Saints V Watford The Verdict Sunday, 10th Sep 2017 09:20 It is hard to dress up this awful performance, but it is early days yet and hopefully we wil put this right in the coming weeks. About the only good thing that you can say about this game is that Watfod were not much better and won it with two strikes from distance that could have gone anywhere, but that is no excuse. The fact is that although Saints looked better defensively and didn't give Watford the chances that they had done in previous games, going forward we looked disjointed and stuggled to find any pattern to our play. Indeed we looked comfortable before Watford scored out of nowhere just before the break, up till then Saints didn't look like conceding although they did not look like scoring either. That being the case when Watford added a second just after the hour most in the ground thought that was that. Mauricio Pellegrino could not be accused of not being creative with his team selection, he put out a team to attack, leaving Lemina on the bench and putting in Boufal, he clearly wanted to take the game to Watford rather than let them come on to us and in some respects it worked in that Oriol Romeu could control the midfield and the back four looked solid with Wesley Hoedt making his debut,but going forward we were woeful. No one seemed able to create chances, we were too lightweight and could not get the ball to Gabbiadini to even give him a chance of scoring and it was to be the last minute of the game before we got a shot on target. Shane Long livened things up when he came on with 20 minutes to go, as did Charlie Austin, but it was a case of too little too late and by then the game was lost and the pattern set, a goal then might have set up a grandstand finish, but we never looked like getting it. Some of the crowd are mumbling about Pellegrino being no better than Puel, that is unfair, it is still early days yet, perhaps just the mention of Puel should warn us to be patient and give the manager a chance, last season the die was cast for far too many fans too early and this lead to unrest. The reality is that perhaps Saints are better set up to win games in which they can sit back and go on the break, indeed this has been the situation for the past few years, we would sit back and catch teams on the back foot after winning the ball and getting it forward quickly, sides like Watford dont get caught like that, they sit back and look to catch you out. So from this viewpoint I think as the season progresses we will win games against team in this fashion, esecially as the manager finds his feet and what is his best formation and selections etc. But one lesson I think he needs to learn is the one that Puel did not, that is to find the best team and use the bulk of it as your foundations rather than chop and change it, although Pellegrino was brave to try the likes of Boufal, he would have been better to have stuck with the tried and trusted, Boufal showed nothing n his last game in the cup against Wolves to suggest he deserved a Premier League start. We have to put this one behind us dust ourselves down and look to get three points at Palace, some will say im glossing over the cracks and I should be ranting about what is going wrong, there is plenty of that going on elsewhere and if 45 years of watching Saints has taught be anything it is to be patient and don't panic everytime we suffer a setback, history shows us that if we do that then everything usually comes right. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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