x

Southampton At Leicester City The Verdict

Saints went into a game that meant nothing and got out of it exactly that, but this game ended an era at the final whistle and anew one is now taking shape, to quote Joe Strummer "The Future Is Unwritten"

Come the end of the game, the result changed nothing for Saints, a look at the final League table showed that even if we had won we would have finished in the same position than we did from what was a defeat.

This being the case whilst I am not going to condone the performance given by the team, I am not going to dwell too much on it going forward, changes are now surely on the way both on the field and in the coaching staff, it is time to focus on what happens going forward and not what happened at Leicester or indeed in the games previously.

Ralph Hasenhuttl has to shoulder some of the blame, of course he does and he has made mistakes, but it runs far deeper than that, 12 games ago we were in the top 10 and on 35 points, ironically the exact amount Burnley went down with, we were effectively safe at the start of March.

So why did a team that looked so good back then and looked set to give us a top 10 finish, lose 9 out of the next 12 games.

The answer is that players themselves have to shoulder the biggest part of that, literally every game we have played has seen not one player having an off day, but several and that is just unacceptable, I stop short in accusing individuals of not trying, but certainly too many seemed to play for themselves and not for the team and kept making the same old mistakes week in week out.

Ralph Hasenhuttl can't be accused of not trying to change things, we say team changes each week, perhaps that was not good for continuity, but he must have been frustrated, by certain players playing well below their capabilities.

Perhaps the line up at Leicester reflected this, Perraud & Broja did not even make the bench for whatever reasons, Jan Bednarek was an unused sub and the bench had several players who may not be here next season.

But the result remained the same, however it should be noted that Saints had matched Leicester in the first half and given as good as they got, but we still failed to do the basics at key times, within minutes of the restart that proved to be the case, yes Leicester should have given us the ball back after the game was stopped, but this is Leicester a nasty team managed by a nasty manager, in a similar position they would have expected to have seen us give them the ball, but they don't do that themselves.

But we should have been professional, again it was an individual error that gave them the lead, Lyanco didn't head the ball cleanly and with his second effort to head it back to McCarthy he left the keeper short and Leicester had a lead that they didn't deserve.

When they doubled it on 74 minutes it was again poor defending and we got caught on the break, but when we got a lifeline 5 minutes later, we again paid for a lack of organisation, allowing the home side to score again within a minute leaving Perez completely unmarked.

That put the lid on it and it only needed another piece of poor marking to give Leicester a fourth in the 6th minute of injury time.

In truth Saints did not deserve a 4-1 defeat here based on the majority of the game, but this was the story of the season condensed into the final game, good work completely undone time and time again by a lack of organisation, a lack of marking at key times and poor individual decisions at key times.

But that was this season and now that has ended we now look to the next, we need to keep those who are part of the future and get rid of those who are part of the problem, we need to get a leader in in the centre of the defence and we need to get coaching staff to back up Ralph Hasenhuttl who have the knowledge and the experience to help him both on the training ground but during matches.

The past is the past, going forward the only statistic that matters now is the league table and that will show we stayed up comfortably.

The Saints fans were loud if not proud of their team on Sunday, yes they deserved a better performance, but most who go away don't go because they feel they are entitled to a good display, they go because they support their team though good and bad times, when the good times arrive they feel better when you have experienced the rough times.

Now is the time to look to the future not the past, as I said at the start we cannot change the past, but we can change the future, The Future Is Unwritten.

What to read next:

Derby County 2 - 0 Queens Park Rangers - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Derby County 1 - 1 Portsmouth - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Blackpool 0 - 2 Derby County - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Queens Park Rangers 1 - 0 Derby County - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Swansea City 2 - 1 Derby County - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Derby County 1 - 0 Blackpool - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Derby County 1 - 2 Queens Park Rangers - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Derby County 0 - 0 Swansea City - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Swansea City 2 - 1 Derby County - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.
Derby County 2 - 1 Middlesbrough - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.