A huge wake up call for everyone connected with Southampton Football Club after this big bih home defeat not just in scoreline but in the manner it happened.

The first thing to say about this game is that one bad result doesnt make it the end of the world, but what this comprehensive defeat showed was that Saints are probably in the right position in terms of the squad that they have now and that is somewhere between 13th-16th rather than the fringe of the Champions League places as some would have you believe.

Before we start to make such proclamations we should really seek first to emulate the feats of West Bromwich Albion who have cemented two straight top ten placings and have put togather a squad that can compete, however lately there has been a clamour to proclaim Saints as the next big thing in English football before we have put the foundations in.

However as i said one bad game doesnt make a bad team, however we havent read the warning signs, the 2-0 win at Reading glossed over the fact that we could have gifted the opposition three goals before we even got out of the starting blocks and the result didnt reflect the fact that yes once we took the lead we took control, but before that we were dodgy.

Since then we have played three times and worryingly scored only one goal whilst conceding four, this game highlighted the fact that we are two one dimensional, Rickie Lambert was out of sorts and therefore we didnt have a sniff of goal apart from a couple of speculative efforts.

Im sure the crowd would love to blame Danny Fox for this one, now Im not suggesting that he is the messiah, but Fox took a lot of stick for this one from the crowd and he was far from the worst defender and we need to look at our central defence who were carved open too easily and too often, did anyone scream abuse at our central defenders? or at Ramirex for that matter when he needlessly elbowed Long who had snapped at his heels but had done nothing worse than actually trying to get close to his man and get a tackle in, something half our team should have been taking notes on, Fox himself was dismissed but at least he went down fighting and trying to make a tackle, on the day he was as bad as anyone else, but he showed more heart than most and heart is one of the things we lacked on Saturday.

So what we need to take from this is exactly what we were saying 8 months ago at the start of the season, we do not have good enough central defenders, we do not have any true wide players and we are too one dimensional with little other real options past the first 16 in the squad, thats why we so rarely turn a game round, the victory over Aston Villa back in September remains the only game this season that we have come from behind to win, this for me highlights are one dimensional play, it either works or it doesnt and if it doesnt we havent any other options.

People sometimes call me negative in what I say about Saints, Im not negative i try to be realistic, try to point out other things than how great everything is, thats because i truly want to see us challenge for the Champions League, but over 40 years of supporting Saints have shown me that its easy to make proclamations of ambition, its not so easy to carry them out, Lawrie McMenemy was the most successful Saints manager in our history, one of his strengths was to be quietly confident, you never heard him make bold predictions about what he thought we could do, he under promised and over delivered, if we are not careful by not managing the fans expectations we could do the exact opposite and that can put you on a nasty downward slope when you dont deliver.

This game highlighted that three good wins dont make a season and that having the same squad since the end of August means that you get the same results, Saints can have a good season next year, but a good season will be wrestling with West brom for the top eight and it will mean getting in the right players in the right positions to do that, a late Spurs equaliser will probably mean that Saints wont endure too traumatic end of the season, if that hadnt have gone in we would be looking nervously over our shoulder this morning.

Photo: Action Images

Fordy added 12:24 - Apr 29 A few thoughts on Saturday: - Since MP has come in we have mainly struggled against the more physical sides (QPR, WH,WB) and Spurs don't fall into that category, yet Sunderland and Stoke certainly do. - Hooiveld struggles against top quality centre forwards. He has done well against the likes of Reading and Norwich, but put him up against an Aguero, RVP or Lukaku and he just is not good enough. - SRL looks knackered. At least NA seemed to know when to leave him out. - Mayuka at least has pace which is something we didn't have a great deal of on Saturday, would be good to see a little more of him. - Morgan, Cork, Davis, JWP are great but they aren't particularly imposing. The teams that like a physical battle will look at our team sheet and nobody on there will frighten them in any way.

