A disappointing day at the office for Saints as they went down tamely to a Brighton side who wanted it more, this was perhaps the worst defeat of the last two months given that we had almost a full squad to pick from.

This was meant to be the day that now we had many of our injured players back fit again that we put any lingering relegation fears to bed, from this perspective it was the most disappointing of the last two months, even worse than Manchester United, in that game we had every excuse in the book for the heavy defeat, but at St Mary's against the Seagulls we had none really, we just didn't turn up.

In some respects a draw would have been a fair result certainly the stats for the game were fairly evenly matched although we did have the lion's share of possession, but the difference was that Brighton as a team wanted it, they stepped up a gear where we seemed to have very little impetus until the final minutes when we suddenly realised that we were going to lose.

Up to that point we seemed to be strolling around confident that we would score at will.

The game started badly for us with Brighton looking lively and when Dunk got a free header he powered it home in the bottom corner, not many headers of that power and in that spot get saved.

But Saints kept passing and when on 26 minutes we were back on level terms when Che Adams fired home from close range after a well worked move you felt there would be only one winner, but Brighton might not score man, but they don't concede either.

They got to the break all square but it was Saints on top.

The Seagulls were dangerous on the break throughout the game and Fraser Forster had to be in good form on several occasions, however 10 minutes after the restart he could do little as a lovely well worked move saw us fail to pick up Trossard and straight through he finished with aplomb.

Now Brighton has something to hold and their spirits were up, they worked like trojans and never stopped running.

We in comparison were pedestrian we didn't take the game to them enough, we continued to pass around the back and midfield as if we were 3-0 up and seeing the game out, we needed to up the intensity and push the visitors on to the back foot, but we never seemed to be able to do that.

We thought that we could pass our way to a win, but against a side like Brighton you have to bombard them, put them under pressure, but we never did.

Too many players seemed to be playing at half pace, didn't seem to want to get out of first gear, Nathan Tella barely touched the ball, we needed to get him running at them as he did against Sheffield United, but we never did, we had our chances in the second half, but they were too few.

In the preview i remarked that it would be hard to tell who should partner Adams, should it e Minamino or Tella, we made the wrong choice Tella might have been better coming from the wing where he could get the ball and run at players, too often he was isolated.

As the game went on we seemed to run out of steam, there was an excuse for those who were just back from injury, but not for the rest of the side, perhaps two players could walk off the pitch feeling satisfied they had earned their wages, James Ward Prowse and Che Adams.

In contrast Brighton had an entire side that put in a shift, not least ex Saint Adam Lallana who pulled the strings from the midfield.

But this game is done and dusted now, a win even a draw would have been good enough to see off those lingering injury doubts, but the truth is our position did not get any worse, Fulham started the weekend 7 points behind us and they finished it with the same gap, but one game less to close it.

All that matters now is the game against Bournemouth this weekend, win that and we are in an FA Cup semi final and we then concentrate on three games against sides around us, games that we can get the points needed to banish those niggling worries.

Fulham host Leeds United on Friday and Brighton are at home to Newcastle on Saturday, we will have to sit back and hope those games go our way, but after next week with hopefully Danny Ings and Theo Walcott back we will have firepower that was missing on Sunday and get back to winning ways.

