Can understand resting players & rotating the squad but why oh why start JWP. Any academy player would be better. Can't remember winning when he starts, too slow which is why he had to dive to get away from defender. Surely that must be his last chance. As for Eli & Lemon nuff said. There needs to be a huge clear out in Jan. Can only assume Gabbi & Hoedt are on their way.
The only positive today was seeing some youngsters coming through & doing ok.

6

Targett,Elyounoussi, lemina and Redmond also Ward-Prowse total waste of space should all leave this club on this display.
Still have problems at the back but could of been at least 4 or 5 more if not for McCarthy.Shame that we lose the one player that really puts in the effort in Hojbjerg 3 games will be a big loss.

5

I am not so sure about our goalkeeper as others are.... When I saw the line up I thought we would get stuffed. We were not stuffed though and Man City were not that convincing. Cannot help thinking that we might have got a draw with a full strength side. We have spirit. Biggest worry is that we are going to have to get the results to stay up and not rely on worse teams. Burnley beat West Ham who were convincing winners over us a few days ago. 2019 could be very stressful. Happy New Year all.

5

As soon as the team was announced I realised Saints would struggle. A young lad with no experience in defence. No Ings, Redmond, Armstrong who were arguably our est players in last three games. Team selection was so puzzling! I did not see us put together any good passing moves - too many passes went astray! One of the worst Saints performances I have ever seen! Relegation is a dead cert on this form

4

As soon as the team was announced I realised Saints would struggle. A young lad with no experience in defence. No Ings, Redmond, Armstrong who were arguably our est players in last three games. Team selection was so puzzling! I did not see us put together any good passing moves - too many passes went astray! One of the worst Saints performances I have ever seen! Relegation is a dead cert on this form

1

I am not so sure about our goalkeeper as others are.... When I saw the line up I thought we would get stuffed. We were not stuffed though and Man City were not that convincing. Cannot help thinking that we might have got a draw with a full strength side. We have spirit. Biggest worry is that we are going to have to get the results to stay up and not rely on worse teams. Burnley beat West Ham who were convincing winners over us a few days ago. 2019 could be very stressful. Happy New Year all.

2

Could have been an other story if was Mo Salah and not Ward-Prowse who was pushed down in the penalty area at 1-1, shortly before half time...

Our defence was heavily re-shuffled, and 18 year old Ramsay had his debut playing 90 minutes, first as a right back in a 4-man back line, and then - for the majority of the game - as a right sided center back...... (!) in a 3-man defence. He was in there - ONLY - to give our defence some pace, to deal with mainly Sterling. I can see why Hasenhütll tried this , but it was too big a job for the young lad. You cannot blame Hasenhüttl for not being a brave man...
City were lucky in the last stages of the first half, not to get a penalty against them and go behind,
and to get their second goal seconds later - a lucky own goal. That emptied our players´ engines, and
City scored their third goal shortly after.
Second half was ok as we prevented City from scoring further.
Ward-Prowse, unlucky to score an own goal, was our best player, showing his versatility playing as right midfielder, right wing back and then central midfielder. Hojbjerg also had a good game and scored a brilliant equalizer but made a stupid tackle and got a red card with 5 minutes remaining.
Vestergaard was rested and Ings on the bench for 90 minutes, which I found to be ok. If we had looked like having a chance to win during the second half, Ings would have been brought on the pitch, I think.
Elyounouissi was disappointing (again) throughout the 90 minutes, and Redmond, who played the second half, had a poor game. He should have been rested.
It seems Davis, Cedric and Hoedt are definetely going away in the transfer window, if we can find and agree with buyers, and I suspect Bertrand to be in the same situation. This means that we have a chance of getting money to invest in new players.

3

A fair scoreline, given how dominant City were in the first 30 mins and the amount of possession they had. We played well for about 15 mins and could have had a pen when on top. I thought that Lemina for the second game running was really poor, no energy and too slow picking forward passes, although I read somewhere that he’d had a stomach bug, which might explain his performance. I thought Elyounoussi was woeful after half a season it’s difficult to see what he offers the side and he doesn’t seem to have an end product. Despite the loss I still think we will stay up and that Ralph is the right man for the job, it’s going to take him sometime as we have a big squad full of mainly average players.

1

Men against to many boys

0

Ramsey, Targett, Valery, Stephens, Ward Prowse, Elyounoussi, Austin.... and I had to pay them money to watch that load of horse *****

0