0

REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 12:55 - Apr 29 Well said Fordy. Totally agree. It's very important how the team/manager react now. We need a positive response and go to Spurs and put in one hell of a performance. If we roll over and lose by 2 or 3 then it suddenly becomes very hard to see where another win is going to come from. If Poche doesn't put Forren in now then something is seriously wrong with that player. Especially against Spurs who have quick players and will look to keep the ball on the deck. Hooiveld will be useless against Defoe, like he was useless against Long. For me, Saturday highlighted a number of things: 1) our defensive frailties and lack of good enough centre backs, 2) the importance of Luke Shaw, 3) our reliance on Lambert to make things happen going forward, 4) the fact that Ramirez isn't playing anywhere near what he is capable of, 5) our lack of pace and diversity in attack. Hopefully Pochettino and the club will look to rectify these problems in the summer, and get a few more points in the remainder of this season.

0

SaintNick added 13:06 - Apr 29 I actually thought I would get slaughtered over this piece, however a few people have missed the point and reverted to slagging off fox, lets be clear here, Fox is second choice to Shaw who was injured on Saturday and worryingly perhaps gets injured a little more than most, although this is possibly due to his being overplayed at such a young age. Its fine to talk about getting a better deputy for Shaw than fox, but just who would we get, lets be honest good players want first team football not to be second choice, we should want Fox to get up to the level he can play at, not just make him the whipping boy, some of the comments heard directed at Fox on Saturday were appalling, why isn't he the player last year who had 15 assists ? that's quite easy to answer, he has no confidence and some of our own fans have to look at themselves over that. Saturday isn't the worst result in the world,but perhaps a few people will now look at what this league actually is instead of buying pr about challenging for champions league spots Problem is now who plays left back next Saturday at spurs if Shaw is still unfit

0

ExiledSupporter added 13:08 - Apr 29 This was a result that was entirely predictable if you looked at the way we have played recently ie. as Nick says a really poor first quarter against Reading when we could have been trailing by several goals and two very uninspiring draws (despite being denied an undeserved win against Swansea). Saints have often been a club able to snatch disaster from the jaws of potential success. Frankly I can't see us getting anything at Spurs or Sunderland unless we step up several levels of commitment to properly compete against the opposition. I fear that we will be depending on a last day result against Stoke who seem to have got themselves together (6pts in their last three games while we have got two points from three). Wigan are playing much better than their position suggests and I wouldn't be surprised if they had the capacity to get 7pts from their remaining 4 matches; Villa could get 5pts from their 4 remaining matches; Newcastle could get 4pts from their 3 last games; Sunderland 6pts from their remaining four and Norwich perhaps 2pts from their final games. If we got three from Stoke (optimistic on the basis of Saturday's result?) the table would look like this: Sunderland 43 Southampton 42 Newcastle 41 Norwich 40 Wigan 39 Villa 39 I don't think these are unrealistic totals despite the erratic form of all these sides including ourselves. Of course these are all rather hypothetical predictions but a loss to Stoke could mean we were really dependent upon either Villa or Wigan winning on the last day and hoping their GD remained worse than ours (although with three further defeats our GD will have been significantly harmed. I'm not comfortable about these scenarios and any realistic Saints supporter will feel very uneasy about our prospects unless we turn things around considerably. By the way we now have a poorer record under Pochettino than under Adkins over 13 league games for each NA had a tally of 18pts (4w, 6D, 3L) vs 17pts for MP (one less draw and one more defeat) These last three games will be highly indicative of MP's ability to effectively set up and motivate the team (perhaps made difficult by injuries and suspensions) and the team itself to do themselves justice on the pitch. Some of our most admired players have simply not been doing it for the last few games, particularly amongst the forwards Finally all these comments about buying quality defenders and improving the depth of the squad, assuming we survive (by however narrow a margin), seem to assume that MP will have some greater say in who is signed than Adkins had (at least from last summer onwards) I think we should recognise that the views of Reed and Cortese have in the past been inconsistent with the needs of the "head coach." While some good signings have indisputably been made eg. Boruc, Clyne, Rodrigues and Davis others have been almost irrelevant to date eg. Mayuka and Forren while others seem to have been unnecessary (Ramirez) or not sufficiently good enough (Yoshida, signed as almost an afterthought) The key issue in the summer will be the need to bring in quality central defenders with Prem League experience and ensuring that there is synchronisation with MP's requirements. Clearly he doesn't think Forren is the right quality if he thinks Hooiveld is the best available to him!

