In the preview for this game I suggested that perhaps a player or two might be rested to freshen things up a little and to keep a few players safe from injury, just about the only good thing that can be said about last night is that we seem to have come through it without injuries.

The problem for Saints at the Hawthorns was evident from the start, Ralph Hasenhuttl had put out his strongest team and it seemed that his payers all knew that and played with little enthusiasm for the game and had one eye on making sure they didn't get injured before the big game on Sunday.

In contrast West Brom wanted the game and played with heart, spirit and an energy that just about everyone in the team lacked.

It s easy in hindsight but the root of the problem was that we were too complacent, the changes I mentioned in the preview would at least have put people in the side who were paying to try and get in Ralph's plans for Sunday, most of those who started played like they knew that they would start against Leicester whatever the result at the Hawthorns.

But althouh most of the blame can be laid firmly at the feet of the team collectively for a lack of effort, it does run a little deeper.

At the back Jannik Vestergaard seems a shadow of the player he was before Xmas, he has gone back to the form he showed in his first two seasons at the club, if I am honest he and Bednarek are not a pairing that compliment each other, they both need a leader alongside them.

For the second Burnley goal last week Vestergaard was caught out of position and failing to hold the back line and be the last man, that happened again at West Brom most prominently on the third goal but also on several other occasions.

In any central defensive partnership there has to be contrast, one man is the attacking player and the other the man who holds the line and steps in to cover, in our pairing the covering man is Vestergaard, but he seems unable to be able to read the game, when a ball is played forward he is too often out of position.

It is a radical move but I would almost say that for the semi final we need to do something drastic at the back, Salisu does seem to be able to read the game, he was bought to replace Vestergaard a year ago, is it time for him to do the job he was bought to do ?

Perhaps this is harsh, but the truth is we just keep getting caught on the break and that leads to problems further up the pitch.

Theo Walcott has pace but he loses the ball too often, he can beat a player but then struggles to keep the ball under control and it almost seems that the final man he has to beat is himself , recent news stories have suggested that Saints are concentrating on signing Walcott rather than Minamino and the Japanese player seems to have lost favour with Ralph, but I would say in the few games he has played so far he has contributed more than Walcott has since the New Year.

So I stand by what I said in the preview, we should have started some of those hungry to play at Wembley, Che Adams & Djenepo came on, perhaps the likes of Jankewitz, Salisu and MInamino as well, players that have something to prove and something to play for, although of course Minamino is cup tied for Sunday.

So bad was this performance that our best player on the night was Moussa Djenepo the 87th minute substitute, he made more things happen in those final minutes than Walcott had created in his 76 minutes, he seemed determined to show Ralph he was the man for the starting XI on Sunday.

But for all of this after the dust has settled, this is just another defeat, the doom and gloom merchants need to save their moaning till the end of the season, we now have an FA Cup semi final, these don't happen very often in Saints history , since World War 2 we have had 30 managers, in that time Ralph is only the 5th man to get Saints to an FA Cup semi final, that is a sign that we are going in the right direction and that he is ultimately the man for the job.

Yes things have gone wrong this season, mostly down to the appalling injuries and it has been hard to just go from a bad run to a good one at the click of the fingers.

We are still a work in progress with several key areas needing dealing with not least an the centre of defence.

When I see knee jerk reactions like "Ralph must go" or "we will not get another point all season" then I despair of football, this could still be our greatest season ever, yet people still go on as if we are the worst team ever in the club's history.

Last night wasn't great, I am not making any excuses, but as I always say it is all about what you do next and our nest is on Sunday at Wembley in an FA Cup semi final and there aren't many occasions when I have been able to say that.

Last night did have some fatal flaws, but ultimately we lost because we lacked a fighting spirit, we know it is still there as we say it against Sheffield United and against Burnley in the second half, if we have it back at Wembley then this season might just get good or it might just end up an average one, with the state of football at the moment I would also take that.

Photo: Action Images

Dellwizard added 15:12 - Apr 13 LordDZLucan, as someone else has already pointed out on this thread. Teams know how we are going to play and have sussed it out. Wait for the first 20 minutes for us to tire out and then we seem to struggle if we have not scored. Goal difference btw: First team -23: B Team -18: 18s -25.
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JoeEgg added 15:24 - Apr 13 Yes interesting observation Dellwizard which most commentators seems to have missed. Our Academy sides are also at their lowest ebb for many a long season. I wonder if any of the junior and reserve sides can remember when they last won a match?!
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Block8 added 17:14 - Apr 13 Not much to say that hasn't been said, Diallo is not strong enough, yet & this affects Ward Prowse's game and seriously destabilises the CB's. Theo is fast but incredibly inconsistent with the ball. Ings plays better with Adams taking some weight off him. Berties looking tired and Ralph's use of substitutes is a shambles at its best! We just have to hope last night was a blip and not a slip back into last form.

