Message Board regular Singapore Saint gives his overview on whats been happening at St Mary's since we were promoted to the Premier League
I am not of the belief that we should be content with the current situation because we were in league 1 a couple of years ago. We were an established top flight club for 27 or so years in a row - far more established than the Newcastle, Stoke, Sunderland's of today. Certainly when we were on the pitch v Coventry I felt all around me believed we deserved to be in the Premier. In my view Southampton FC should be a top flight club and with a level of investment I expect us to compete.
I commented throughout the summer that our behaviour in formation change and transfer activity (not strengthening the key areas all had highlighted, not bringing in prem experience) felt like an 'experiment'. To be honest it draws me back to 2004/5 - where we took our eye off the ball as to why we were successful - we had a chairman who spent more time outside the club than in it and we 'experimented' with bringing in new ways of doing things i.e. rugby coaches instead of focusing on preparing a side to win premiership football games. We also had a manager who was a good clubman but didnt have any premiership management experience. I was also intrigued by the statements around challenging for Europe over this summer and even comments on the title being spouted from the club - wild ambition without realistic grounding usually results in failure.
We have invested, in fact we have invested a shocking amount - we have spent the 7th largest sum in Europe this summer - not just in England but in Europe! With this outlay performances should have been better as clear weaknesses in the squad should have been fixed - and the fans (and owners) have cause to be upset with our start.
We are in the situation we are and we have to galvanise what we have and start to win football games. We need the manager to pick the right players and that starts with the keeper - for me KD's form is a problem. He doesnt look safe, big enough and doesnt appear to inspire confidence in his defence. A change is warranted, a Craig Gordon needs to come in or Gazzinga needs a go - if nothing else to take the pressure off Davis and get him to work on his game..
The worry is not we are losing games, it is the manner of goals we have conceded. We need defensive drilling and look to limit the amount of goals against - a defensive coach is needed (or if we have a good one - THE priority is to focus on this) to get them to defend as a unit (inc the midfield at times) and also individually i.e. when to get tight and drop off.. Yoshida must play and lead - he a proven international defender who has come from the top league in Holland. There may be some language barriers but I play football in Asia and you can communicate the basics in a game. We need to prevent the supply line of ball in the box ongoing and better plan corners, not least as Hooiveld is injured and his main strength is as our primary aerial ball winner.
Going forward we need to get people around the C Forward - many have talked about the change in formation and we can not isolate Lambert - Ramirez supporting him (in the hole) should help. Wide midfield is not great. I dont think Punch is a top flight starting player - he was a sub in the Champ for us and mainly sub at QPR and Blackpool and they finished 17th and 18th. We need a player who can go past the fullback and hit the byline, not only come inside - we didnt sign this type of player although were linked with many, but I'd pick Lee to do this job out of who we have, maybe J Rod can play on the right too as he doesnt look comfortable on the left and I want to see 7M of talent. Lallana is very similar to Ramirez and as now we have Ramirez, Lallana needs to hold down a flank and as such work on his strength and fitness - he may rotate a bit with Ramirez but we can not afford Lallana to be a 'luxury' player.
Finally we need the team to be prepared tactically to win premiership games; formations, selections, substitutions must be made to best improve our chances of winning at the top level, putting Guly on 'to run his socks off' doesnt work for me - Guly doesnt run his socks off! We need NA to prove his is a Premiership manager and not a good lower league one and he has to do it now.. In April I thought with some investment in key areas we may make 10-14th. If we survive it looks like we will be more likely 15 to 17th. We need to pick up points until Christmas and then strengthen in the window. We can survive and need to believe that, we've played 4 games not 14, we had very good moments against Man U and Man City with MS / JWP doing well in the middle and are now playing some of the lesser teams.
We all need to get behind the club and players but to paraphrase a great man, this needs to be the end of the beginning. We must get it right from now on........... COYR.