It did not need a fortune teller to predict this result and although it should be mentioned that City are beating everyone these days, the manner in which we played was unacceptable.

It is easy to point the finger of blame at individuals, but this was a collective effort, the team played with no passion, no spark, no confidence and no leadership, we went out there like rabbits caught in headlights and got torn apart.

Even good sides get ripped apart by City I the game was over as a competition within the first 12 minutes as the home side took firstly a two goal lead and then followed it by going three up with only 18 minutes gone, Saints settled down a little after that and got some meaningful possession and even scored albeit a penalty, but once again we went to sleep in the final minute of the first half and at 4-1 you even had to consider that we could be on for the Premier League record defeat.

In the second half we kept it till only one further goal till once again another injury time goal conceded that made it truly a rout.

So where did it go wrong, well as I said the whole team were basically collectively awful, in goal I would say that Alex McCarthy put in the type of performance that last season made Fraser Forster the target of the crowd, too many of their goals went under him and he seemed slow to get down and for one of them even make an attempt at it.

Given that City only had 8 attempts on target and scored six, there was the first problem, if the keeper had had a decent game then we could have come away with an acceptable defeat.

It wasn't just McCarthy's fault though and as a team we were poor and chasing shadows, yes some of it was natural given the quality of the City team, but we were playing without and spark, enthusiasm or any belief.

Last season was poor, but even under Mauricio Pellegrino the same players who were out there at the Etihad were matching sides, last season we rarely got slaughtered it was a tale of failing to take chances and then individual errors at the back that led to a poor season, this year it seems that the players aren't responding to the manager.

Of the four summer signings three were on the bench that is not good, but it is not the root cause of the problem, of the starting line only Danny Ings wasn't here last season, seven were in the team that finished 8th the season before and that tells you something.

The problem is not the players quality, it is that to be blunt they are not playing for the manager, Mark Hughes does not seem to be motivating the side in any way shape or form, they seem to lack effort and motivation, they are not finding that extra spark that turns bad games into good ones, last season the bulk of this side held City to 1-1 at the Etihad before another 5th minute of injury tie goal done for them and it was the same story at St Mary's when we only lost to yet another late injury time winner.

This is not the time for panic, those who scream for the whole board to be sacked really haven't a clue why would you sack the Commercial Director for instance who has built up the finances of the club and brought in multi million pound revenue that has enabled us to spend big in both transfer and wages.

The issue at the moment is the manager, as it was last season and from that viewpoint Ralph Krueger's job is only to consider if Les Reed is doing his job, Reed's job is to make sure that he has the right manager in place and he is doing his job. Mark Hughes's job is to get results and we should perhaps remember that Claude Puel got results, this is the Premier League though and all that matters is those results.

Hughes is not getting results and that has to be dealt with now, not left for when it is too late, Les Reed will be reticent to sack Hughes, that will be an admission that he has got the appointment wrong in the first place, but he has to do it.

Ralph Krueger will look at the wider picture with Reed, he will look at the training ground at Staplewood and everything based around that and feel that Reed has done a great job at this club, but ultimately the main part of that job is the manager he either deals with the problem or falls on his sword, if he doesn't deal with it then Krueger has to deal with him.

We as supporters have to stop blurring the picture by blaming everyone and everything, we have to focus on the real issue and that is the manager is not getting results !!!!

