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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.
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Just want to make the point we have had a benign start to the season. Swansea, Wet Ham, Huddersfield and now Watford. Three of which were at home and we have 5 points. Sandwiched in between was a horror show against Wolves. Games are coming thick and fast and are going to be tougher. Pellegrino has little scope for any more displays like yesterday. Also...about tie a few players took a long hard look at themselves.
I can help feeling that this game showed that the blame that was pinned on yosh and stephens for our lack of scoring (hanging back to protect) was misplaced. The issue, was and still is that we dont have a focus in the attack that the others can play off.
This season Yoshi has often seemed the most likely to score!
That lack of commitment by those that don't really care or want to be here coupled with a disruptive presence in the changing rooms, spells disaster. I am not one to bed wet or jump on the first defeat of a season, but what I am seeing players attitudes and the VVD situation is a club with internal problems. This needs to be sorted fast, else we are end up in relegation battle, make no mistake about it.
It is frightening how quickly this season is slipping away from us, and it's only September. If we get knocked out of the FA Cup early we can start worrying about May. Out of the League Cup and 5 points from 12 against 3 teams at least you'd expect to be scrapping for survival at the end of the season. Make no mistake Puel wasn't 'found out' per se, he was just a scapegoat to appease a noisy proportion of the fan base because scoring no goals in open play for 5 games is fractinally worst than scoring 1 in 5. We haven't addressed the issue we really had last season. It's not defensive issues that are our primary concern. We don't possess a shred of attacking creativity or threat. I fear for us against the big teams. I admire your optimism Nick, but I can't see much to be getting excited about right now and nor do most of the Saints' fans I speak to from a cross section of work and home life.
The best team won today silva set his team up perfect and pressed and didn't allow us to play so you cannot take that away from them. Like most of us mentioned on here the end of last season to get silva. But hey what do we know. As for us we looked out of sorts a tired lamina would have played better we really look like we are struggling to put mp ideas in place on the pitch but we have to give him time. With who that we have played and only 5 points on board is not good and lose to palace and that will be worrying. On the plus side I really enjoyed my half time cheeseburger so saints are getting something right.
Having to give up a portion of your Sunday morning to write a review for yesterday's performance - kudos to you, that takes dedication!
Re: the game - I am a bit flummoxed as to why, after a few excellent seasons of high pressing, aggressive, attacking football we seem to be chasing a completely different style of play. I can only hope the coaching team are working on a return to the former!
If you really think that Watford were no better than us you are completely deluded. They were better in every department. This was a really alarming performance. We have failed to score in 9 of our last 12 PL matches.
There's no doubt this a poor start to the season bearing in mind our relatively easy start. Realistically though most would agree you can't really judge until roughly ten games, so no need for the puele out bandwagon to jump on to PelegrÃno. To put things in perspective look at Bournemouth, young manager doing great.Touted for saints job ,arsenal & even England. Has spent big money for a small club & yet sir pointless after 4â—ï¸ In both cases I feel now the manager earns his money, certainly not time to panic but time to react
I see no improvement from last year in attack - we cannot score. The midfield was overrun as well and failed to create. The defense is less of an issue. First shot on goal in 93rd minute from a defender! The fixture list has been kind to us but we must bank points or we will struggle. We were slow to the second ball; low energy, low on passion. All areas the manager needs to address plus teams fitness levels.
NIck has done a great job on this site on keeping a positive outlook. However there is something about this particular defeat which I think has caused many fans to realise that the Party is over.
4231 is not working but not being changed even when chasing games . Has MP been told he must stick with this as it is how our youth system and the club plays ?
There is something about the image of MP crouched down staring at the pitch yesterday and that post match interview that has set alarm bells ringing
Is MP is big enough character and experienced enough to sort out a team that has lost its way very badly ? I hope so
If not we need to be careful because a fair few teams around us have bought well and points this year are going to be much tougher to get I fear especially at home if St Mary's stays that poisonous.
I disagree Lemmsy. There is every reason to panic. In fact it's better to panic now than spring next year. We have some big problems and if that changing room doesn't get turned round with players literally just turning up for their payslip each week then we deserve to be in the top flight.
