At 6.44pm The Bell pub opposite Pokesdown Station was full of Saints fans full of hope, a minute later the team news came in and was greeted by incredulous gasps, you fel at that moment that the night would not end well.

We can dissect the Southampton performance at the Vitality Stadium till we are blue in the face, but the verdict is very simple, this was a team very uncomfortable with the way that it was being asked to play and stuck two fingers up to it's manager.

In truth the first 17 minutes weren't bad, but then Saints got caught out by a quick free kick and you could almost see the confidence ooze out of the team and it totally collapsed conceding two more goals in a 7 minute spell after the half hour mark.

This was just plain embarrassing and in the final minutes of the first half, you would have thought that we would have shut up shop, but we still continued to play suicide football along the back and we were lucky not to concede again before the break.

Why didn't we shut up shop? The only conclusion I can reach was this was a team sending a message to it's manager, a team that knows that in the Premier League you need to play to the abilities of your squad and not try to force them into playing in a way that doesn't suit them.

It was a direct message to Russell Martin and one that he appeared to have realised, judging by his comments after the game.

At half time he made 3 changes, that was as clear a sign as you can get that he had got his team selection and tactics very very wrong.

In the second half we were slightly better, Taylor Harwood-Bellis pulled back a goal 6 minutes into the second half to give hope to those Saints fans who hadn't already left or were still in the ground drowning their sorrows in the concourse.

The final stats didn't look to bad, someone who hadn't seen the game but just seen the stats, might well of thought that this was a very even contest, the truth was that we ran up the white flag in the first half and it was done and dusted by the 39th minute.

Russell Martin said he was "hurt by the lack of spirit and fight" bizarrely claiming that the fact that Bournemouth committed 20 fouls to our 10 was part of the problem.

He was right about the lack of fight and spirit in the team, but he has to ask himself some soul searching questions about why his team were like that, it is not a bad squad, it is capable of avoiding relegation, but it is not capable of playing his style of football to the degree that it's manager wants it to and the players themselves know this.

The spirit has been knocked out of them by the manager and his refusal to compromise and play to his own players strength.

The saddest thing is that if Martin had been a little flexible then we would not be in the bottom 3 today, that doesn't mean giving up a possession based game, it means adapting it to the level we are comfortable with.

But I think things are now too far gone to be retrievable, Martin's public criticism of his own players suggest that he has lost the dressing room, he has come to the realisation that his own inflexibility to change things and his insistence in playing his own favourites has now left us in the position that we are now in.

The rumours will flow today, Saints now have to go to an inform Arsenal, Leicester showed that you can put up a fight, but to be honest if Russell Martin is in charge and enforces his possession football game on his team, I truly fear for how bad the result will be.

I have stuck up for Russell Martin in the past, last season he could get away with his tactics in the Championship, but not in the Premier League, I hoped that this season he would be savvy enough to adapt, but it looks like that is not the case and so it is hard to see any other end to the sorry situation bar his sacking.

That pains me to say, I wanted him to succeed, he is by all I have seen a decent man who has just been found out, he is not the first football manager that this phrase could be applied too and he won't be the last.

What happens next is crucial, if Martin is fired then it is important to get in a strong manager who the players will respect, if we go out and get the likes of John Eustace for instance, the squad and the fans will just see it as swapping like for like, we need someone who has Premier League experience and can restore the spirit to the squad.

Monday night at Bournemouth is now done and dusted, we can go round in circles ranting about it, but the scoreline will not change, but the 32 games left to play in the Premier League are still unwritten.

All Photos Via Reuters

davidargyll added 17:53 - Oct 1 Sorry last post posted on the wrong page!
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Jesus_02 added 21:07 - Oct 1 Goals wise we were beaten by a free kick taken quickly from the wrong position and ANOTHER deflection. All the stats point to RM being unlucky and I'd rather have a lucky manager. You make you own luck , the squad either don't believe in this style of play or believe the universe is against them. Either way we need someone to turn that around. If Sports Republic was Cortese they would have a manager lined up for after the Arsenal game.

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