0

IanRC added 14:35 - Apr 29 MP has much left to prove IMHO. Disagree Nick about Fox, has consistently under performed in this division but so did our central defenders initially - thought they had sorted that out with recent results but apparently not. Seems MP just cannot motivate players for the 'smaller' (with apologies to WBA) games and doesn't have the tactical noise either.
0

south76 added 14:46 - Apr 29 Yes it was a wake up call , Ifeel we still need 1 more point to be save , I sadly can't see us getting that till the last game of the season , i just hope we will be safe by then.
0

OldRed added 15:53 - Apr 29 Nick, Yoshida will play at LB, with Fonte, Jos, & Clyne the remaining back 4.
0

SaintJez added 16:43 - Apr 29 I don't mean to be a fox hunter but if there is one silver lining to last weekend's debacle it's that we don't have to see Fox try and handle the pace of Lennon next week. It's really not easy to know what to do for the best there. Anyone think Targett is ready to the thrown in at the deep end??
0

redblooded added 17:45 - Apr 29 I think our blaming our own team is taking a lot away from WBA. They obviously knew the boom ball over the top is our weakness, and they had two players up front with the quality to exploit this. And to be honest WBA were just as good with the ball on the floor and the passing game. Their scoring first was the clincher, WBA could then defend deep and catch us on the counter attack. Which they did with regularity and quality. Our attack was ponderous, there was little movement off the ball and you could see the game slow down every time Saints got the ball, there was only ever one pass open to our player on the ball and that was inevitably a back-pass. I think this is just a blip for our team. We have to be more canny and defensive at the start against quality teams, and WBA are a quality team, no doubt. Saints need to score first as it suits our style of play to have the opposition attacking or chasing the game. It is unfair to constantly blame the defence as they are usually left to handle attackers on their own due to the mid-field being to high up the pitch. As much as we hate it the "boom-ball" is our Achilles heel, and we need to find a way to counter it.

0

brady100 added 18:33 - Apr 29 Spot on assessment, much as I love Jos, he just isn't good enough, I think we need to give Forren a chance, Mayuka has looked lively in his two appearances but that we already knew as a substitute at least. When teams close us down we resort to hopeful balls forward to Rickie, or lose the ball trying to play intricate passes through the middle, this is our only tactic. If we were to buy two natural wide players we could really get at teams when we stretch play using Cork and Morgan. At the moment we are getting space down the flanks but only have the players such as fox (stand still and cross) lallana, J-Rod and punch who look to come back inside. The only player to attack the fullback and get a cross in is Clyne and surprise surprise this was when we looked most dangerous. It was actually quite embarrassing at times watching us try the same thing over and again to no avail.Two wingers and a center back are crucial this summer. We still have to finish the job of yet mind!!

