Gutless, abysmal, dire, heartless performance.. I could go on but you get the idea. As a fan, you always want your side to win. If not, you at least want them to have tried and left everything out on the pitch. You certainly can't say that about last night. It reminded of the match against Sheffield Utd last year. So much at stake and yet we fall flat. Can we not handle the pressure??

I'm sure emotions are running high today amongst supporters, I know mine are but that was a pure disgrace last night. Only Pelle and Targett seemed to have tried.

I see today RK is in part blaming the referee. It shouldn't even have come to that and it's a poor excuse and doesn't hide the shocking performance of the team. We only have ourselves to blame ultimately.

You say Nick, that we tend to bounce back with a vengeance. I certainly hope so!

It was a miserable game. I think Koeman wanted to keep it tight knowing we could score and conceding would be a big blow. However...the attacking threat was minimal and we never looked like getting a goal. The journey has ended and we need to get back to basics. If we look at the team, we are missing Morgan, Clyne, Foster, Bertrand and Toby.....they are exceptional players to lose and its gonna take time to get back on track. Its not time to panic but time to stay together and support the team. The media will call it a criss but we have been here before. This is a bad run that could be the beginning of a good one. Keep the faith. Koeman is awesome, lets not forget that.

Massively disappointing.
I think Koeman got his tactics wrong last night. Shouldn't have played three centre backs in a game we needed to score. Going forward we had nothing. Really missed Mane as he seems to be our only player who can beat a man. JRod is massively off form, but we shouldn't be surprised about that. Juanmi hasn't had many minutes yet, is he actually any good? Could he be the answer to our lack of creativity?
As well as missing Schneiderlin, I think the absence of Clyne and Bertrand have been a massive blow so far. They were such a good out ball for the team last year, getting forward and getting quality crosses in from good positions. We've lacked that this season, and we are suffering from a lack of ideas going forward.
Koeman's got his work cut out to turn this around. Could there be some last minute panic buys coming in?

Our main tactic was to lump it up to Pelle who never won a header all game. When he got close he looked to play someone in. The whole team were poor no excuses we lost because we are not good enough. Not really looking forward to Sunday as I feel should we go a goal down we haven't the confidence or ability to turn it around. Even the Koemans looked fed up, felt sorry for the fans who made the trip. Gonna take a big effort to turn this around.

I'm not a fan of this competition, but needless to say, support the Saints in every game.

The troubling thing about this result is: Are we not as good as we think we are? If we can't score a goal against a team supposedly on our own level (not Champions League material, but better than most others), did we just finish in 7th place not because we were almost as good as the top six, but because the teams below were awful? Are we just the best of the 14 teams allowed in the Prem just to provide practice games (and players) for the top six?

You can talk about their tactics, but winning is winning and a good team would have found a way to score. Teams in the Prem will now use this as a blueprint when they play us.

Hopefully, we will improve: we were without our top threat, we lost two high quality players in the transfer window, and our new signings have only been playing together for a month or so. If not, it is going to be a long season.

this is the southampton way
tubby is now running the club like it was ten years ago
she hires a chairman who knows nothing about football
mr dof then thinks all the youth team should be in the 1st team & the playing system should be that of how england plays ,sideways, backwards & more important kick the ball upfield as soon as you are under pressure.
im the same age as mr dof i cant remember any team he has manage & all the cups he has won . but here in southampton there is a man sitting around not being used who i would trust completely to be saints dof he would sign proper players & make the great manager we have easy peasy . but it takes big money to acheive this if tubby has no money please sell the club & move on .

Firstly, I am pleased to see the review on here wasn't again a Saints PR version of the game, which it has been of late. I like this site a lot, so good to see a true account of the game.

Secondly, the match itself was devoid of any passion from us. We seemed happy to lump it up to Pelle, and completly forgot how to pass a ball on the ground. Our new signings dont look great to be honest, very average (which has nothing to do with time gelling together). We are a very different team to last season now and I am concerned to be honest, for the rest of the season. Yes, some of you will say I am now giving up on the team, but I am not. I am saying how I see it. We look unstuck big time, and even Koeman seems unsure how to play this one out...

This is not the fast passing attractive free flowing team of a few years ago. Our game has deterorated to a boot it up the middle approach and fans can see this.
Pelle is trying hard to be thetarget but I think we should play without him. Then we might keep the ball on the ground and start to be creative again.

Why are we playing wing-backs, we certainly don't have the players to pull that off anymore? I think the board need to realise you can't keep selling quality players and expect to find replacements of equal or better quality at drop-down prices.

Ultimately, if you sell a world-class player and buy two or three squad players in his place, your best 11 has diminished and results will inevitably suffer. We are now seeing that clear as day. We may have a better squad than last year but our first 11 has taken a huge step backwards.

If Vic and Mane leave I fear we will struggle to finish in the top half of the season this year, with or without Van Dijk.

oh, and depressingly we miss out on a nice trip to Italy now - i see we would have drawn Napoli!