Everything else is peripheral

Photo: Action Images

bstokesaint added 13:29 - Nov 5 Get Hughes out and get the head of recruitment out. If that isn’t possible then I’d suggest questioning the ability of the level above of doing their jobs. Nick, you say this isn’t a bad squad but I disagree. I’m not struggling to find anyone I would be disappointed to lose. I would actually prefer to see a team of youngsters out there at the moment, at least they’d have some energy about them. We missed the home win against Bournemouth and subsequently and haven’t seen a win at home for a whole year?! What kind of joke is that? This squad is bang average. And even in an average squad maybe one or two players shine. Not in this one. If this is Mr Gao and Kat doing what is in the best interests of the club to take up to the next level then I think there were some crossed wires because us fans thought that meant upwards. Of course if there are questions around the source of your income and your money is effectively clean despite a large drop in your initial investment then you may not care too much. You might even just be a silent partner say.. I don’t even know what to think anymore. We have a manager with the worst record of any Saints’ team after 19 games and a board who are too arrogant/naïve to change anything. That’s not “hysteria”. Hysteria is when turkeys get reduced to 10p on Christmas Eve. We’re well past that point. We were cooked for about 3 years ago and well past our best!

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ItchenNorth added 13:52 - Nov 5 Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea etc.....its a different league and one I have no interest in Saints ever joining. The sooner a European Super League is created and they disappear from English competition the better. The greed of the Premier League and the richest of the country's clubs, has grown year on year on year, and football as we loved it (be it's the 70s, 80s 90s, 00s) has long since disappeared into that of history. Am I pissed off with our performance, of course. However, I couldn't care less if relegation to the Championship, it's a great division full of big clubs and big fanbases. I hope we see the return of the South Coast derby. I hope to see the return of our youth and academy players into our starting lineups as well. Also, imagine a league where 10 or 15 clubs had a realistic chance of winning it each year! I will always support Saints and I have no intention to not continuing to buy a season ticket; but, I enjoy real football and not some marketed product, where unless you are historically big or inordinately rich, you are just there to make up the numbers. Forget Bournemouth success this year or that of Burnley or Huddersfield in the recent past, good on them. Nothing will change, it's a mear fleeting high for them (just like Saints finishing top 10), and a nice story for this seasons media coverage, but only to be forgotten about next year when normality resumes!

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SanMarco added 13:59 - Nov 5 Petedoors asks the question about whether Gao cares about losing his 210m investment and then points out that Gao has no money. The point with these reverse takeovers is that the purchase money is borrowed and then the debt becomes the club's debt. Gao will lose nothing if we go down the toilet. In fact if he helps himself to the club recources he owns then he will come up smelling of roses. It is only us plebs who have to worry about ruin. The money men do what they like and get away with it.

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SaintBrock added 14:09 - Nov 5 I would think by now Mr Gao fully realises that he has bought a bum steer and was stitched up by Liebherr and her man-servant Kreuger. So if he has any sense at all and I am sure he has plenty of that, he will be looking to off-load the club as quickly as he can before the situation gets any worse. So what we should expect to happen is that there will be no in-coming transfers in January as no money will be made available by Mr Gao; there will be a small exodus of players who are worth a few quid but who have been disaffected by Hughes irrational team selections. [One might even argue that Hughes been told to deliberately unsettle certain players because they are perceived as having a high enough market value to attract serious buyers}. How else for example can one explain the shameful, disrespectful and demoralising treatment of Maya Yoshida (Japan captain but not good enough for Saints FFS!), Oriol Romeo (Spain International, Saints PPotY, ex-Champions league / Chelsea but not good enough for Saints FFS!) or Manolo Gabbiadini (Italy International, ex-Champions League but not good enough for Saints FFS!) Gao can certainly expect to claw up back £50m+ from these three sales alone which will significantly reduce his outstanding debt and bearing in mind the mystery of the disappearing cash hoard from last season he could well by the end of January have halved his debt and be able to afford to offload the club for around £100m which would be quite attractive to a wider range of buyers. Of course you can construct all sorts of hypothetical reasons why we are where we are and why there is no sign of anything changing any time soon. In the absence of anything concrete in the way of words or actions from the owners and management why wouldn't one of these scenarios be the right one? As many of us have re-iterated time and time again, the future of SFC will be all about money not football, anybody who still thinks that what matters most is what happens on the pitch is foolishly naive. Stuck with Reed, stuck with Hughes, no new players this season - this is the reality whether we like it or not. I am going on a one-man protest this Saturday by staying away! I doubt leaving my seat empty will compromise my anonymity.