0

TimSaint added 18:35 - Apr 29 OK, so just some observations, as many of my views have already been voiced. Hoover's lack of pace was exposed far too often and he should have been replaced at half time. 3 out of the 4 could have been replaced though - Clyne was not strong enough - especially for the opening goal and Fox struggled. Too many players were off form - but credit to WBA of course We were crying out for a right winger - too many times we were sucked in and playing too centrally, so when gaps were created on the right, there was no width here. Clyne, when he did get forward, had a few decent chances to shoot / cross etc, so surely MoPo should have utilised JRod or Adam on the right - or put Punch on ? Just a thought but perhaps Gaston has played his last game for Saints. Lets face it, he hasn't exactly set Saints alight, let alone the Premiership and maybe the price tag is a burden. There are constant rumours linking him with a move back to Italy - which could be a possibility now ? Thought Long pulled him back a bit though - and if this was blown for, then it would have avoided the red card, but it was a must after the incident - so no complaints. Fox had to go too - although I must admit he did show willing to win the ball, unlike many of his team mates for most of the 90 mins - but to be fair, had Davies not played him such a "Hospital Ball", it would have been avoided. A good attendance and good away following, but so many people left when we went 2-0 down !! Boruc Kept the scoreline down - particularly in the first half and was very unlucky with the opener, however the 3rd should have been saved. I know the defence parted (again) and the game was already lost by then. I know we cannot win every game and we all had a bad day at the office The only positives came yesterday when Harry got his just deserts :o) In losing to them at SMS, we gave them a very satisfying "FALSE DAWN" !! WTFILN !!

0

davepid added 20:09 - Apr 29 Slynch reminds us we had 60% possession. Not for the first time have we had possession of this size and still managed to lose or draw. I dont know why we cant make it count more but we need to if we are to progress to a higher level , But heh - Pompey relegated, and now arry. Not an entirely wasted weekend afterall.,
0

SM7 added 22:51 - Apr 29 Saints fans have a big part to play in the run in,on saturday the fans were quiet and the songs ......so boring.I listened to the variety of song the WB fans sang and all we sing is Oh when the Saints go marching in (slow) and Pompey songs....last few games,max noise and support the lads.All this negativity, remember promotion from League 1,followed by promotion from the Championship and hopeful first season stay in the Premier.....One life ,live it, only one SFC,Live it,love em...

0

BlackRod added 23:05 - Apr 29 Fact is MoPo is a one trick pony. How is it that when the team plays well he gets the plaudits. When they play badly it's down to the players? Since he arrived the team plays higher up the pitch and trys to shut down the opposition. This leaves us hugely vulnerable at the back, all the more so when we only have defenders (Shaw excluded) of Championship standard. All the opposition need to do is play through balls and break quickly. West Brom exploited this to the full. Remember that QPR did the same thing. It won't be long before everyone susses this out. MoPo may be out of his depth here.

0

simmo400 added 06:51 - Apr 30 We are always moning about our defenders yet we have Fonte and Ferren ? I am a FOX moaner i dont think he cuts it in any division, i could cross the ball better. We have one game option and if this dosent work were found wanting, we need a plan B. Adam Lallana to me ia a luxury we cant afford. If he was any other player he would be slated for his performances, lightweight in this division. Yes he has trickery but its no use on the halfway line, ineffictive. After the Sunderland performance last night that game is one im pending my 3 points and sfty hopes on,

0

SaintNick added 13:03 - Apr 30 Week in week out I find myself having to defend fox, not because I think he has played well but because of the knee jerk slaggings off of him I see on here, sorry Simmo but you can cross a ball better than Fox !! well last season there was no better crosser of him in our team, look at the number of assists he had, many of Lamberts goals came because of pin point crosses from him, but he is an easy target isn't he ! Slag Fox off for what he does badly, don't slag him off for what he does well, on Saturday you could clearly see his confidence is shot to pieces and that's down to the supporters, time and time again I hear about how great it is to be a Saints fan and how united the club is now and then the same people slaughter individual players, Fox played a vital part last season go and watch the goals over again on dvd and see how many came from him, Guly played a big part both last season and the one before, his reward and now Fox's is to be slaughtered not just on message boards but openly at games and that in particular is disgusting, we all have short memories sometimes ie Nigel Adkins is now regarded as a naïve clueless buffoon who had to go before we were relegated by some on here, who previously proclaimed him the greatest manager in the clubs history. Yes we have Forre, why do you think it is after 3 1/2 months here he is yet to play a game, as was well publicised Adkins knew nothing of him, why not question those responsible for transfer policy rather than slagging off the defenders we have

