- failure to capitalise on the rare occasion we take the lead (though we have taken the lead in the last 3 games);
- failure to protect our leads;
- consistently poor defending no matter whom we seem to play in those positions and with that rare clean sheets;
- lack of resilience and mental strength when we concede;
- inability to come back from a losing position;
- consistently concede late in games;
- lack of tactical nouse;
- poor use of substitutions

KWP and Dibling are our stand out players but I don't fancy our chances to retain them.

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Ross Stewart
at 17:04 4 Oct 2024

Am I hearing correctly that he is not available again? If true, what the flipping hell is wrong with him this time?

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So many questions - very few answers.
at 08:16 1 Oct 2024

The morning after another sickening Saints performance and so many questions. Of the 3 teams promoted we have in theory had the easiest of starts in terms of fixtures and yet you wouldn't think so. We spent £100m in the squad this summer and yet we are not seeing anything like a team that can challenge anyone in the PL (no matter who they are). So:-
- having put in a half decent performance against Ipswich at home why did that team perform so poorly in the first half last night?
- why did Lallana not start the game at least?
- why when we go a goal behind do we seem to collapse/capitulate so readily? We never ever look like coming back?
- Why do we seem so weak mentally and physically to have any fight?
- why amongst our squad do we not have a single striker that looks capable of hitting the back of the net? They haven't scored one goal yet, let alone any notion of them getting to double figures

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You can change the cover but the contents remains the same
at 14:36 14 Sep 2024

I probably won't have argued with the changes that RM made, except THB being dropped but what this game says to me is, it doesn't matter who we put out, we can't score and we can't keep a clean sheet and we haven't played the top sides yet. For the life of me I cannot see where a point is going to come from let alone 3. Next week has to be a win against Ipswich but I am not holding my breath.

I did not see all this game as I was working for most of it so missed the penalty (no idea even who took it) and missed JS red card.

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McCarthy
at 15:37 30 Aug 2024

Though I think McCarthy is a very average keeper he did help us get promotion and today must be a bitter pill for him to swallow. I know he will still get paid but it must hurt professionally.

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