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The Players Need To Step Up To The Plate !

Mauricio Pellegrino's future as Southampton boss is very much on the line and deservedly so, however he is not out on the pitch and the players have to shoulder some of the blame.

Although it cannot be denied that a large amount of the blame for Saints current predicament lies with Mauricio Pellegrino, it also has to be pointed out that if some of his players had done their job, then we would be safe by a long chalk.

This season has been littered with individual errors that have cost us points, I am not going to name names here, I have done that enough times throughout the season, but we have gifted too many goals through poor marking far too often, and soft goals have been let in by the goalkeeper.

How many times have we seen someone left totaly unmarked in the box for an easy goal, Burnley at home, Arsenal at home, Huddersfield at home, Palace at home to name but four which have cost us dearly, those single goals cost us six points alone, if the players in question had done their job and marked up then we would now sit in 10th place and would only be 4points behind 7th.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, add some late goals conceded at the likes of Stoke and Manchester City and a couple of error at Bournemouth and Chelsea plus the 2 points we were cheated out of at Watford and this season should of looked a lot different, not particularly because of Pellegrino but in spite of him.

This is not to suggest that his management and tactics have worked, but merely to highlight that our players have to also shoulder a fair amount of the blame why we have one foot in the bottom three.

Therefore the players need to step up to the plate in the final games and show the passion that every week one of them makes a statement to the press about, we are fed up with reading that we are too good to be in this position etc etc.

On Saturday we played for 70 minutes without urgency, perhaps that is the instructions of the manager, certainly it seems to be the case of late, but we need to up the tempo for a lot longer than just the last 20 minutes when it is too little too late.

Yes the players have to play to instruction, but they can also up their own workrate and urgency.

In the main we have cut out some of the poor marking that blighted us earlier in the season, we have a base to build on, only one defeat in the last ten games, seven of them in the Premier League.

This is a solid foundation, now it is up to the player to play without fear, play with urgency, play with passion and do the jobs they are paid to do.

Mauricio Pellegrino has to bear his full brunt of the blame for our current predicament, but he does have the right to expect his players to perform to the standards they have previously done, whether that is marking their man in the box, saving soft shots or burying easy chances.

We do all of this in the final 9 games and we will finish safely above the bottom three, but the final run in will be defined not by what the manager does, he seems incapable of changing things, but by the players themselves, they have to step up to the plate and save this season.

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