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It is hard to say isn't it Nick. I kind of feel that if the change was going to be made it would have been made before this recent break but as thing stands we are heading for our season being all but over by the New Year and it will take something monumental to change it around even with a change of manager. What is holding up is the support - am I right in thinking that the Christmas period games are already sold out......or as near as damn it?
I am going today but I wonder why having made the long journey down in awful weather. I am not sure I will continue doing this if there is nothing to play for once we get to January - I appreciate that may make me seem like a fair weather supporter but when money is tight and you make the effort you want to at least feel your team will and can compete.
I hope we all get a shock surprise and result today.......it is always the hope.......like entering the lottery!
The game that always stuck in my head even though we lost it was the 3-2 defeat at The Dell in the 1981/82 season with sublime one touch football ending with a goal from Channon. Football at it's best............
Quite simply, No. Liverpool would have to have an exceptionally bad day and us an exceptionally good one to not lose this. In fact, I struggle to see where our next points will come from, no matter the opposition.
I think you need to view it in proportion to our support in games generally Nick. Our support both home and away has held up well despite our performances this season.
I am going this Sunday to a game that is now on TV. Travelling 240 miles to get there, staying overnight and I have taken a day off on leave. The Villa away game is sold out and it looks like Fulham away will be as well just before Christmas.
This cup game is mid-week, close to Christmas and for people like me would need at least 2 days leave. Sometimes you have to weigh it all up. I know you will quote how well Liverpool supporters still attend and have more games etc because of Europe but their fan base is wider and often as close to away games as much as home games. Would I like to have gone - yes, but money, timing, distance etc means that there are some games I just decide I have to miss and I am sure there are many like that.
Lawrie McMenemy used to say how much he had a mixture of pride and angst at his players being called up for International duty. There was pride in seeing a player called up from SFC but he said it nearly always spelled trouble when they returned from it because of the influence from players from the so called bigger clubs. He argued that Mark Wright was never the same once he was called up for England.
I had forgotten all about Ross Stewart. I think the last we saw of him was at Arsenal away for about 20 mins, went off and was told it was nothing serious and yet his name is not mentioned at all by the club.
What a huge waste of money he has been. Ok, he cannot help it if he has a fundamental medical issue but I believe we signed him when he was already on the injury list at Sunderland (if I am wrong in that, then I apologise). Nevertheless the lack of transparency by the club is astounding.
I think there is a groundswell sense of resignation to the outcome of this season. The fan base and support has held up well but that may be tested more once the new year kicks in.
We are a bit like Ukraine. We know we cannot win and the odds are stacked against us and it is a just matter of how much we lose.
I have resigned myself to the fact that if they were going to make a change in this break they would have made it now either on Sunday or yesterday. We can bring up as many names as we like but I can't see anything happening - unless in true Southampton form the board are just taking their time!!!!!!!
To be honest Nick, I have never enjoyed a visit to Molyneaux irrespective of the result or before, during or after a game. They are not a nice bunch at all and it is not a nice place - fans, staff or around the ground. I go out of loyalty to my team and that it is it.
It would be easy to say that the reason we lost at Wolves was down to bad decisions or incorrect decisions by the officials/VAR. The fact is, Manning's goal should have stood and prior to Wolves second goal there were 2 clear fouls which should have meant their second goal being ruled out and had those decisions been awarded correctly we may have come away with 1 point and at least a draw (though by no means guaranteed).
All the above said, it would hide fundamental inherent problems with our play. Despite huge amounts of possession we created so little and barely threatened in front of goal. Opposing teams have all been saying now that they know we will play possession football but we will not hurt teams with it and it is just a case of them waiting for us to make a mistake or lose possession and then they hurt us. For the life of me, I cannot understand why everyone is saying it, even opposition managers etc but we keep doing the same thing and our manager seems incapable of responding to it.
I have tickets for games coming up but to be blunt I don't even want to go. I cannot stand just going to a game and knowing in my heart of hearts that we will do the same thing, we won't offer much going forward and we'll probably lose. I knew we would lose yesterday. It was irrelevant to me that Wolves were bottom, had a generous defence and their confidence may be low, I knew we would not capitalise on it, seize the game and take control. My expectations for the season was reasonable, I knew we would lose far more than we would win and that relegation was probable, but what I did not expect is so many games where we are lacklustre and insipid in attack and showing so little fight. Once we are behind you know we won't come back. Once we went 2-0 down yesterday we may as well just gone home then as there was no way we were going to turn that over because we don't have the manager and players that seem to have a mindset to fight back.
I am resigned to us retaining Martin and to going down now. I wanted Martin to do well but he had to be willing to adapt to the league he was now in and we had to bring in players who could compete at this level. He has not adapted and some of our recruitment has been wholly unsatisfactory for this level. The question is, once I have used up my tickets for the games I have purchased, is it worth the effort to spend hard earned cash on 90 minutes plus of football that is anything but enjoyable (all bar a few brief occasions)?
Yes saintmark1976 - sometimes it pays to check what you are writing before pressing the send button and looking a complete prat! Not the first time and I doubt the last time! I have edited it now.
I don't believe we will win 22. It has taken us long enough to get one narrow win let alone do 2 on the bounce. The media are certainly getting behind Wolves - no one cares if Saints gets relegated (except us of course). I hope I am wrong and made to eat humble pie but our recent record at Wolves isn't great, we are good at giving teams or players that have not had a win or a goal for a while the break they need.