This was a crushing defeat for all of us, and seeing the group Mitjylland got, even more so. We are just not as good as we were last year. The pressing has gone, the creativity is gone and we can't score goals. That was fine when we had the best defence in the league but not now. Scoring goals was a problem last year against more respectful opponents but at least we were in little danger of losing.
Mitjylland scored 2 from 4 shots on target in the two games. There is the difference.

Positives: from my view in stand Pelle won everything, but it was laid off to no one. Jay-Rod is getting better, and he and Pelle are starting to work it out. Target was better and showed more attacking threat. He was miles away from us in the second half, but Tadic looked fresh and beat his man. Finally Caulker looks decent and should start ahead of Yoshi.

It'll be a long season.

In his post-match interview on BT Sport last night RK never once looked into the camera. For him to say defeat was the fault of the officials was nothing short of ludicrous. Apart from one surprisingly on-target shot from Davis I do not remember another goal threat from us but it would not have been unreasonable for Saints to have finished the game 3-0 down. I, too, agree that the team was set up incorrectly for this match - and not for the first time this season. Until Tadic came on there wasn't a whiff of midfield creativity but he soon petered out as he invariably does these days. Fonte is seemingly in decline and perhaps this is one season too many in the top division for him, particularly with the burden of captaincy. Whilst I remain optimistic that we will turn things round I don't think it will be any time soon unless some real class is bought in. I went to bed with the lyrics of the old Department S hit "Is Vic There"? ringing in my ears. Answer - no, I don't think he is.

Nick. Fair play to you, you have got it spot on.

Nick - this may seem a stupid question and it is not intended to be - but do you think we are serious about competing in cup competitions? it is just that it so feels like Sheff Utd last year and Sunderland the year before? Are we fans being mislead? It would not surprise me, if we hit back against Norwich, and obviously I hope we do, but this will end up glossing over our cup competition failings. Other contributors on here have made some very valid points and observations.

None of this is bedwetting or trying to find an excuse to have a go, I honestly believe there is heartfelt disappointment and a sense of being let down. None of us want to see this sort of abject approach to a game again. We accept we may lose, but lose with dignity.

My mattress is dry but I am worried about the way things are going. There are certainly quality issues - what we have bought is not as good as what we have sold, there are issues about the way we are playing tactically (Koeman obviously thinks we dont have the skill for a passing game) but there also seem to be morale/motivation issues. Is what Hargreaves said on the tv last night true - are our (remaining) players realising that it is time to 'jump ship'?

PS no 'something rotten in the state of Denmark' quotes yet!

As before: a lot of the reaction is a tad over-reactive, but entirely understandable in the current position. Personally, I disagreed with Les Reed that we had enough in the squad to compete on all fronts: particularly once MS left and TA didn't join permanently. It meant we simply were not ready for EL and all other fronts. End of.

That left one of two options: Attack the Europa League and then do not concentrate on the cups (and maybe aim for top half finish) or Go out of EL, concentrate on the Capital One Cup and aim for top half finish.

I reckon option two has just kicked in!

Performance yesterday was woeful - but I don't think its a permanent situation. Bertrand and Clasie are out, but when back will do a job in defence and midfield. I genuinely believe Cedric is a good replacement for Clyne (and perhaps even better attacking option), but he will need a bit of time and fitness work to get up to the levels needed for EPL.

With key players back I suspect we will go back to attacking, possession football.

We will get a CB replacement for Toby - and hopefully it is our no 1 target. But he was playing for Celtic and that meant we couldn't get him ASAP. But all these bits of the jigsaw are not in place (compounded by a team lacking in a lot of confidence and the rubbish stirring that has unsettled Mane and Wanyama) so it's just feeling particularly crap right now.

But what it has shown is that the strategy of letting players go for big bucks and replacing with unproven, but high potential, signings is not a feasible long term strategy. You can do it one season, but two in a row (coupled with some bad luck and poor form) and you start to wobble. Hopefully it is a lesson learnt for SFC.

I think it is a wobble, rather than a derailing. I hope I'm right! I just want the transfer window to end and we have a CB (and possibly a positively surprising extra signing?) and we can let the dust settle and enjoy football again.

Ralph prides himself on creating an atmosphere of togetherness at the Club with lots of jazzy slogans like "Together as One" and all that baloney. Now time to demonstrate it in action Ralph, you can see for yourself how inept our team has become and the growing restlessness amongst fans. When better to say something that will help explain why we are in this mess and what you and the board aim to do about it. We are as One after all.

If ever the PR machine was needed it is needed now before it all becomes personal. Can you hear the Sound of Silence?

I have never been so disappointed or disillusioned after a result, or & an event, in 26 years of following Saints, and that includes 2 relegations.

The current, and ongoing, and past, events and lies / untruths and approach of the administration of our club surely came to a nadir last night and we need to be told the truth going forward of how my / our club is truly being run then maybe us supporters can come to the reality of how we really operate. And I am a realist (bed wetter I believe some people call us realists!) so I hate to think what the super optimists amongst our supporter and fan base are feeling at the moment.