Watford deserved to win this game. Yes, there were some poor individual performances, Romeu had one of his worst games for the club, but I don't agree that this was down to a lack of commitment from the players. I think our tactics were completely wrong and Pellegrino didn't change them.
Watford packed the midfield which meant that our defensive players ended up playing too many hopeful long balls with nobody up front to receive them and hold them up. Part of our plan was to press and regain possession be forcing mistakes, but when we did regain possession we did not counter attack, instead giving Watford time to reorganise to a point that we couldn't break them down. I can't believe I spent nearly four hours travelling on delayed trains to get to and from this boring waste of time.
Team Cortese video gives a very excited but clear view of how dross this performance was, I urge you to watch it and compare it to Nicks view. I guess the anti-Puel crowd will never realise it wasn't his fault that we couldn't score. we can praise Puel that teams rarely scored against us. I only saw the highlights (sic) but our lightweight midfield was overrun and they provided nothing to our attack. Some things never change, this was the problem last season. Points against these 'other' teams are so important, it's going to get tougher very soon.
Was only able to watch the first hour but the gig was already up by then. They were SO much better than us. Everywhere. Men against boys. Couldn't take a single positive from what I saw. Was hoping we'd get Silva when Claude went. Still wish we had. Really, really bad performance. I don't see any way we can finish above Watford so I'm not really sure what our aspirations are. Survival ðŸ˜
Really poor performance by all player except boufal who seemed like the only guy making runs forward. Don't know why the team would stop as soon as they get the ball!? Stop look get mugged by watford players pretty much summed up the game.
Bstokesaint, Last season stmarys were on purples back from game one, when Joe man was in charge FANS were calling for his head after Everton beat us 1st game. I'm not saying there aren't problems but as I mentioned react rather than panic.im already hearing people calling for mps head , which imo is ridiculous. Personally I felt cp deserved/ earns a little more time to address the style we ended up playing.i don't think anyone can say we were boring in the efl final .
The malaise coursing through our team and supporters is not new, it's been apparent since the middle of last season. We have no target man to replace Pelle and no player with the speed and skill of Mane, although with a Pelle alongside him, Gabbiadini could be equally effective. If they were still with us we wouldn't be experiencing this goal drought. We would be attacking effectively more often and, in consequence, the opposition's opportunities would be limited. We never replaced Lallana but playmakers like him only come along every so often. Boufal is proving to be an expensive failure. The much-criticised JWP simply doesn't have the necessary pace - hence he's not been poached. There is no point in glossing over the fact that, currently, Saints look to be one of the weakest teams in the EPL. Why the Lemina-Romeu partnership wasn't continued yesterday is baffling to me. When you are trying out a new centre back and your main defensive midfielder is perceptively being asked to do too much (and Romeu is showing signs of losing his edge) why leave out Lemina who would have surely provided more resilience. I can't see why Redmond retains his place. Frankly, I've seen nothing from him that adds to our goal threat. It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that we won't get a result at Palace and then the ogre that is Jose Mourihno looms ahead. Although it pains me to write it, I think Saints need VVD more than he needs us because we have more chance of stopping other teams scoring than we do of scoring ourselves. This season (until things change) survival is the name of our game.
Aceofthebase has summed it up for me. As I suspected we're starting to see what a great job Puel did last season with the players at his disposal. Our midfield was lacking everything yesterday - creativity, tackling, energy, ability to head the ball were all missing. Somehow Puel managed to get Romeu to do the work of two players and that masked the midfield issues to an extent. But what has happened to Romeu this season? He's not the same player Is this down to Pellegrino and the job he's asking him to? Given our midfield woes I'd be tempted to play van Dijk in midfield when he returns!
Nick, you've accused people like myself, wrongly, of being a WUM just to keep one of your regular 'contributors' happy. With this article you have sugar-coated the fundamental flaws in the squad and management to the point where it seem like YOU are just winding everyone up. Complaints need to be said LOUDLY before it's all over this season. And, by the way, he's used his best selections and they haven't worked in either defence or attack.
Slow, devoid of ideas and no doubt confidence. No one has mentioned on here Forsters lack of abilty at getting down to shots. Add him to the list of average players we have and it doesnt feel like a progression upwards. European football? I don't think so.
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