The phantom TUI Message Board Poster strikes again with his take on Southampton Football Club and its issues and comes to the conclusion we need to get on with it !
We all know what an Urban Myth is.
It’s a City girl with a lisp!
But what is reality?
If you have studied the 3 main Saint forums as much as I have,
reality comes in many forms if you’re a Saints fan.
It can be what you what you saw, what you thought you saw,
what you didn’t see but asked for a second opinion (fatal mistake).
What you would like to have seen, what you just didn’t want to see,
what you didn’t see but think you did. When you weren’t there,even, but you have got an agenda.
Reality can be perceived as, that player is crap ‘cos of that mistake that led to a goal, then wiping the memory banks with the 6 blocks that saved a further 6 possible goals. Agenda can bend Reality into all sorts of shapes.
I looked at the real stuff that was last season and came up with some mildly interesting bits.
Games. 1-10 Purple start. W 5 D4 L1 Only 11 goals scored
1st 5 Games 1-6. 5 goals. Last 4 games, 7-10 6 goals
JRod and T**tbeard didn’t score till game 7. Saints had trouble scoring right from the word go. Av poss % 56.6
ALL shots 169 - 11 Goals. Kick the effing thing at the goal.
9 Games 11-19 W2 D2 L5. Start of the big injury period
12 goals scored. Av poss % 53.3 All shots 154 Cow’s rear, Banjo.
Even losing over 50% games, still 53% possession. What’s the point?
7 Games 20-26, Back on track. W4 D2 L1 11 goals scored.
Av poss % 59.6 ALL shots 138. Bigger cow please!
8 Games 27-34 No big Vic from game 30. W3 D0 L5. 13 goals scored
Game 27 W ham 3-1 Saints We had 69% poss and 31 total shots
Game 34 We lost 1-0 to Cardiff with 68% poss and 26 total shots.
Can we sign someone who can kick the ball at the goal and NOT at the goalie? Games 27-34 av poss 60%
4 Games 35-38 No Jrod from early game 33 W2 D2 L0 4 goals scored. Av poss % 60%
SRL scored 2 and 2 Everton own goals. Jammy B’s
38 games. 54 goals, of which just 2 were from counter-attack.
Av passes per game 457 and av crosses 23.
The reality is, that games 11 to 19 and games 27 to 34, players were
not available through injury and whatever combination of players that were used instead, did not come up to the required standard.
If they are still here AND are even starting, let alone on the Bench,
they will still not be up to standard.
Also large poss % did not count for anything when Saints lost.
Large poss did not always create goals.
Game 33 ,Man C 4 Saints 1. We had 56% poss but 6 total shots!
Those games 11-19 and 27-33 showed the reality of Saints ability
to qualify for the Champion’s League. That squad plus a bit of a tweak? Thankfully most fans have now reality-checked themselves
and now realise just how much you have to spend, to just GET there.
I see Saints as building a house every Summer transfer window.
The house has to completed by Aug 31 and there are always a number of window frames that need windows. Also the roof can’t be finished till all the windows are in.
Towards the end of the completion time, Building Inspectors visit and can seriously undermine Saints getting the roof on. Inspectors= first games and
the roof on= a satisfactory squad with all the windows(players) in.
We currently have two windows completed with at least 8 frames waiting, in my reality. All past houses had the Don as the Architect and Les Reed as the Site
Manager. Just what did they get up to with all the previous houses?
Virtually all those houses ended up with see-through plastic on too many windows with the roof leaking. Did the Don want too few windows that were too expensive and the wrong size? Or did the Site Manager have the plans upside down and kept on dithering, leading to the window suppliers going elsewhere?
The house now has 2 windows in. As true Saints fans you will have your own Reality as to how many window frames need windows.
Les Reed is now possibly the Architect and Project Manager. So how many windows for him? He might see, say, 8 frames and be sorting out the suppliers, or he might be thinking that he could get the Apprentices to make some ( Academy). I am very worried that this window ( an unseen pun!) is turning out to just like all the other ones. All have had Les Reed involved, so is he up to it? Why the hell on earth does it take Saints 10 times longer than anyone else to get anyone in, in any window, past or present? Get on with it!
I hope Ronnie K can see loads of empty frames. I see loads of empty ones plus the roof not finished and when I look round I see heavy black storm-clouds on the horizon.