Saints At West Brom The Verdict

Another defeat on the road for Saints and to be blunt its hard to see a way forward from here.

Saints didnt play badly at West Brom, indeed they enjoyed more possesion than the hosts, but once again some poor defending and I dont just mean from the back four, resulted in yet another loss.

But perhaps the most worrying fact is that in this game there were no excuses, we had virtually a full squad to choose from, we played 4-4-2, if we couldnt get a point from this game its hard to see just where we will get one, for the previous nine league games we always had a reason why we were losing, be it playing the Premier champions on their own ground, injuries and a host of other reasons why we didnt get a point, but in this game none of those could be used.

Again the goals were soft, perhaps not in the manner of defending, but in the way that both started from what looked like safe positions for us and quickly esculated into goals, it was not just quickness of feet but quickness of brain that let us down.

In truth you couldnt have asked more in terms of spirit in the side, they battled hard, but the plain and simple truth is that too many of our players are not good enough at this level, in previous games it hasnt helped that we have played players out of position etc, but in this game everyone was in their right place, it was square pegs in square holes and the plain and painful to see truth is that we do not have enough Premier league quality players.

Its OK to glibly give players we dont like 3 or 4 out of 10 in the markings, but no one was really that bad, we were just playing to our level and sadly that level was one that West Brom could beat at a canter.

So where do Saints go from here, if Nigel Adkins is sacked the fact is that whoever takes over has 11 games before he can bring another player in, you cant suddenly turn this squad into World beaters, from that point of view there is no point in replacing Adkins at the moment, perhaps better to give him a free rein, let him build the squad spirit and hope that in a few games that will be enough to let us pick up a few points and keep us within touching distance of safety or at least within sight of it.

Monday night at the Hawthorns was a dose of reality, we can all argue about who should be in the best starting XI, but whoever it is, it isnt good enough to win games in this division.       

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