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Saints V Arsenal The Verdict

Claude Puel had to rotate for this game, no one argued with that, but why did he get his line up so badly wrong ?

With 3 games in 7 days there was never any argument that Claude Puel had to make changes for this game, indeed injury was forcing his hand in many respects, but if you are going to make changes then you have to keep a strong core of the team.

I said in the preview just that, but it is a view that Puel does not seem to subscribe to.

The problem was in the defence, if you are going to put out a changed back four with a 19 year old keeper with only two games against Championship opposition under his belt then at last leave a little bit of experience in it.

It was a recipe for disaster from the very start a right back who although has a bit of experience has no positional nous, a 23 year old centre back who a month ago had not looked like making a first team breakthrough and only has 2 Premier League appearances as sub to his name alongside a player who has not played a competitive game for two years and throw in a left back who had never played there till the start of this season and it was obvious what was going to happen what was Puel thinking of !

Two of those five players had never started a Premier League game, McQueen has only started 4 and Gardos 5 the last two years ago, did Puel not think that he needed a little bit of leadership and experience there to steady the ship.

In defence of Puel he was caught between a rock and a hard place as they say, injuries and the departure of Fonte have left us very exposed in key positions, we have no real cover for Fraser Forster and with the fact that we are down what are essentially our 3rd and 4th choice central defenders we have little cover if one of those should get injured.

What does Puel do, he has to try and make sure the injury crisis does not get worse, if he had played Forster and the keeper got injured then he would have been ripped to shreds.

But that does not excuse the defensive line up he put out, it served no purpose and it was counter productive, all it did was destroy the confidence of those youngsters, Stephens will go into Tuesday's game with Swansea mentally scarred by this game as will Harry Lewis.

If the manager wanted to find out for sure that several of our youngsters are not good enough for the level we need them to be, then this was a successful day for him.

It was men against boys although our so called boys are not that young, Stephens is 23, McQueen will be 22 next week, Harrison Reed is 22 and Lloyd Isgrove 24, all of them contemporaries of Alex Oxlade Chamberlain at St Mary's.

To be blunt if they haven't forced their way into a regular first team place by this sort of age, then the chances are they are never going to do so, Oxlade Chamberlain has played 118 Premier League games whereas our 4 have started 10 between them.

As I say there are excuses for Puel on this one with things so stretched and the transfer window about to shut, but he got it wrong.

Ironically we probably played worse at Liverpool, the euphoria of that game glossed over the fact that defensively we had too many lapses in concentration at the back which luckily enough weren't punished, but Arsenal were a lot more clinical and we paid the price.

Claude Puel should be taking notice of this and the club should be looking to make one preferably two central defensive signings before the window shuts.

So I think we just have to write this game off, yes Puel blundered and got the selection wrong, but I think a lot of this was forced on him by circumstance and the need to ensure that the injury crisis does not get worse especially in those areas we have no more cover for.

I can understand the fans frustrations, although to be fair with the cheap prices and the fact that it was an open secret that we would be playing a changed side, no one can really complain that they went on false pretences.

This was a sorry end to a great week, but ultimately we have to judge the manager and the season on where we are at the end of it, not on one off disasters.

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