Back to the Puelesque displays again. Pedestrian, no urgency, no real threat up top.

Spent virtually the whole game trying to break a team down, but still have far too many defensively minded players on the pitch. Cardiff were obviously going to defend deeply, so why not play 442, or have more creative forward players ?

Cardiff frustrated and time wasted for 70 mins and then decided to venture into out box. A stupidly conceded corner and Vest gifted Cardiff another goal allowing them to take the lead. Still no urgency, yet when we drove in their box we looked like scoring. (Red / Valery etc) Most players still either want to walk it in, or pass when it is better to shoot or vice versa, or don't want the responsibility of shooting.

After equalising at the start of injury time, I actually thought we may go on to win it, but for the 2nd week running in injury time, a Stephens error has cost us valuable points.

I could go on about other individuals, but what is the point. Complacency, team selection, poor tactics, individual errors and poor finishing has cost us again.

Enjoy Tenerife and make sure you get us a surprise result at Arsenal.

.....we need it as Burnley are currently 3-1 up at Brighton and we are 3rd bottom !!

6

Yes we are in the relegation zone and we deserve to be. So many poor performances. It is worthwhile reading the press and listening to the pundits sometimes. The bottom line is that If you play a striker of very limited ability who never scores why would you expect him to score. The honeymoon is over Ralph. You have your work cut out keeping the team we saw today up. Anyone really surprised?

8

I don't remember feeling worse after a game than today. Palace last year perhaps but at least in that game, we knew for the whole of the second half that it was coming. We totally outplayed an awful Cardiff team for the first half but barely had a sniff in front of goal. Second half was more of the same for the first half hour and then as soon as Cardiff came out to play, we struggled. Yes we're short of a striker but there were chances in the second half but no one was prepared to have a real dig until Valery's run. Hojbjerg was all over the place today. Yes he won the ball several times and put himself about but on at least 5 occasions just passed the ball to open space, twice of those could have led to decent chances if he'd checked to see someone was there! Long did some good work but lost the ball too easily on occasion, Bertrand the same. Valery had his best game for us and seemed to have the confidence to take people on but his crossing is still an issue. It was good to see Stephens and Vestergaard marauding forward in the first half and they created danger but didn't do it second half. Good to see Bertrand back and he had a decent game - didn't pull up trees but he is still a classy player. Substitutions were a bit odd - Austin is a total waste of space and did nothing, Elyounoussi has proved to be a waste of money - he has done nothing this season. Gallagher didn't have a chance to do anything. For me he should have been on before Austin. He'll never establish himself on 10 minutes every now and then. Cardiff were wasting time and diving around from the start and Atkinson fell for it most times. He was awful. He's always awful but today he outshone himself and gave the worst refereeing display I've seen this season. Utterly gutted but somehow I still think we'll stay up. Huddersfield have gone, Cardiff will not sustain their current run, God knows what Newcastle will do, Brighton are being dragged in and Fulham will continue to leak goals for fun.

7

Voting on two different halves of football, interesting.

0

Yes we are in the relegation zone and we deserve to be. So many poor performances. It is worthwhile reading the press and listening to the pundits sometimes. The bottom line is that If you play a striker of very limited ability who never scores why would you expect him to score. The honeymoon is over Ralph. You have your work cut out keeping the team we saw today up. Anyone really surprised?

1

This mentality has been with Southampton FC going back to 2005. When Redknapp was in charge we bought Ricardo Fuller for £95000 to ‘save’ our Premier status.
Fast forward 13 years
We are in trouble at the foot of the table
A transfer window opens allowing us to shore up the Squad
This time ..... we did NOTHING
This club cannot break out of its own pre-conceived image of itself.
We ARE a small club as far as the Chairmen are concerned (Lowe/Krueger) but we still are the 29th ‘richest’ club in Europe!
If we had bought (or had funds available to buy) a decent striker and a decent Centre back in the Tansfer window it would have given us more of a chance. It’s just totally unacceptable.

10

Well what can I say goals win games. Che Adams scored a first half hat-trick today to move onto 19 league goals this season. Big mistake not to buy him for what ever price Birmingham wanted for him!!

7

After having screamed into a pillow most of the evening, I am now able to relax a little. Let´s be honest: Cardiff were very lucky with this win. We had NO luck. How Valery´s run didn´t end with us scoring, I simply don´t understand.
How Stephens can be so unlucky in injury time 2 weeks in a row, beats me.
It wasn´t Vestergaard who lost the airial duel leading to Cardiff´s first goal, but Hojbjerg.
Austin was not useless. He got an assist.
Where was Armstrong and Simms today???
I am not sure McCarthy can be blamed for anything. Why all the bad ratings for him?

0

I wish Nick luck in finding a positive in that catastrophe. Of course a dreadful performance and a disastrous result have got us all down and depressed but what worries me is that Ralph in his after match rant seemed genuinely surprised that our defence is useless. Ten days ago he was happily telling us we hadn't needed to strengthen during the window.

The wisdom of the January inactivity will be the issue for the rest of the season - it is all on a bit of a knife-edge now. Those centre-backs are not going to get any better and our attacking options are very limited. I would take 17th on goal difference after 38 games.

6

In spite of being 4 down just before half time this is a game Rs should have won! They must have had 7 or 8 decent chances or made Lee Camp work v hard in the second half. And of course the penalty.
What we learnt:
*BOS didn't take his chance and his poor defensive work was a major liability.
*Smith did ok - we've always known that with decent delivery he'll score goals. He should have had more or at least a couple of assists. But he is largely a one-trick pony.
*Scowen has been exposed and his future at the club must be in doubt. Although he put in some good performances last season I was never really convinced. Seeing Cameron in that role has made Scowen's deficiencies all too obvious. We need more muscle there + Scowen compensates by giving away too many fouls/cards.
*Lynch + Hall together weren't robust enough. In the first half we were crying out for a Big 'Friendly' German to stand up to Adams, etc. This is v significant for the future if we can't rely on them.
*Cousins had a positive second half - probably his best for us and a cracking goal.
*With Hall fit is 3 at the back the way forward... Maybe?
*Terrific spirit at the club
*Plaudit to the gaffer for making dramatic half time changes - arguably could have done so even earlier.

1