Chelsea came out of the blocks like a runaway train and Saints capitulated like a team of 10 year olds, although to be blunt that is an insult to 10 year old football teams. So what went wrong ? Lets try and put perspective on this.

When the Saints team was announced an hour before kick off, there was not a Saints fan out there who disagreed too much with the line up. especially with the back four.

But from the very start of the game we were a shambles, how we held out for 8 minutes was a miracle, I asked what Chelsea team would turn up in the preview and I had my answer, a Chelsea team who were a wounded animal with a point to prove.

They tore us apart in the first 8 minutes and God knows how we weren't 3 down in that opening spell, that should have been the signal for Saints to regroup and get their composure back, but we didn't and there was the first problem of the season exposed.

I have been saying this for year, but we lack an experienced leader at the back and we didn't have one, no one held the back line, no one tried to slow the game down and take the sting out of it, we were all over the place and chasing shadows.

We soon paid for that and Chelsea were 4-0 up by the half hour mark, at this stage there cannot have been a Saints supporter in the stadium that didn't have 9-0 on their mind.

We got to half time on that score which was a relief, it could have been 6, but it got worse after the break when the visitors hit us again quickly and went 6-0 up with only 54 minutes gone.

I cannot give an answer why they stopped at 6, certainly we were there for the taking of a record premier league defeat.

So what went wrong ?

In my opinion it wasn't one thing, it was a combination of several things.

Firstly as I said we lack leadership on the pitch, Jan Bednarek is not a leader and if you consider that after him the next experienced player is Kyle Walker Peters with 68 starts in the Premier League, after that you have Salisu on 41 appearances and Livramento on 26.

There is not enough experience in the back line and no obvious leader, as i have said before whether we win a game or not often depends on if the opposition score or waste chances that we hand them on a plate due to a lack of organisation.

So we need to finally address this in the summer after four years.

Secondly the fact was that everyone of our outfield players has a stinker, there was not one man who can come off that pitch knowing they had earned their money on Saturday, perhaps Fraser Forster will disagree with me on this one and I would concede that he was constantly exposed by his back four.

Even those who are usually consistent were off form, you don't often see James Ward Prowse make a mistake, but his attempt to head the ball back that resulted in a goal was not great to watch.

Some might blame the manager for this and yes there has to be some blame attached, but when a side plays as collectively bad as Saints there has to be some individual pointing of fingers, JWP is the captain, but he leads by example and not by aura, we lack a respected leader on the pitch in all areas.

They say a good team has 11 Captains out on the pitch, we struggle to have even one in most games.

So to Ralph Hasenhuttl, of course the knives are out for him again and I am going to tackle this in a separate article, but firstly he was let down by his players who laid down and died.

As I said there wasn't one Saints fan who disagreed with the line up pre game, or at least most of the line up, he can't be blamed for his selections, but how that team played and how they lined up seemed strange.

Both at Leeds and on Saturday we played with four midfield players, but we didn't seem to play any of them on the right hand side of the pitch !

JWP & Romeu were in the centre, but on too many occasions Elyounoussi and Stuart Armstrong seemed to be on the left hand side.

This is very strange, so whose idea was this, Ralph Hasenhuttl's or the players, given that both stayed on the pitch for the full 90 minutes, you have to surmise they were playing to orders.

The substitutions were strange as well, yes we needed to change something when we went four down, but taking off Oriol Romeu did not make sense, at that point he had been just about the only player who had made a tackle, he is the nearest we have to a midfield enforcer, so with the side crying out for leaders, we take him off and bring on Yan Valery in a change in formation.

Valery is a player with potential, but so far in the Premier League as he trotted on he had made just two appearances totalling 135 minutes.

I don't disagree with the change in plan, but taking off Romeu was strange, Elyounoussi for instance was invisible in this game and not the type who rolls up his sleeves and grafts.