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SaintPaulVW added 14:15 - Nov 5 I know it's Man City and we can't really compete but we didn't really competitive with Newcastle, so I think there is a problem. While it's convenient to Scape goat certain central defenders to my eyes none of them really seem much better than the others. Different strengths but the same flaw, seemingly no ability to close out a game for 90 minutes. I'm disappointed by the same business model being used to try to find good players on the cheap. To my eyes, given the calamity of last season we needed safer bets. Why we left it until the very last minute to buy Ings escapes me. What if that had failed. Seeing £40 million sat on the bench and £35 million on loan makes me think that after our hubris about our transfer successes we have now 'reverted to the mean' in our transfer dealings. Even on the pitch Lemina and Hoedt really don't seem much if an improvement on what we already had. Hughes deserved a chance but I agree with most on here. He seems to have failed to define his best team and strategy. I think this uncertainty may be affecting the players. We need a change to break out of the cycle that sees a few years escaping relegation and then eventually not. If Hughes can't manage to get wins from the next 2 games, we need to seriously consider a change. Similarly, who ever is in charge of recruiting needs at some point very soon to be answerable for the poor return on our supposed 'investments' that have seen £100 million plus in transfer profits being squandered away. I'm not blaming anyone just expecting those involved in a high reward results business to react to continued poor performance in an appropriate manner. i.e. sack someone and hire someone else.

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BoondockSaint added 15:35 - Nov 5 If the teams had switched managers at the start of the game, the result would have been exactly the same. They are the richest team in the league. We, thanks to the board, are the third best (small) team on the South Coast.
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king_sid added 15:59 - Nov 5 I have thought for a long time - since Jose Fonte left - that what we lack is bottle. All of our players are technically able and physically fit, but they lack that mental strength that winners have. I have though for a long time that Lemina lacks it, Hoedt lacks it, Cedric lacks it in particular and they go missing when it gets tough. Ward-Prowse and Redmond don't lack spirit but retreat into themselves. In fact the only ones that have are Hojbjerg, Ings, Long & Stephens, i that order. And this comes down to a recruitment issue - the Black Box takes you so far, but the judgment of character is down to human instinct. And what we are not finding is battlers. The difference between top and bottom in top-level sport is all in the mind - it is about drive and character and that is where we are lacking throughout the team. Hughes had it as a player, but am not sure a manager can instill that into the players if it is not in their nature.

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oldeastterrace added 16:00 - Nov 5 I have had numerous conversations with other Saints fans in recent weeks and most of them think that it is more than the manager that needs to change. Undoubtedly the clubs recruitment over the last couple of years has been a disaster, this for me is the biggest reason why we are in this mess. I don't agree with Nick that we have a decent squad, when i look at it now, there is a lot of pretty damn average players in there, some of whom can be good now and again but nowhere near often enough. We have a few good players whose confidence is shattered and we have those piss poor additions from the last few transfer windows. When you look at the club now it just looks as if it is lacking direction, there is no 5 year plan for the fans to buy into, and whether you like it or not Mr Gao does need to convince many fans what his long term plans are for the club, we hear nothing and this makes many suspicious. When he came in i believe Mr Kruger said that Mr Gao was happy with the way the club has been run so he just lets us get on with it. If this is the case then Mr Gao needs to book a flight to the UK pretty damn soon and start throwing some F--ks into some of the incompetent individuals who are running this gaffe. There may well be some good people in the club doing good jobs, but from the outside looking in the whole thing looks leaderless and a total f-----G mess!