On RM, whatever happens today or this season I have resigned myself to him staying and probably starting next season as well. I hope he can turn it around but lose today and it will be a monumental task and set of results to keep us up. But, I guess you can never say never.
Definitely not. Good guy and all that but has a ceiling with success wherever he has gone and then falls away. Though I now think we have RM for the whole of this season and probably into the next (irrespective of the outcome) when and if we change a manager we want one who knows how to operate at this level if we are still at this level.
Make no bones about it, the 2nd half display last night was shocking. It wasn't that fantastic in the first half but at least we had the 2 goals. I don't regard any side as easy no matter what league they are in. If you have the wrong attitude and aptitude then you will get stung.
We got away with it because of the late goal but everything about our game was shocking at times and in some respects the 2nd half of last night showed up all that is wrong with our team this season and it runs through the veins and every sinew of our team structure.
RM says it was difficult because we played players that had not played together for a while or not at all - well it was his bl**dy choice to play them! He then went on his predictable words around being proud etc. The thing is, it doesn't matter who we play because against Leicester, Ipswich, Forest, Brentford, Stoke - it is the same issues - we can't kill a game off, we don't take advantage when we are rarely on top, we collapse and concede all too easily when we do let a goal in, we are powder puff in attack, we have a soft underbelly through the team. I did rate Sugawara when he came - he seemed to have attacking intent and could read the game - now he is making the same mistakes as most of the others. Why, because there is the lack of confidence in the team that runs through at every level whether they are regulars or not. I suppose what kicks this scenario slightly in touch is the better than expected performances against Arsenal and Man City - but why were they better? Is it perception - they were better because we expected to get thrashed and didn't? or do players raise their game against better sides and if so, why?
Last night was an opportunity, especially with a 2 goal lead to show real attacking intent and yet all too often it was our usual slow ponderous sideways back football that again almost cost us in a game we should have sewn up early on in the 2nd half.
As regards Everton on Saturday - Everton are poor, they really are, but it doesn't matter, I have zero confidence that we will beat them no matter who we play and I suspect the players are of the same view.
I was not an RM out person even though I was not totally sold on his tactics. I hoped the ends would justify the means. I really wanted him to succeed because then we would succeed and success for me this year was to show competitiveness and have a chance of staying up (even if we didn't) and play good football. I wanted a British manager to do well. If I could see real progress and a real change for the good in what we are doing I could live with the occasional expected disappointment but so far this year I am not seeing improvement anywhere in the individuals, in the team or on the pitch as a whole.
I have had a good weekend in Manchester interrupted by a football game. This is my take on the game and wider. It is just my opinion, many will see things differently which is what forums like this are for.
Few, if anyone thought that it would be anything but a rout and that it would be damage limitation at best. That feeling was not dispelled when we had not even managed to get to the 5 minute point of the game and Man City were in the lead courtesy of a Haaland goal. The surprise is that it proved to be the only goal of the match and thus the winner.
The match to be truthful, was dull and largely insipid. Man City having got the lead seemed content with it and barely broke out of first or second gear and I doubt never broke sweat. They were content for us to have spells of possession and we rarely threatened. We did hit the bar at the closing stages of the first half and had that gone in, could it have been a surprise outcome to the game or would it merely have poked the bear and woken it up? - on evidence of previous games, I suspect the latter. The second half felt like both sides were going through the motions but we had a flurry at the end which bought a little hope to the ever patient away fans. Fernandes, Lallana (his experience showed in the first half and I can't help but wonder, had he not left as he did and we Saints fans had been a bit more forgiving we could have enjoyed and benefited from his return much earlier) and KWP had good games and we did show some endeavour and we kept our structure but then it was not really tested that much. Man City have loads of games, bigger ones than Saints and it is as if they decided this was a game that they didn't feel they needed to take risks. Against other sides they may have been made to pay for that approach.
The officials did not give much, if in fact, anything. Gary O'Neil dared to suggest that there is unconscious bias. Of course he got in trouble for that comment and PL loving pundits said he was wrong. I think most of us know what O'Neil meant and it is difficult to disagree with him.
Those of us in the away end felt at the end that the team deserved some recognition for the effort and really because we had not got the thrashing we all expected. In many ways, that is almost a sad reflection of what we now deem as acceptable. Celebrating a defeat in which neither side exactly busted a gut. Had we lost 3-2 or something then you could have walked away saying that we had seen a good game and we were unlucky.
But, pundits, commentators, Guardiola and Silva praised Saints. Is it meaningful or patronising? What I find hard to accept is that somehow us Saints fans are supposed to be grateful for losing and being bottom. That we are being unrealistic and unreasonable for expecting anything more. Imagine if it was one of the so called big teams without a win, barely a goal to celebrate - there would massive noise. I (and I believe a majority of Saints fans) was realistic what this season would bring and many of us thought relegation was the most likely outcome and we would be mildly happy to finish 4th from bottom and then build from there.
Few of us really thought that we would be looking at almost certain relegation by the end of October/early November but if we don't beat Everton (and they looked awful against Fulham) next week then you would have to say that relegation is all but confirmed - I appreciate that is defeatist but when people say that yesterdays game and result will not define our season and we did well, that may be the case, but the games against Ipswich, Leicester, Brentford, Bournemouth and next week do define our season and whilst no game is easy, there are some games you would have expected more than the 1 point we currently have and would have kept us in the pack.
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