Photo: Action Images

I_would added 12:41 - Mar 15 As all and sundry are staring into main beam headlights all we can hope for is for Ralph to get ill for a few weeks so the caretaker manager can re-motivate the players and organise them properly and forget this 'high press ' nonsense.
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stmichael added 12:46 - Mar 15 Sometimes you can lose and the performance gives you hope. There was NOTHING positive from yesterday. Not one player can be proud of themselves. Play like that again and we are beating nobody. Not Bournemouth not WBA not anybody. Pathetic from all involved including RH..
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I_would added 12:53 - Mar 15 Before I hear from aggressive multi posters, I only meant a little cold or such like, of course, just long enough for saints to stay up.
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amex added 12:54 - Mar 15 Last kick of the game Redmond had chance to launch the ball into their penalty box, instead he turned towards his own goal and passed ball backwards and the ref then blew his whistle for full time. Summed us up.
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schatfield added 13:03 - Mar 15 I wouldnt mind us being relegated to be honest, getting bored of the prem and either losing or scraping a win. Much rather win some games 4-0 in the championship and have some fun with proper clubs again. Che goal was a stunner.
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SanMarco added 13:30 - Mar 15 Always assuming we would be capable of 4-0s in second division schatfield!!
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ItchenNorth added 13:54 - Mar 15 Against a well organised Brighton team, we were too slow to get the ball forward. Brighton played 10 men behind our slow play forward and it worked a treat for them !
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wibbersda added 14:03 - Mar 15 Ralphs Experiment doesn't work in the Prem. Time to change the approach or time to go?
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Colburn added 14:18 - Mar 15 Laboured passing with no plan, passes behind team mates or they are waiting for the ball after the man in possession has held on to the ball for too long and the better passing option has gone. No interest in taking on the oppo down the wings, I can't remember one moment we got to the byline. KWP and Bertrand never played any one twos or drove towards the box as they do when we look dangerous. Why not? Tactics? Or loss of confidence? Aa mentioned, riskier backwards passes when less risky alternatives available in a forward direction, culminating in KWP taking on two men on the touch line in order to get back to our own box! Utter and total madness but a symptom of a negative mindset and not releasing the ball a moment earlier when it should have been. Minamino a box player, not a wide player or midfielder Bednarek needs a rest Redmond no energy quality or desire when he came on to fight to get his starting place back. Bertrand for me is putting aimless yards in, looking like he's putting in effort but no real interest, why did we sell Targett? Crazy.. We raised intensity for ten or fifteen minutes until we equalised and then stepped off again rather than seizing the moment to take a lead into half time. Not seizing the moment has been habitual this season as we refuse the initiative when handed to us, like Arsenal away when we settled for a point against a team in worse form than us and down to ten men. Utd home... Djenepo does his best work when he attacks the penalty area, and now he gets nowhere near it. Lack of movement coming from the reluctance of our cdms and cbs to play the passes when our forwards do make runs, then it becomes a catch 22.. 4 points from 36 and some lame draws before that, I'm beginning to wonder if Ralph still has the players onside. Lampard is available, I love Ralph but I'm beginning to think that Frank would be a good move right now and a better chance of actually winning the Cup with renewed spirit, sorry Ralph.

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Colburn added 14:24 - Mar 15 To add, has the departure of Danny Rohl been the reason for our lack of leadership, direction and inventiveness with the ball? Was he the John Mortimer character which made us tick before?
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beynali73 added 14:29 - Mar 15 Looking at the majority of comments on this website after this result (and performance) and others over the last few months I think the majority of us are measured and rational with most realising that we are in a precarious position but not in a dire one.......yet. Most people on this website are looking for answers and explanations for why we are in this situation compared with where we were at the beginning of the year. We have had injuries, more than our fair share, and that could be down to luck or methods - as well as not having all the fitness facilities available to the squad for getting players back quicker. But this lull has gone on for 8 weeks now and shows very limited signs of being reversed. When things are going well all roads lead to the manager - and when they are not they also lead to the same location. Therefore it's not surprising that many of fans are starting to ask questions about Ralph's methods. This does not make people disloyal or fickle - it makes them concerned about the team and wanting it to succeed and to be proud of supporting the club again. I was too young to remember when Lawrie Mac took over, Saints were relegated (finished 3rd bottom in the first season the bottom 3 went down rather than bottom 2) but the board stuck with him and we enjoyed one of the best eras of our history. The game has changed a lot since then and if we go down Ralph may leave or he may be given the chance to rebuild. I doubt he would and this makes the need to get things right on the pitch urgent - better the devil you know etc. I was confident going into the game against Brighton but during the game and for the majority of the evening after it I was gutted and thoroughly demoralised. What or who needs to change to put this right?

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dirk_doone added 15:16 - Mar 15 Meanwhile, the best leader we had in recent years is currently leading his Lille team to another major trophy, with one of the best defences in Europe: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/french-ligue-one/table
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felly1 added 15:51 - Mar 15 Terrible performance. 2 wins in 17 games is a sick joke and like many others my patience in Ralph is beginning to wear. We have been found out big time and our demoralised players look clueless and leaderless. I'm not sure if I had as many " bad days at the office " as Saints have had in the last 3 months whether I'd still be employed!
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YosemiteSaint added 18:01 - Mar 15 Ralph's problem has always been time management. He's run us into the ground—during a condensed season that was always going to run everyone into the ground (note how sides with deep benches are really the only ones left in the table now)—because he burnt us out by not managing the calendar well. Sure, we were flying high for awhile there, even to the top of the league, but it cost us the rest of the season! This is atop the "smaller picture" of his not managing game time well—going full-throttle throughout (no wonder we concede late so often), substitutions that occur too late to make a difference, not mapping out strategies by ten-minute increments, etc. Don't get me wrong—he's still our guy. He just has to learn to think in terms of _time_ (of which no one ever has enough, especially in the Prem), and to recognize that men are not machines.