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underweststand added 16:06 - Nov 5 at times like these - its easy to refer to those "good old days" - in this case Koeman & Bro. and their successes without recalling that Koeman had 7 new players ; Forster, Tadic, Long, Pelle, Alderweireld and Mane in his first squad .. (8 if you count the unfortunate Gardos) and in his second season, he gained Cedric, Clasie, Romeu, Austin ...and that Van Dijk fellow. Along the way we lost one or two, but still maintained an excellent level. Puel, Pellegrino and even Hughes, all "inherited " their squads, and were permitted to buy in a player of their choice. Puel took in Boufal, and the Board indulged Pellegrino in buying Carrillo. (Don't think anyone has suggested that Hughes chose any of the latest 4 but at least he didn't get any of his former Stoke players. The proof of a good manager is not how good he is when the side plays well, but how he responds when they play badly. Pep Guardiola has a squad that cost over £600 million, and so he should expect to get results, and I'm fairly certain that we won't be the last side to get "caned" by Man.City , but it doesn't hurt any the less. However, that doesn't solve the immediate problem, and if Saints can't turn this around with a good result v. Watford, we may well see a new manager in charge very soon. In Koeman's sides, we saw that good old balance of " youth and experience" ..Saints' current problem is a decided lack of experience ...and too much youth. Average age this season is second youngest in the Prem. and so I feel sorry for the young, courageous Pierre Emile Hojbjerg. who was the one " sent out with the book in his underpants" - to get caned in the Press interview, when he was one of the few who actually tried his best.

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allsaint54 added 18:53 - Nov 5 What a load of ----. Where do you start. When did we last win a game with JWP in the starting lineup, at least Romeu isn't bundled off the ball. Defending can only be described as shambolic, how many more goals do Cedric & Hoedt have to gift before they are axed. Bertrand as captain, another joke. Hoedt is odds on to be top scorer, oh at the wrong end, play him up front instead of Long. Who the hell is our attack coach. At least we won't lose any players in the next transfer window, no other team would be daft enough to sign them. As for MH, no motivation , no ideas, no goals, no fight, no fitness, no attacking prowess,no points. Slight improvement for MH as only conceded 6. Against the top 6 sides games are over after 20 min etc etc. I've had enough. The board need to make changes now to have any chance of avoiding relegation.

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davidargyll added 21:22 - Nov 5 As usual some sane and ridiculous comments in equal measure but at least there’s seems to be a fair old consensus that irs only a matter of time before Sparky gets the bullet. And I agree that it’s the Boards fault in appointing the manager and it has clearly gone wrong again. I’ve said this before that most decent managers can turn A players into A players. But only the really smart ones can turn B and C players into A players and/or an A team. Sparky had never been able to do this. He is an absolute shite manager, end of... in fact I shall go so far as to say he has read us like a book, got himself a mega contract in respect of which he’s going to get a very nice pay off, and thanks for coming in. Who are the idiots? Why it’s the Saints. In a funny sort of way though I almost admire Hughes for what he has,or rather hasn’t, done at st Mary’s because somehow he persuaded us how good he was despite an appealing record, we fell for it and now he’s going to get a shedload. So where do we go? Why have we stopped talking about Leonardo Jardim? I don’t know but he’s much more our sort of manager. And most importantly he sounds like a real motivator which is exactly what we need. I do think our players are anywhere near as bad as most people seem to think but they just don’t know what they’re doing because MH has no talent to tell them. Watch this space...

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saint66 added 21:46 - Nov 5 So sir Nick,the people who scream for the board to be sacked do not have a clue. The only way Southampton FC have raised monies to purchase inferior players has been to sell the assets of the club, Where are two of our recent wonderful sibgnings now. Out on loan still costing the club a fortune,along with Forster not even playing for any team but picking up £75,000:00 a week?. The only way this club is going will be the same way Mr Les Reed dragged Charlton,into oblivion.

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saint66 added 21:48 - Nov 5 So sir Nick,the people who scream for the board to be sacked do not have a clue. The only way Southampton FC have raised monies to purchase inferior players has been to sell the assets of the club, Where are two of our recent wonderful sibgnings now. Out on loan still costing the club a fortune,along with Forster not even playing for any team but picking up £75,000:00 a week?. The only way this club is going will be the same way Mr Les Reed dragged Charlton,into oblivion.

