It was a case of Puel Harbour for Saints as Leicester's Shinji Okazaki lead the way for the Foxes who caught Saints out and destroyed them clinically.

I said after the Arsenal game that the manager had made some strange decision n his selections and then showed no leadership in the final quarter of the game leaving his players to run themselves into the ground and it seems that in doing so he destroyed a team spirit built up after the last four games and Saints looked a tired, leaderless and shell of the side they have been in the previous four games.

This was a return to the performance at Liverpool, after that I felt the players had stopped playing for their manager, since then they turned things round, but ultimately that could only take us so far, I hoped that it was a little more than just professional pride carrying us through, but now it seems it wasn't and the managers determination to always try to be a little bit too clever and a refusal to stick with a winning combination again cost us dearly.

Lemina was back in the starting line up but appeared to be a shadow of the player he was a month ago, Wesley Hoedt was nowhere to be seen and given that the manager had reported a clean bill of health going into this game you have to consider whether Hoedt has had enough of his treatment at the hands of Pellegrino.

So this team selection again lacked a sense of consistency, no place for Pierre Emile Hojbjerg who was arguably man of the match on Sunday and did not get on to the pitch tonight.

Poor substitutions again from Pellegrino who did little to inspire, but worryingly he did little to protect those who needed nursing with a hard programme coming up,Charlie Austin did 90 minutes something his attitude deserved but with the game well out of reach after a brief fightback, he should have been rested with 20 to go, as should perhaps Cedric Soares, back after a couple of weeks out there was no point in risking him tweaking a hamstring again by leaving him on in a game that was dead.

Hard to see a way back for Pellegrino after this performance, he seems to have a team that is not playing for him and he is not leading and after this debacle he has lost the fans in a way that ironically even the man on the opposite bench never did, at the final whistle there was barely 5,000 Saints fans left in the ground, the exodus had started long before that.

Something has to change at St Mary's the supporters need something to inspire them, the team need something to inspire them, I don't think it is Mauricio Pellegrino

Photo: Action Images

saintnik added 11:31 - Dec 14 Pulis is still available and Mark Hughes very soon.....
2

aceofthebase added 11:48 - Dec 14 The right spirit was there for the first ten minutes so I think there was good spirit before the match. The way players heads dropped and performance deteriorated after the first goal was nothing to do with our manager on the sidelines it was the attitude of moaners on the pitch. Personally, i was sad to see Cedric start, Stephens looked far more solid and should have played. I'm fed up with saying that Cedric is not a good enough defender. I never wanted Puel to leave, I know he didn't tell good jokes at his press conferences but he had a pretty decent season given all the problems he had with players. He is succeeding with Leicester basically because they have better-attacking players than we have. MP hasn't had a chance to assemble his own team and has to play with the same second rate players that let Puel down.

1

halftimeorange added 12:09 - Dec 14 To say the players don't care is ludicrous. Cedric's woeful pass to cost us the fourth goal summed up his shocking evening but, generally, we'd all admit he is a very decent player. His reaction to himself showed it really hurt. Earlier he had had a go at Tadic (who, by the way should be allowed to go along with Redmond and Davis, the latter showing his age) due to Tadic's lack of effort. Even Van Dijk was openly dismayed at mistakes as was our only reasonable performer, Bertrand. I'm not going to make excuses as the board have patently got several things wrong - no height again on display last night against a tall defence, an inexperienced manager and some dubious signings in place of proven talent however, as others have pointed out, Leicester had been coming back to their best in recent weeks and will beat better sides than ours and, had Charlie scored a second goal to make it 2-3, the eventual outcome might have been mightily different. The other noticeable thing all season is the gap between our midfield and our attack. It is far too wide. Lastly, we played really well against City and Arsenal on the break but, why the switch of tactics in trying to come on to Leicester with our laborious build-up style of play when they are known for speed. Research the opposition, please!

8

LondonSaint added 12:40 - Dec 14 Highlight of the week is your excellent headline! Less said about the result the better. Well done Puel, that's the way to answer your critics. Pellegrino on the other hand, well I'm now even less convinced he is the right man for the job. Six months in to a job and no sign of improvement or even change. I'm not sure he's the right man for the job but should we give him to make an impact? If so, how long?!