0

ExiledSupporter added 13:30 - Apr 30 To put it succinctly, against QPR, Newcastle and now WBA our lack of pace and defensive organisation have been laid bare by long balls played over the top, astute balls into the channels or frailty on the wings. I am convinced that our fundamental problem this season in particular (under Adkins and Pochettino) has been the attempt to play a system and associated tactics which are not consistent with the squad's attributes. Successful teams either adopt a style of play which is based on the players available to you (I don't think that NA did this in the first half of the season, but did do so somewhat more effectively in his last dozen or so games; while MP has brought a system which he is very familiar with and imposed it on a group of players that he has had no opportunity to change to better meet the requirements of the system) or employ a system once you have sufficient players with the ability to make the system operate successfully. In both cases the managers have not had ie. been provided with/inherited, sufficient players with genuine pace in defence or, for that matter, in attack. And despite the sterling efforts of many of the players (esp. Schneiderlein and Cork and lately Davis) our ability to provide our full backs with appropriate cover. Why has there been this persistent discontinuity ie. different transfer priorities, between the activities of Reed and the squad needs of Adkins? This must be resolved during the summer with significant expenditure and a number of players moved on (the latter may entail some very difficult decisions) and key players retained. By August we must have players who collectively can make Pochettino's system work consistently well or we must alter our tactics to better suit the players we have at that time. Of course this assumes that we either get 3 more points from our remaining three games or one of the teams below us slips up badly in their final games.

0

SaintJez added 13:49 - Apr 30 Hear Hear, Nick! Well said. It is clear to everyone watching that Fox is a committed and hard working player who just don't have the attributes to be a defender in the elite league. However, getting on his back whilst he's on the pitch playing for the team (and often when we aren't even losing!) is totally ridiculous. Fox led the team in assists last season and has good delivery when his confidence is up. In fact, it's the major strength of his game! I suspect it's the last we've seen of him in a Saints shirt and, in all honesty, he does need to be replaced if we are to push on up the division but I've never been a fan of slaughtering someone just because they aren't good enough. Not trying, I can understand, but if he's trying and simply lacking the quality he should be thanked for where he's helped take the club to and replaced by new blood that can kick us on.

0

justhark added 22:47 - Apr 30 We got done by prob one of the most organised teams in the prem league..their style of play is to play on the counter be it at home or away..something hodgson bred into the club and carried on with it under Steve clarke..there 2 forward wide men played a high line which kept clyne and fox playing deeper and not getting in behind and getting 1st time whip in crosses which lambert and jay rod were after...instead crosses from lallana and co were just to predictable and never caught west brom on the back foot..so we tried to play through them but they were just to organised and kept there shape well...so bringing on gaston to unlock the door was a good idea but have to say rather of seen punch have a go as he has been outstanding this season for us..at least with the sending offs we arnt in that europa league rubbish next season which i dont think is a bench mark to how well you have done in the prem league as its a watered down competition these days..i agree with the editor lay off fox as he has had some bad luck with few OG's and seems to get the brunt of it all the time..just an easy target..also all the thousands of saints fans around me with 10mins to go after the 3rd went in leaving the game 10mins early and moaning as they left remember at the start of the season survival was always our aim and tbh i thought we was doomed after our poor start but luckily NA seem to tighten up the defence and we started to show what we could do in this league..so 4th from bottom was our aim and anything else was a bonus..its all down to wigan now and i dont think they can win enough games regardless of how we do from now on...so after one game against a decent team at home lets not get too down hearted and lets not run before we can walk..

0

brady100 added 12:00 - May 1 I think your missing the point here Nick. Yes I would never voice my opinion of Fox at the game, his commitment is there and we should get behind everyone. But it is irrelevant what Fox did for us last year, the fact is he is woefully short of what is needed in this league, both defensivley and going forward. We will all remeber him and FR for what they gave us in the championship, but now we need to move on and get LB cover that can defend and attack the fullback. Again this wont be utill the summer so i agree with your suggstion that EVERYONE on that pitch is SUPPORTED.

0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Bury Polls