Difficult to say anything positive, and as far as the player ratings go ..how do the rate the worst of the worst?
Perhaps the only positive was having KWP back..at least he looked a site better than the previous options.
Ché Adams three goals in three.. OK that's something to cheer after such a long goal drought, but that early season double act of " Ings and Adams" seems like a VERY distant memory.

A semi-final place from beating Bournemouth ?.....now seems a lot more problematic.

13

I think even the optimists are finding it hard to pick any positives out of that fiasco. I have no idea what our strategy for getting an equalizer was in that last half hour - the players clearly didn't know either, did Ralph?

We are at the end of the road of thinking that a few minutes high press and lots of fancy playing out from the back is going to get results. Opposition managers do not have to be tactical geniuses to do well against us. Brighton kept us quiet early on and then waited for the mistakes. Lallana was given the freedom of the park to create that winner.

We look lightweight and clueless. Ralph has now got to prove his management skills by working out some tactics that work with the players he has. The law of averages says we will sneak a few more points out of the last nine - will that be enough? If it is then there needs to be a fundamental rethink in the summer. Ralph's approach is not working with these players. We have squabbled about 'plan Bs' in recent weeks but what we now need is an effective plan A - depressingly, I have no idea what that would be.

11

Saints are missing Romeu, his strength and solid tackling, and we haven't got anybody to replace him. This allows clever midfielders, like Llana today, to run into spaces and create easy pickings between our cumbersome centre halves. It also means Saints haven't got any impetus moving the ball through and beyond the midfield. The Stephens experiment was a failure at City (Ralph's strategy for that game was a failure). I think we have to bring back Lemina and have Jankewitz as a back up. Times are getting desperate not only because of our losing, largely winless run, but because we're playing just as poorly as we did before we hit form last year and this time I don't think we have the battlers, or players to bring in, to grind out the points. Seven plus points away from safety seems a long way at the moment. Managers can't always get a result because players make mistakes on the pitch, that's understandable, but managers can put players in their most effective positions so that we compete at an optimum level. Premier League Managers also have to have keen judgement make the right changes when they're needed and try to force a beneficial result - just like Potter today who managed an almost perfect game. Unfortunately, Ralph has been failing in both these areas for most of the last 15 matches. In the first half we played fairly well with a 4-4-2 formation but for some reason in the second Ralph only had Adams up front with the sub, a bewildered Redmond, ghosting around from side to side and a snubbed-out Djenepo. Brighton stopped any creation from Armstrong or runs from Tella or Minamino. The worst mistake for me were leaving Bertrand to mark Dunk on the edge of the area from a corner - allowing him to score and then do again although Saints were lucky to escape on the second occasion. No excuses for school boyish mistake. That Saints could have at least got a point even though they were mastered in the second half.

2

Really don’t know where we go from here, if we keep playing like this then we will need a lot of luck to stay up.
In 66 years of watching Saints l have seen some bad games but at least we showed some fight but this team does not know how to play out from the back and when we do we end up with the ball back with the keeper.
No imagination how to break down a defense and no urgency when we need it.
As a game we were utter shite and starting to believe we are in big trouble.

2

Too little movement, too slow forwarding the ball, too much tiredness (Stuey and Bertrand in particular), KWP and Diallo not back to full match fitness. Minamino too light-weight.
Credit to Brighton for making it difficult for us and being clinical.
Great goal by Che but he should have banged that huge chance in the second half up into the roof of the net.
We need a rest and Ralph needs to make the players wholeheartedly believe that we can get 7 points from the remaining games. Which I'm sure he can and will. We will NOT do a Swansea....

1