3

CautiousOptimist added 12:41 - Dec 14 That was an utter shambles. Only my second visit to St Mary’s this season (the other was the Wolves game, so I’m clearly making bad choices somewhere along the line), and not much incentive to go back for more. I can see that Boufal has got some real talent, but am failing to see where he or Tadic are making effective contributions at the moment. Whatever the reasons there were a lot of players who had off days yesterday - Cedric and Lemina are both terrific players coming back from injury but looked off the pace. Van Dijk just looked off the pace. We looked a lot more incisive with Redmond and Gabbiadini on (of course Leicester were coasting by then). I agree with a lot of the comments about squad rotation. I’d be happier if Pellegrino chose his best team and stuck with it, at least then we’d have a continuity of style which is something the players would maybe be happier with. The board had a lot of time to think about Pellegrino’s appointment. It is difficult in the light of yesterday’s performance but I’d like to think that we, as fans, have learnt something from how Puel was treated last season. Pellegrino has good players at his disposal. He is capable of getting things right and getting good performances from them. We might just have to trust, be patient, and get behind the team.

2

skiptonsaint added 13:09 - Dec 14 There were comments on here previously that PEH and Stephens seemed to provide fresh legs and energy and not starting them seems to allowed us to revert back to the old half paced ways. Was just no energy or commitment. You have to way up starting a regular 11 with the fact that midweek games may cause them to run of our legs a bit towards the end where you can make the right subs. very worrying

5

BoondockSaint added 14:06 - Dec 14 "Why does he put out lineups that don't make sense?" "Why are players who have a good game, even score goals, sat on the bench the next game?" "Why when we need a goal, does he sub off a forward and put on a defender?" "Why aren't the players more motivated?" "When are we going to sign the quality players we need?" "Is the manager running the team, or just taking orders?" Sound familiar? We were saying all this about Puel last season and now we are saying the same about Pellegrino. Which shows our problem is not the manager, but Les Reed, the board and the owner(s). The whole culture of the club has changed from up-and-coming team that plays exciting football and is liked and respected around the league to a just trying to survive joke in the space of two years.

7

law101 added 14:17 - Dec 14 The manager may well be out of his depth, however doesn't this game show exactly what our problems are.. the players! We have so many players, who turn up one game in every 6, who play the ball around nicely but who don't score goals and don't provide assists. It's all very well calling for a change in manager, but who will come in and replace him? It will inevitably be another Puel/ Pellegrino.. that's what we do, and I doubt anyone would welcome a Tony Pulis anyway.

7

TeamCortese added 14:21 - Dec 14
3

131153 added 15:13 - Dec 14 I sat on the train back to London in total silence apart from half a dozen Leicester fans who surprise surprise were very happy. A very poor game to say the least, the first ten minutes went fairly well until they scored after that we looked a team without any ideas. It crossed my mind that Boufal should have a good hard look at himself and appreciate what Maghrez gave to the Leicester team . With his skill he should be creating for us the same way Maghrez did for them. I bet most fans when they heard the team for the Arsenal game thought MP had picked the wrong team, equally most would have been much happier last night when they saw last nights side. Who said it's a funny old game!! I really believe we should not panic, all the keyboard warriors who slag off MP, EB, LR, RK THE BOARD etc almost certainly know very little about football or business. Don't get me wrong relegation would have catastrophic effects almost certainly 60 or 70 people will loose their livelihoods. We must all support the team, and the manager and players must pull their fingers out.

-2

ExiledSupporter added 15:31 - Dec 14 URGENT...bring back Koeman asap Why...our most sophisticated manager ever, no nonsense attitude, a 'leader' on the sidelines, well versed in the PL, no L plate on his back, well regarded by the fans and...available!
4

underweststand added 14:40 - Dec 15 What has Puel done at Leicester that he didn't do with Saints ? If he uses the same tone to motivate them, then something else was wrong. The simple answer is ...their strikers score goals . Looking back at last seasons stats. in the majority of games we had more % possession, had more chances than the opposition and (except for the Liverpool games) failed to score in 13 Prem. games, and couldn't score in 8 more games where ONE goal would have been enough to get a point Ever since Adkins left, we sold , and sold and sold...without buying good replacements. Last season showed that despite losing all those players, we failed to replace Pelle and Mane. Aftef losing Charlie Austin our goal tally dried up.and not even Rodrigues, Long or Redmond did enough to make up the shortfall. Any one of Boufal's goals might have won Goal of the Season, but he too failed to deliver in the long run. As for Gabbiadini..who can forget his whirlwind start, but can it be that it's just now, we are seeing the real Gabbiadini?....lack-lustre and out of touch. I won't blame MP for the Leicester debacle, because I've never seen a game where so many players were so poor. We now rely on Austin in every game and we can't wait for "the rest" to find their scoring boots. We need to sign TWO strikers in January...or else risk the" R " Word.

5

Blogs 31 bloggers

Swansea City Polls