I still have faith in Ralph, but I would say in moments like this he lacks someone with experience to lean on, our coaching staff would not get a job at virtually any other Premier League club, in fact I would doubt that they would even be employed at Championship level.

So we have to take this one on the chin and lick our wounds, but more importantly look at what the solutions are, rather than whinge about a result that as terrible as it is, has gone now and can't be changed.

We need to look at what can be changed.

The big question I ask myself is whether anyone can do any better than Ralph ? and I mean someone realistic.

I find it hard to name someone who would have given the commitment to the club Ralph has, changing managers every 18 months or so is not a strategy that has served us well over the last 30 years, we are starting to get stability.

Given the constraints that we have had to work under in the transfer windows for the last three years, Ralph Hasenhuttl has done a superb job in keeping us in mid table whilst spending only around £20 million a year in transfer fees.

The issue for me is not the manager, but the tools that he has to hand, a lack of funds and a lack of experienced coaches to call upon.

In the summer hopefully some things will change, probably not the transfer budget to any great degree, but certainly we need to revamp the coaching set up.

Sadly the Premier League is becoming more polarised, the big clubs are getting bigger and the rest of us poorer in comparison, days like Saturday will become more frequent for a lot of clubs going forward.

So this game should not be brushed under the carpet, there are things that need to be changed, but we need to do this with clear heads and not with knee jerk reactions, we will find out how serious Sport Republic are in the next few months.

Photo: Action Images

TeamCortese added 08:20 - Apr 12 Right! It's clear to see that Ralph has done the best he can given the circumstances. However, now that we have new (hopefully decent) owners with a long-term vision and plan it's more than likely that Ralph will leave this summer or potentially stay on with different expectation levels moving forward. In my opinion, we can definitely attract better coaches/managers if we can sell the project properly. For crying out loud we're an EPL team. There's a lot more money in the EPL compared to other leagues and it's considered the most prestigious league in the world. Most managers would jump at the chance of managing us. It's like becoming a Formula 1 driver. We've been in it for nearly 10 years with a decent amount of success. The way people talk about us on this forum is as if we're still in the Championship! Out of all the clubs on the south coast (outside of London), we are the biggest! And that includes the club that shall not be named--FYI I'm not talking about Bournemouth. Realistically we should aim for the below profile of manager for our calibre of club: - Experienced manager with the long-term aim of managing an elite European club aiming for honors in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and to a lesser degree France. These clubs will also be playing in the UCL or Europa League. The win rate must be 50% and above. Minimum tenure should be 12-18-months. Effectively a Poch-type manager. - Ideally, the coach has already got some of this experience managing feeder clubs such as RP Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Leverkusen, Lyon, Lille, Feyenoord, Ajax, Valencia, Villarreal, Sevilla, etc. Based on the above criteria these are possible names we should aim for: Peter Bosz, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Marcelino García Toral and Lucien Favre. Lastly, we could look at assistant managers at the really elite clubs who have a lot of experience and connections i.e. Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus, Man City, Liverpool (Pepijn Linders), and Chelsea (Arno Michels).

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SaintPaulVW added 13:54 - Apr 12 Just a couple of thoughts. We need leadship in attack and midfield not just defence. Whilst I think JWP is a great player. I don't really see him as a leader. He's captain on his technical and athletic merit rather than his character. Romeu has looked slightly out of sorts recently to me. If he is thinking of making a last move, then an experienced DM might be a good move. While I don't have any desire to see Ralph go, one 'curse' that would be lifted is the growing psychological weight of the now 3 heavy losses. Our players appear to now fall to pieces if they go several goals down, I can only assume this is because they lose their motivation and become rabbits caught in headlights waiting for the extra goals. Even Bielsa's Leeds at his most gung ho moments didn't lose by these scores! I really don't like seeing all our players stood with their hands on their hips after half an hour not really knowing what to do after another goal has gone in. I'm really hoping to see a response against Arsenal. COYR

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