Saints Need To Deliver Home Win Friday, 4th Oct 2019 09:16 Saints have won 4 of the 9 games played so far this season, the problem is though all of them have been away from home so most Saints fans have yet to taste victory. Recent posts on social media have reminisced about Graziano Pelle's goal and performance against Chelsea four years ago to this week when we won 3-1 at Stamford Bridge and talked of the good old days under Ronald Koeman. There is no problem about looking back fondly sometimes about past exploits, but the fact is at the time there were many who did not consider them good times and probably a fair amount of those who are talking about Pelle as a club legend were giving him stick in his two seasons at the club. Whilst it cannot be denied that most of our support were enjoying the good times and what would become our best League finish in three decades, it is looking at it with rose tinted spectacles to say that things were all great and rosy back then. In fact things were very similar at that stage of the season back then as they are today, as well as those who were still giving Pelle stick, Sadio Mane was not exactly flavour of the month either having scored only once in 7 League outings that being the previous game against Swansea . Even Ronald Koeman was getting stick with some saying that he had lost the plot a little and that the previous season had been a one off, after 7 games we only had 9 points on the board, not much better than we have now and indeed worse before we beat Swansea in that 7th game. Koeman was under fire for not only a slow League start but his team selections mainly for a weakened side at Midtylland that saw us exit the Europa League before the group stages. But all that is forgotten now and all that is remembered is the storming League finish that saw us end up 6th and within a whisker of a Champions League place. Some will reply that today's team is not a patch on the team of 15/16 season, perhaps they have a point, but back then that team was much maligned as not being a patch on Pochettino's team of 2013/14, Pelle & Mane were only truly appreciated after they were gone. So the moral of the story is that going into meltdown helps nothing, the key is to trust the manager to get it right and help the team come through a bad patch not drag it down with abuse. In many respects Ralph Hasenhuttl is having the same problems that Koeman had back then, players out of form and struggling to find any sort of consistency , injury issues as well as the likes of Victor Wanyama refusing to play for the club as he wanted to move to Spurs. It all sounds a bit familiar doesn't it ! The victory at Chelsea almost exactly four years to the day they arrive at St Mary's helped get the doubters off of Ronald Koeman's back, although it should be noted that this game and the burst of wins around it were just a temporary reprieve and we then went on a run that saw us lose 8 out of 10 matches, including a 6-1 home drubbing in the cup against Liverpool and an FA Cup defeat to Palace, at the half way point of the season we were looking over our shoulders and the knives were out again. The real worry though was in those opening 7 games we had played only one Big Six club, most of the other games had been against clubs who would finish n the bottom half. So here we are 4 years later in a similar position playing Chelsea and again we need a win to get our season back into gear, back then this was our first away win now we seek our first home win and it is home win's that most fans see and judge by. We need to not only deliver a good performance but land all three points to bring back a bit of the feel good factor, yes we know we have issues, we all know the one position that we need to fill, but we can do nothing about it till January at least. So we need to look at 2015/16 and seek to replicate that season, get to the halfway point in a reasonable position and then bring n a central defender to plug the gaps, if we do that then like four years ago we can have a good second half of the season and make it one to remember. Remember that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, changing managers is not the key to a stable club and not the key to success, there is a lot of hard work to do to bring the club up to the level it was four years ago, but let's be blunt, even back then wasn't all sweetness and light, it was about a long term goal not a few blips in the short term, Ronald Koeman was building from a stronger foundation than Ralph Hasenhuttl, we have to have faith in the Austrian and give him the backing and time he needs. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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