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felly1 added 18:29 - Apr 13 Another inept performance by Saints. Congratulations to WBA on an excellent display. One great flourish for the last 9 games last season made us all optimistic that at last we'd turned the corner and we had a decent attacking mid table side to cheer on. Alas after a good start following on from last seasons fine finish we are back to square one. We are so one dimensional and easy for a cute manager to suss out. Both keepers look at bit dubious to me. The defenders are average but we have realistically no cover for either left and right back. Stephens has been really poor this season when he's played and relying on Salisu who's 21 years old and played very little football and when he has played has looked shaky and easy to bully. The midfield is way too lightweight and doesn't protect the defence. The attackers. Ings our best player is unsettled and has not indicated to the press that he wants to stay. So take that as you will. Adams is decent but has not yet shown the type of talent or form to make you think he'll get 15 goals a season. The wide guys apart from Armstrong are way too inconsistent. I still rate Redmond and Moussa but both lack the consistency required to be regular starters. Walcott and Minamino.. No thanks.

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Nomaesaints added 18:58 - Apr 13 Just a few points: Nine times out of ten we use the same corner routine. KWP good going forward but a big ball watcher when defending and slow to get back Why is Inngs in our own penalty area defending corners when he should be on the half way line occupying two potential attackers Why bring subs on in the 87 minute when you are 3 down?
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YosemiteSaint added 19:00 - Apr 13 I still think that Ralph's our man. He just hasn't yet learned how to manage time. He doesn't yet grasp how to manage 90s minutes. And he really doesn't yet grasp how to manage the calendar. Heavy metal bands know that every set you need to whip out the acoustic guitar and slow things down every now and then. The same goes for heavy metal football players.
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underweststand added 19:19 - Apr 13 As a additon to Dellwizard's comments above. Yes - the first team had 6 and 7 players out during the worst injury period , and very few of the regulars showed any consistency. The best of the B team / U23 players were sat on the Prem. bench, and often it was the U18 lads who made the move upto fill the places in the B side, and it was obvious that all the teams have had their own injury problems , Recently the U18's were forced to field a 15 year old because we have no cover available. There is no acceptable excuse for defeat in the eyes of many fans, but we just have to put this very "unusual season" down to Covid and any number of other excuses you want. Like those Liverpool fans who have seen their side lose 6 games at home, we all have something to gripe about.

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barry_sanchez added 19:49 - Apr 13 Some individual players but no steel, togetherness and composure when we fail, and we've failed on many occasions this season with different formations, teams and players. Not a team, next season we're down.
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AmericanSaint added 20:05 - Apr 13 So I will agree with all of you who said this was a dismal display. I think Nick is right that a lot of the players were thinking about Sunday and not this game. I also agree with "Flamingbonkers', that our midfield has not been the same without OR. We are losing the ball to much in midfield in the center of the pitch and one easy long pass sends a forward through (like the 3rd goal). I personally think our defensive problems start with the wingback formation. Both KWP and RB are playing way to high up the pitch and that basically leaves us 2 CB to cover the area. Neither CB have the speed to need to do this. This leaves us severely exposed. Next, TW needs to sit and Che needs to start, period. Also, Redmond and Armstrong were the only ones actually attacking and Ingsy was trying to hard to make the perfect play. Does he have a left foot? Anyways, I hope RH has put a boot up their backsides and actually watches the tapes to make adjustments otherwise Sunday will be painful. I would not be surprised to see a back 5 on Sunday. COYR

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SaintPaulVW added 20:25 - Apr 13 Agree with a lot of the observations. Ings and Walcott looked well off the pace. Diallo needs to go on the Ward Prowse toughening up course. Too lightweight and rarely tackles. He's good technically but thats not enough. I've never seen a CM get barged off the ball so many times. Defence was put under pressure because Midfield and Attack went missing. Making no subs until 75 mins was barmy when had a full bench and so many players looked off the pace JWP 50% conversion rate on penalties?. He shouldn't be taking them. The PL adapts fast. The high press has been sussed. Teams also appear to have decided to attack us on our right. Unless we address that we are just playing into the Einstein definition of Madness. Luckily we have shown time and time again that we can play at a completely different level from match to match. It also shouldn't be forgotten that WBA had just done the same to Chelsea. So it's not all doom and disaster. Rant over. COYR for Sunday

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underweststand added 08:40 - Apr 14 Lots of us made spontaneous and quite similar comments after the fiasco v. West Brom. which was made worse by the fact that it was almost impossible to name anyone who had - even a reasonable game - only to be capped off by Prowsey's penalty miss and a late free-kick that might have looked a certainty for him. Everyone has a bad game sometime - but a whole team in the same match? The signs were obvious in the first 20 minutes, when aside from their "offside goal " West Brom. had a bucket load of chances with only the poor finishing so typical of a team in the drop zone, keeping the game from becoming another 9-0. We just didn't show up and scarcely won a second ball let alone creating goal chances ourselves. However, one aspect of our play became clear in this game, and the previous one v. Burnley, in that despite the obvious skill we have in the team, we are "too lightweight and lack muscle" - especially in midfield. Even our CB's don't flex a lot of muscle, despite their obvious height advantage, but the absence of Oriel Romeu has become quite obvious in these last half dozen games. Both West. Brom and Burnley field "more muscular types" who make up with aggression what they lack in skill and footballing talent, and some of our "more lightweight players" have been the target of "special treatment " in recent games without someone like Romeu to " look out for them ". Their is little to be done at this stage of the season, but hopefully after the summer we will see the addition of some " taller and meatier types " who know how to look after themselves, rather than being " bullied out " of games like these.

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