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TeamCortese added 05:49 - Nov 6 This lad pretty much sums it up (start from 1:26:35) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06qs7v7
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JimmyMeliaPhD added 06:23 - Nov 6 I don't know who needs to get sacked, administrators or manager or both. The problem is not really about that right now. It's how we get out of this mess in the short term. We can't get new players until January even we sacked everyone else . So the question remains, which of our players can get the job done? My view is that we need to have a good shake-up on the field. Any enterprise in the any business will react to bad performance, not just by admin but by staff and sometimes a good shock to the system is required. I suspect that MH has begun to see what he has to do...even if JWP is no answer to any question, MH showed he was willing to move a little bit from his settled certainties. Same with the CBs, even if Hoedt and Steohens are still (and probably always will be) total rubbish, MH showed he was willing to make a decision and stick with them.. Same kind of thing with Obafemi, a good move by MH, even if we don't know what the kid can do. The problem is the good moves are matched by bonehead obstinacy and by equally bad moves. So, midfield, please, not JWP but maybe give Armstrong a run...he always seems willing to push forward and try to create something. We haven't got that crucial inventive midfielder, but he's the only one who even remotely looks the part. Center backs...2 tall CBs who duck when a high ball comes in are not what you need, even if they make an occasional good tackle....I've long thought Bednarek was a classier and more naturally skilled CB than any of our others. He should be playing. As should Yoshida...there's been a lot of nonsense spoken about Yoshida on this site for a long time, but the fact remains that he's our most experienced CB, an established internaional, and (yes Nick) the nearest thing we have to a leader. Up front, keep Obafemi there for a while, and try Gallacher. There's nothing they can do that's worse than what Long and Redmind do. I agree that Redomind is playing better this year, but he still has absolutely zero to show for it...and of all our front people, he's had the most opportunity to prove he could so a=something and he is still coming up short every week. Then the final issue...MH seems to get that Austin is past it. But what has Long got on MH? Any manager (or supporter) who tries to excuse the dismal reality of Long's recordd by saying "he does all kinds of valuable things except score," needs to get a brain transplant. The man is shot, he cannot produce at this level, and indeed he is a liabilty (anyone else with 2 legs could have scored his last 2 chances). Shake this team up! Two + years of no results from Long, Redmond, Austin, JWP, and more lately Eliyanoussi means you have to change upfront. Dismal performances every wee from numbers 5 and 6 means you nee different numbers in there. Shake it up, even if just for one game, to show the chronically crap high earners like Redmond (60K a week???!!!) that they're actually expected to earn that money!

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SaintJez added 14:34 - Nov 6 I am genuinely staggered that Yoshida isn't playing centre back for Saints. He does make the odd error but he's quick, competitive and simply not the flat footed oaf that currently gifts chances and goals to fleet footed opposition week in, week out. If you look at the goals City scored, 3 or maybe 4 are Hoedt mistakes (another was an OG that I don't even really blame him for but it is classic Hoedt to not find a way to do anything other than put it in his own net). The game is fast, mobile, alert. Hoedt is none of these. Against lower standard players he will look a world beater (big, strong, good passer) but very simply he doesn't move his feet fast enough to play at the top level. The jury is out on Vestergaard but I have a feeling he exhibits many of the same characteristics. That much fabled black box is clearly broken.. Hughes to go. Get Yoshi and Stephens back as a pair in defence, get the squad truly fit and let's go again. All is not lost yet but the path we are on is so obviously wrong. As for a manager... it is very tricky but I would love us to make Eddie Howe a very rich man and do everything we can to bring him down the road from Bournemouth. There will be many wondering "why would he come" and they could be right on that, but big club offers are few and far between and the club setup at Saints is ideal for a man like Howe. With a bit of money and some schmoozing, I believe it could happen.

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