I agree that we do have some very gifted players. Hoedt is probably one of them. This gets highlighted when we see the likes of newly promoted Huddersfield and Brighton turn up. They have limited but hardworking and well organised functional players who do the job. Saints more talented players can look chaotic at times going around in circles in the middle of the park passing with great skill but going nowhere. The club have given MP quiet long enough to get things right and he has not.

I just checked and Hoedt is even younger than Stephens so there is an excuse for him too! So, we've got 2 relative youngsters in the centre of our defence, in positions, like goalkeeper, where older players are best. It's just poor strategy by the club's senior management.

There is a lot of Incompetence on show at manager and board level at present at St Mary's. Very worrying times for Southampton supporters. Board's stupidity in failing to line up Promes properly in good time is an example. It is the height of optimism to think he will be signed in the summer.

Pellegrino's repeated poor team selection and tactics may yet prove terminal and Board have failed to act decisively in good time to remove him when it has been clear for some time he is not up to the job. The playing squad is well above the standard needed to survive but unless swift decisive action is taken I fear the worst.

A win at West Brom is now essential, all is not lost but it soon will be unless things improve. Two strikers from the start would at least suggest Pellegrino has learnt something but I doubt it will happen.

It is obvious Pellegrino and the team appear unable to buy an ounce of luck at the moment; but do get offered scraps to either keep us in it, or prolong the misery (depending on whether your glass is half full or empty).

Firstly, its obvious that Carrillo wasn’t fully match fit. At best he had 45 minutes. MP had a choice of starting him for the first half or offering him as a super sub. He chose the latter: and I suspect virtually every other manager would have done the same.

But that left an incontrovertible truth. Without any in form striker (or indeed many strikers), MP was left with playing Long back in the 4-2-3-1 system. Meaning we were relying on an old system - one that hasn’t worked for goals. As a result it became clear that the first half would be tentative. It didn’t disappoint in that regard.

What baffles me is the decision to bench Lemina and Boufal. I get the Gabbi decision (although I expect that to change now we have Carrillo) but Lemina and Boufal have distinct qualities. As I think about it, I can see MP elected to use JWP over Boufal for set plays and crosses; again there is sense in that. In addition MP isn’t going to drop Tadic (although he did at half time) for the luxury of Boufal, but I struggled to see where the goals would come from.

Lemina on the bench I cannot understand. Yes PEH is playing well at the moment, but I would expect MP to offer Lemina a chance at getting a bit further forward. Yet he relies on Davis instead. Whilst I appreciate Davis (in past seasons) has had spikes of creative offensive form, that’s not his natural game. And he’s perhaps not the future. Personally I would start giving Lemina more game time, but I’m not an experienced manager.

So the first half set up was a bit of the same. As such I didn’t expect flurries of goals, but perhaps a tight 0-0 or 1-0 first session. Yet Lady Luck deserted us. Brighton started brightly. To their credit Saints looked sturdy but the familiar trait of an individual lapse came to the fore. Hoedt’s lunging attempt and the resulting penalty quickly undone any sense that saints would gain momentum. Given that the squad either lacks natural goal scoring flair or confidence, the first half took its now traditional route.

I really thought that this was it: we would lose 1-0 and that would be the end of MP. Yet he took the initiative and changed things at the break. I’m not sure the plan was for Carrillo to come on then, but needs must. Yet it was great to see that it wasn’t a like for like - whilst Romeu was the sacrifice, it perhaps indicates that MP is willing to flex. 4-4-2 it was. Boufal for Tadic was another no brainer: I would have perhaps started with that.

2nd half was a different but same story(?!). Saints were dominant in possession and chances, but simply could not convert. Brighton did not have one shot on target in the 2nd. I just hope that provides the sliver of realisation to MP that he can and should be playing more than one striker - and that Gabbi, Boufal, Lemina and Long can all play a part alongside Carrillo. Give them time together and they will click: if/when they do, it is clear this is a squad that can easily avoid relegation.

Whilst that sliver of luck came our way for the equaliser, it departed as soon as it arrived. As I say, if we can get some consistency we won’t need to rely on such scraps.

Overall Brighton probably came out of that relieved to have caught a lucky punch and weathered the storm.

West Brom away is now the true acid test. MP needs to analyse that 2nd half and build on it. Personally I would start Boufal and JWP on both wings and have Carrillo and Gabbi up front. PEH and Lemina in the middle. ThaT requires a change in formation though.

Finally, it’s not over by a long shot. Only 5 points separate us and 10th. There are worse teams than us in the mix. But we simply cannot go on trying old things and expecting it to miraculously click. Our biggest weaknesses are consistency and confidence.

I like Hoedt. The Premier League can be unforgiving on young defenders but I think him and Stephens have done well recently. In fact, I think our back four is pretty decent compared to most other clubs of our stature. Our real problem has been the chronic lack of goals over the past 18 months. My criticism of Nick has been his eagerness to jump on any mistake made by our defenders while he continually neglects to pick up on any of the many other weaknesses in the side. Shane Long, for example - one goal in 38 matches - rarely if ever gets mentioned; Fraser Forster's failures to stop just about anything were never questioned while at the same time Stephens' errors that 'cost us the League Cup' get a weekly airing.
At about this point last season Nick stated that our lack of goals was down to the team's need to play deeper to protect Stephens and Yoshida. I think even Nick would now admit that our lack of goals is purely down to a severe lack of goalscorers.