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Flamingbankers added 22:34 - Mar 15 I guess that was an unsatisfying defeat Mr Illingworth (as opposed to your 'satisfying' defeat against Man City). A sensible report this time but your faith in Ralph is unfathomable given the evidence that is now exposed his 'one track mind' theory of football. Potter was much more engaged with the game and his team.
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AmericanSaint added 23:34 - Mar 15 Some very good and not so good comments about the game. Many valid on both sides. For me the second half was complete crap. What sumed it up was when we were clearing the ball and it went out of bounds and JB started yelling at the midfield to move so he could pass and he just shook his head in disgust. I think there is lots of frustration in our defense. Obviously I dont know what Ralph told them, but I think RB and KWP were playing to high and JB/JV were not moving it fast enough. At the end you saw RB, MD and CA with in 3 feet of each other and nobody made a run down the wing. What I cant understand is why the heck none of our players run the channel. I counted over 12 times that Che or Tella made a run when RB or KWP had the abll on the wing and NOT once did these two pass it forward. Don't even get me started on NR. RB was abysmal yesterday and he stopped the play forward over 15 times. His head is too big right now among the contract talks. He needs a kick in the butt and a reminder that we resurrected his flagging career. In the last 30 mins JWP had to come back in line with the CBs to get the ball to try and play it forward and that should never happen. Also, did anyone else think that all the lucky bounces went Brighton's way. Every time we were clearing it, it would hit a player and deflect right to one of theirs. Finally, I agree that Ralph's system has exhausted us and needs to be tweaked. He needs to accept that we need to play a bit more cautious to pace the game out. Well on to the FA Cup game and all I can say is lets see what happens cause at this point I am not convinced we will show up and play good football. COYR.

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Andylad63 added 07:05 - Mar 16 The way I see it is Ralf's high press tactics work well when we have Ings up top and a team full of energy and running. ATM we have neither, the reason Ralph invested so whole heartedly into HP was in his early days and the end of Mark Hughes' period we demonstrated a complete inability to do, what many are suggesting we try now and we attempted at Man City, stay deep and and hit teams on the break. Opposition teams are very aware of the passing abilities of JWP and work very hard to minimise them, likewise Armstrong's swift breaks from midfield. Yes Jan Bedders, JWP, RB look tired and so they should, they have been the almost ever presents this season and given the amount of disruption to our team due injuries to other have had to do more than their fair share for the cause. Are we truly asking Jack Stephens, and under 23s to replace them in a relegation scrap? IMHO neither Stuart Armstrong nor Danny Ings have been back to their consistent best since afflicted with Covid. Look even after Sunday's game I'm sure Brighton, Burley, Newcastle and Bournemouth would rather be in Saints position.

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Braveheart added 10:48 - Mar 16 When are we going to face reality on our season? We are heading to relegation in a season that was buzzing in the first half. We haven't got one player that is Premiership quality and capability. Ralph is out of his depth and hasn't got a clue. Get rid of him before it is too late. Derek McInnes ex Aberdeen is available he will kick a few backsides. as will Neil Lennon. Recently Portsmouth fans wrote an open letter to their players after their humiliating defeat against Salford at Wembley. Maybe we should do the same. Maybe its about time we realised that we haven't got a good team or a good manager neither is capable in the premiership.

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Saint4Life247 added 10:57 - Mar 16 I have to say I agree with almost all the comments on here regarding the game, players and tactics etc. For me RH has never been the same since Rohl left. It was clear in the following games that we had changed straight away. Since then Ralph has been treading water a bit and luckily COVID stopped the slide last season. It's a shame as he's a genuine bloke and I believe he means well and has the best intentions but 4 points from a possible 36!! thats just shocking, with or without injuries. The club doesn't help when they are not investing enough and with Gao's share of the club 'for sale' there is huge uncertainty for any possible new players and/or managers and staff. We are in limbo without a solid base for change. If RH is sacked or leaves who do we go for? would Eddie Howe be prepared to come here, would he be good enough for what we want to achieve? who else fits our mould? I think we should survive this season, looking at the fixtures, those below us have slightly harder run ins. I'd say 3/4 more points and we should just about scrape it.

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