Claude Puel made tactical errors against Bournemouth that need to be rectified if we are to beat the Eagles on Wednesday evening.
Claude Puel has asked his players to step up to the plate against Crystal Palace, but I would also say that the manager himself needs to be looking at his own performance on Saturday where he not only picked the wrong team but made the wrong substitutions.
I have staunchly defended Claude Puel for most of this season, where some have cut him little slack, I have always said that he should be judged at the end of the season and not half way through it, especially given the issues we have had to contend with including the loss of three key players through injury, fixture pile ups and just plain bad luck.
However I have never shied away from criticising the manager when he has got it wrong and i think on Saturday he did, both in his selection of the starting line up and the substitutions he made.
His first mistake was not to start Martin Caceres, the defender has been at St Mary's for two months now and has not kicked a ball for the first team yet, it s not as if either Yoshida or Jack Stephens have been convincing and Saturday's clean sheet papered over the fact that Bournemouth only failed to score because they could not finish after capitalising on several errors in the centre of defence, at times we were a shambles.
If Caceres an't get a game now, what was the point of signing him !
Also Shane Long should have started ahead of Jay Rodriguez, the irishman is ahead in the pecking order of Rodriguez, Puel should have recognised that fact in his team selection, I like J Rod, he didn't have a bad first half, but the fact still remains that he should not have started the game.
But I have always said that it is not about what you have just done that matters, it is about what you do next and Puel failed to see what was going wrong and rectify it by good substitutions.
Whilst his double substitution just after the hour was an attacking one, the reality is that it completely upset our formation and left us exposed in the centre of the midfield, Eddie Howe soon recognised this and brought off an attacker and replaced him with a midfielder in Jack Wilshere.
This changed the game and from then on Bournemouth were pouring through from the midfield on the break almost at will, it was only their own poor finishing that kept them from scoring with our central midfield overrun and our central defenders panicking.
At this stage Puel still had options to try and rectify this, but bringing on Sam McQueen was not the answer, we needed to bring in either Hojbjerg or Clasie in the centre of the park to negate Bournemouth's domination in this area, but we didn't, the last change did nothing tactically it was a like for like and we were gambling that we could pour forward and score and that the Cherries would continue to be wasteful.
So for me on Saturday Claude Puel failed to lead his team from the front, so if he is asking his players to step up to the plate, then he has to ask the same question of himself, he has to look at where he went wrong on Saturday and not make the same mistakes again.
As I said at the start, Puel needs to be judged at the end of the season, in general we have come through a difficult season and are still holding our own, teams like Watford and indeed Bournemouth are punching above their weight but are still below us, that tells us that we have a good squad, but it is under performing.
There are 10 games left for Saints, Claude Puel has to show he is the man for the job by winning a few matches and making sure that we finish in the top 10, he has to show that he has learn't from his own mistakes, if he does that then he could go on to be a good manager for this club.
But on Saturday he took a step backwards himself, now against Crystal Palace he needs to take to forward by putting out the right team and making sure he gets it right tactically, if he does so and Saints win then he will throw off any lingering doubts of relegation and can look upwards, if we lose then he will get the moaners on his back again and that will not help us in the final third of the season.