Well said Pintsized. Its obvious Pellegrino needs to go back to basics, play a 4-4-2, big man & little man up front, get the ball out wide and get crosses in. Aim for Carrillo, Gabbi can feed off the scraps. Hoijberg and Lemina can run the midfield. We're in a relegation scrap now. We need a pragmatic approach. No more dominating possession with sideways passes. It needs to be more direct with a clear gameplan. Keep it simple.

The trouble with Pelllegrino is he over thinks it all, makes it too complicated, the players can't understand his system changes, especially in attack. Someone needs to have a word with him. Or sack him and get in someone who can keep us up.

We can play 2 or 3 strikers, for example, Long, Gabbiadini and Carrrillo, but if none of them can score goals it won't make any difference. The only one who can, Austin, is usually out injured. We'd probably score more goals with Yoshida and Stephens up front than our supposed strikers (with the exception of Austin when he's fit). At least those two can stick the ball in the net

Somebody needs to fix this situation, oh hang on,its already been fixed.

NIck, please end the obsession with blaming the defenders! It doesn't matter if it was a penalty or not---it was only one goal! Our main problem since Pelle and Mane left is scoring goals. Our manager sets out every game looking for a 0-0 draw, and if we score, he pulls the strikers off. I can't think of any other team in the league where the owner(s) would put up with this.

I swear, it's starting to look like match fixing! Anyone been checking Mr. Gao's betting patterns out East?

At the very least, it looks like planned relegation: Dump the big contracts (those players will want to leave anyway) to cut costs and pocket the parachute money.

I bet Edmonton fans are happy Ralphie had nothing to do with running the Edmonton Oilers in their glory years, because he would have kept Gretzky, Messier and Kurri on the bench!

Fire Pellegrino and bring in Marco Silva. He almost kept Hull up last season with an inferior squad to ours and he was doing a decent job at Watford until his head was turned by Everton. Even if it's only until the end of the season and if he performs a miracle and keeps us up, look at offering him a longer contract. The Board has to do something now, keeping Pellegrino will end in relegation.
Dirk Doone, you say Jack Stephens is a talented youngster learning his game. It takes many years to become a reliable central defender. Hoedt, on the other hand, has no such excuse. Well, it's fair to say Hoedt is still learning - he is younger than Jack Stephens. Yes, he gave away a penalty last night, but as Ian Wright said on Morden, it was a penalty, but he was unlucky.

It's beyond ridiculous that Pellegrino is still our manager. So truly absurd that it has me wondering whether those in power at SMS have secret affinities with our neighbours down the road.

Once again this is a "must win" game and we pick a team that wouldn't score in a pub match. Saints carry 3 or 4 players every single match. Admittedly not all of them are actually useless but they don't impose themselves on the game and so we're not a threat.

Everybody I know - whether saints fans or not - thought the bench yesterday would win a match versus the starting XI and that's with 4 players missing!

The manager as evident by his selections, tactics and general depressed demeanour of every one of our players, clearly hasn't got a clue. It's just extraordinary we burned the whole transfer window without making the glaringly obvious decision to call time on his reign.

Steve N. Yes, you are right. I didn't realize how young Hoedt is. We really need someone more experienced to lead our defence. For many years Fonte did that job.

I thought Hoedt had a poor game, as highlighted by others as well as a lazy challenge for the pen he also got bullied in an aerial battle early doors and sloppily gave the ball away a few times when attempting easy passes. I don’t think he is a bad player though, but on current form he’s no better than Yoshi and Jack.

We lost this game in the first 15 mins, where both the team and fans seemed really flat. They should have come out all guns blazing against a very mediocre Brighton side, but just seemed half asleep. We actually played quite well in the 25 mins before half time with Bertie, JWP and Cedric putting several good crosses into the box, but with just Long up there we never looked like scoring.

I thought bringing Carrillo on at half time was a good move, although he didn’t win too much in the air, if he’d been there in the 1st half he might have got on the end of something. Unfortunately the service into the box wasn’t as good in the second half, with Bertrand (our best player in the first half) frustrated by playing with Boufal, who is both selfish and erratic. He rarely tees up Bertie on the overlap, instead choosing to go inside and give the ball away. For me we should get rid of Boufal in the summer, he has had enough chances by now and simply doesn’t have enough end product or footballing IQ.

After reading all the comments, I know there is lots of passion here. BUT Pintsize seems to be the only one who is using his head over his heart. I have been saying this all season that Davis should not start but be used as a sub to shoreup the midfield. I missed the first half, but what i saw on in the second, showed me several things (1) Lemina on the bench was a mistake - he should have started over Davis (2) All the people criticizing Carillo, know nothing of football, (3) Boufal was making poor choices last night (4) we couldn't cross a ball to save our life in the 2nd half (5) we need to follow the KISS principle and go with a 4-4-2. (6) There are worse teams than us and all is not lost, but we need some wins and we will survive by our teeth. (7) Goal differential could be the difference. COYR

Hoedt has failed to deliver for Saints, error after error has cost us at least six points. We could and should be midtable and the sack the manager gang would be silenced.

Not for the first time pint sized I find myself in agreement with most of what you say.

Is it a dodgy defence or a tame attack. Not sure it’s either. Have a look at Everton. 31 points, goals scored 28 (saints 25); goals against 40 (saints 36). Their GD therefore slightly worse -12 v -11. Apart from the top 6 and Burnley, who are miserly at both ends, we are on a par with most of the rest.

So why are we 8 points behind Everton. Because 4 of the games we’ve drawn, they’ve won. And that’s the basic problem, we concede the wrong goals and don’t score the right goals, and can’t WIN. And that problem is in the heads of the players and, yes, our somewhat cautious manager.