Mauricio Pochettino arrived at Southampton heralded by a pr campaign that suggested he was the man to take us to the next level, first though he has to keep us at this one.
When Nigel Adkins was sacked initially many supporters were up in arms and disgusted by the way that a manager who had taken Saints to two consecutive promotions had been treated, this soon all died down after a pr campaign promoting Mauricio Pochettino including a rare interview on Sky TV from Nicola Cortese who outlined how he was intending to take the club to the next level and that whilst he didnt think Adkins was the man to do it, Pochettino certainly was, Saints supporters in the main took the Chairman at his word and were willing to give the ex Espanyol manager a chance.
Initially he started well, a home draw with Everton was about par for the course, a dfeat at Old Trafford expected and in truth what should have been seen as two points dropped at Wigan was glossed over as many felt that as we would have taken two points from these three before the games, then we should be satisfied, beating Man City only papered over the cracks though and these cracks have re emerged with a vengeance meaning that suddenly our form doesnt look that good, five points from six games is not good enough and if repeated between now and the end of the season could well see us relegated, worryingly though in the last two games not only have we lost to two of our relegation rivals and conceded six goals in the process, but all of those goals could have been avoided.
In short we seem to be back to our form of earlier in the season when we always seemed to concede soft goals, now i dont blame either Adkins or Pochettino for not having the personel to play the system the club has adopted this season, after all neither manager has the quality in key positions and a failure to strengthen in the January window whilst our rivals have done could yet come back to haunt us, but what Adkins realised earlier in the season was that sometimes you have to adapt to survive and by the time of his sacking he had got his team playing in a way that not only were they not conceding so often in the main, but they were still scoring goals, things were still not great, as we didnt and still dont have the quality needed, but Adkins had at least stemmed the tide, used what he had to hand and concentrated on getting points rather than playing in a set style, of course there would always be bad games, but there were starting to become less frequent and when they happened not too damaging to the goals against column.
Adkins last five games in charge saw seven points gleaned and an unbeaten spell, his five games before that also saw seven points, in both periods there were sloppy goals conceded and points dropped that perhaps shouldnt be, but from adversity Adkins was slowly coming of age and his points to games ratio was respectable.
In contrast MoPo's last five games has seen three defeats and only four points in the bag, with two blocks of five to go we cant see that ratio continue, if it does then we will end up on 35 points at the end of the season, will that be enough to keep us up, it might be, but more likely it will either be very very tight or it wont.
That being the case our new manager now has to do somthing very different and change a losing pattern and change it fast before it becomes a habit, now before i go on I have to say that i Like Mauriccio Pochettino, I feel that he might well be the man to take us on a knotch, but I still feel that the timing of his arrival was wrong, we have in effect brought in a man to put on the roof of the house before the walls have been finished and anyone in the building trade will tell you what happens then.
So what we need to see now from Pochettino is that he has learnt a few hard lessons in his first six weeks or so in the Premier League and that like Adkins before him he can adapt to change, the article from the Espanyol fan published from the QPR website questioned whether the Argentinian can adapt to English football and his predictions as to where Saints would come undone came spookily true when PR arrived, although in fairness the Spaniard commenting needed only to look at the Newcastle game to make those predictions, so the six million dollar question now is can Mauricio Pochettino adapt the style of his play to plug those weaknesses of getting caught on the break as we literally have been done six times in the last two games to devastating effect and to be blunt that just isnt good enough.
As I said the problem isnt in the style of play, at least not directly, its in not having the quality to play it, its easy to blame individuals, indeed Danny Fox is a popular scapegoat, but he wasnt on the field for three of the six goals conceded in such soft fashion, the problem is the inability of our defenders to handle sides that break quickly, especially when our midfield is so far up the pitch and pressing the opposition, if two of the poorer sides in the Premier can exploit us six times in two games in such a fashion then god knows what the likes of Chelsea will do to us, mentioning the Blues is actually quite pertinent, Nigel Adkins learnt a valuable lesson when Chelsea beat us at home in the cup, he saw where we were exposed and made changes at Stamford Bridge in what turned out to be his final game that enabled us to get an unlikely point, we now need MoPo to see the same things and change to suit.
Im confident that he can do that, after all he is a manager and indeed player with extensive experience, albeit mostly in Spain, perhaps there he didnt need to adapt and change, the Spanish game is a lot more about passing and not about getting it to the front men quickly, surely he will have seen that in England sides will break quickly and directly and is capable of adapting his game plan, from that point of view I am hopeful, but at the end of the day a lot of those last six goals conceded and indeed the goal against Man City which was also a breakaway, not to mention the two at Wigan both poor marking from set pieces all have one thing in common and that is players not being up to the job, here is where MoPo is through no fault of his own stumped, he has not been provided with the quality he needs.
The fixture at Norwich City will be a big yardstick to the final nine games of the season, we got away with the other results last weekend, will we be so lucky twice, I think not, QPR especially, with a home game against Sunderland and Reading playing Villa were somebody has to pick up points means that defeat for us will undoubtably see a few clubs breathing down our necks after the weekend is over