Just to quantify my disillusionment, I so wanted to, have wanted to, watch Saints in a competitive European away game since I became a season ticket holder in 1990-i couldn't make Bucharest because I was recovering from an op, I couldn't make Arnhem because I was on a family holiday, but I probably could have made Denmark but I thought we would despatch a team no better than an average Championship side, how wrong I was.......!!

Get used to this guys because last night's performance reflects our season gone so far and it ain't going to get much better, if at all, with the current squad we have.

We've lost the guts of the team Haven't replaced with quality, compounded by injuries... Nuff said except;

Ralph.....WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ALL THAT MONEY !!!

Koeman has to shoulder a lot of the blame for our start to the season as tactics have been desperately poor from the first match and bottomed out last night.

We start the season with a bizarrely attacking 4-2-4 and unsurprisingly got nailed on the counter attack. We've now switched to what seems to be an 8-0-2 but i guess is really 5-3-2 (with no creative players) and unsurprisingly we can't score.

Anyone with any understanding of our players could see that starting line up would not score last night aside from a bit of luck on a set piece. This is the way non-league sides approach cup ties with a top club. We should have taken the game to them but, frankly, we totally and utterly bottled it.

Long ball neanderthal tactics are an embarrassment to this club. Sort it out Koeman. and stop that all 11 players in our own box defending set pieces too. It invites pressure..

and yes, my sheets are still dry!

So, in esssence, Wah Wah Wah my football team lost and its not fair.
We are the mighty brits and shouldn't lose to some tin pot team from a nothing league.

I salute the few people on this forum who tried to offer something positive to the discussions. e.g. Consigliere.

Goodbye and good luck, I'm outa here

Hmmm, not good. Think the referee did miss a penalty but we shouldn't have needed to rely on one again against them. In fairness the game appeared to be played in a monsoon which to some extent limited the prospects of a passing game but if you are going to lump it up field and wait for Pelle knock downs it would have been sensible to have started Mane or Long along with Rodriguez. Bitterly disappointing that there was so little cutting edge and creativity. Don't think Vic would have made any difference based on his recent performances.

RK really needs to get his tactics right for the Sunday game given our opposition already think we are in disarray.

Sad, negative and predictable was my feelings after this latest set back, yes of course I will still support the saints forever but I am very worried now, you can say it's only early and there are lots of games to go and you are right but playing S.Davis and Yoshida reminds me of our league 1 days when Guly and Harding were are heroes but when we were promoted we all knew these players were not good enough for the prem and these two are definitely not, and my concern is they are the first names on the team sheet, we will struggle in this league with these players, and our squad is very thin and wait till the top prem sides get hold of us, steklenberg is a very small goal keeper and players know it, I know it, so watch the ball fly past him every week, try and name are best possible eleven? and you'll see it's not the greatest even without the Europa we are a very fragile team : Steklenberg soares fonte caulker Bertrand wanyama romeu classie jrod pelle mane and the subs: long tadic davis davis reed martina yoshida wow that team looks very ordinary but they may have some really good games, but not at the slow pace we are at the moment, so we are due a new defender then great and with forster back could make all the difference at the back, our defensive line is deep in our final third and that's not how to win games, I'm dreading citeh and Arse coming to st Mary's but classie could be the key here if he can turn and face goal we have a chance to surprise people again lol coyr beat Norwich ffs

I think the most worrying thing about last night is that Koeman looked totally fed up, before during and after the game.

Yes !

Hopefully I'll feel better by writing this down...like many other posters on here I didn't recognise Southampton last night. In my opinion we played with no confidence, limited movement off the ball, and as a result defaulted to floating the ball 60 yards towards Pelle. The main culprit being Caulker, who can't seem to pass the ball 10 yards. Targett was a player who offered so much promise, but he has been found wanting in pace and first touch. He cannot seem to beat anyone for pace and either immediatly passes it backwards or floats a ball down the touchline which is cutout. A couple of things haven't helped. Playing a 4-2-4 system from the start of the season was a gamble that hasn't payed off, and the 5-3-2 system doesn't work with the fullbacks we have as there is no pace on the flanks. Another reason is the media unsettling the squad with rumours of players demanding to leave (wanyama), I wonder what Wanyama says to his teammates about it. Our strength in the last two seasons has been a short passing pressing system with 2 holding midfielders, a midfielder to support in front and three attackers. (two wide behing a front man). It looked good, players had the confidence and we won games. What has changed? Schneiderlin left (we coped alright without him at times last season), and so has Clyne (Cedric was on Barcelona's wishlist apparantly). Only two players.
Saints need to revert to 4-3-3, move for each other, demand the ball and play one touch passes to reclaim the confidence of last season and start to win again.
Signing Van Dijk and another expensive signing will get the confidence back of the supporters and fans alike.
Rant over