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Comment | Saints At Manchester City The Verdict
at 15:59:21
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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Comment | Saints V Bournemouth The Verdict
at 18:55:45
I have been one of Tadic's fiercest critics this season, but he was excellent on Saturday. However that was in no small part because Hughes played him in his best position as a wide man and not as a 'Number 10' as Pellegrino kept doing. He seems to know what to do and where to go when out wide - tucked in behind the striker he looked lost. |
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Comment | Saints At Newcastle United The Verdict
at 20:18:25
A few observations from yesterday -
Our problem is not our defence, it is our utter inability to convert possession into chances/goals
Stephens and Hoedt are clearly not Fonte and VVD, but they are decent enough players
We clearly lack big characters in the team
I’m beginning to think Lemina is a bottler – he has been truly dire in several big games where we have needed a big performance from him
And why the hell was Romeu left out? On the NBC stream I watched it was suggested it was because they didn’t want him suspended for the Wigan game!!
JWP is a very decent player – I don’t know why he is the whipping boy for so many. There were many worse than him yesterday
Tadic is just awful & Boufal is not much better. At least Redmond & Sims get at defenders
And why did he bring on Long & not Gabbiadini? It was almost wilfully perverse not to play Gabbiadini & Carillo together.
I think Moped knows he’s gone at the end of the season come what may & is more concerned with proving a point (ie not playing 4-4-2) than keeping us up
We have good players in our team, but he has drained the life out of them with his cautious, keeping possession at all costs game.
If/when we go down it will be because of the lost points against poor teams where he bottled the chance to win
To be honest, I really don’t see any way back from here.
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Comment | Saints V Liverpool The Verdict
at 19:36:14
I was only able to watch the second half on TV, but that was the most clueless, spiritless display I have seen for a very long time. If we had lost by five it wouldn’t have flattered Liverpool.
I am afraid the same boringly repetitious issues keep coming back. The problem is not whoever is unlucky enough to play as lone striker, it is playing a lone striker with the players we have around them. If we had two vibrant, pacy attacking midfielders bursting into the box it might work. But we don’t – we have two one-paced fancy Dans who want run round in circles near the corner flag and waft crosses in to no-one in particular, in the shape of Tadic & Boufal. They are both utterly ineffective most of the time, and especially in the system we play.
We have two good attacking fullbacks and a decent bank of midfielders – the problem is not these players, it is that we set up with an isolated centre-forward without the right sort of players to play around him.
I still think our dogmatic refusal to adapt and our relentless determination to keep playing Tadic (and Boufal) is the route of our problem. I don’t see us coming back from this – the players look broken because they keep doing what they are told and it keeps not working.
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Comment | Saints V Liverpool The Verdict
at 19:36:14
I was only able to watch the second half on TV, but that was the most clueless, spiritless display I have seen for a very long time. If we had lost by five it wouldn’t have flattered Liverpool.
I am afraid the same boringly repetitious issues keep coming back. The problem is not whoever is unlucky enough to play as lone striker, it is playing a lone striker with the players we have around them. If we had two vibrant, pacy attacking midfielders bursting into the box it might work. But we don’t – we have two one-paced fancy Dans who want run round in circles near the corner flag and waft crosses in to no-one in particular, in the shape of Tadic & Boufal. They are both utterly ineffective most of the time, and especially in the system we play.
We have two good attacking fullbacks and a decent bank of midfielders – the problem is not these players, it is that we set up with an isolated centre-forward without the right sort of players to play around him.
I still think our dogmatic refusal to adapt and our relentless determination to keep playing Tadic (and Boufal) is the route of our problem. I don’t see us coming back from this – the players look broken because they keep doing what they are told and it keeps not working.
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Comment | Time For Accountability At St Mary's
at 15:43:37
I don't think Reed is the problem
I actually don't think not signing players is the problem - we have a decent squad
But I do think the manager is the problem
Somebody summed it up nicely last night - Over-coached, Under-managed
Technically the players are fine - passing in neat triangles, physically fit etc, but nobody knows what they are meant to be doing. Last night they looked like they had met for the first time at 7.30. There was no organisation, no plan A, never mind plan B. He shuffles players in and out, rotates them around midfield, seems to make random selections and substitutions but never seems t learn anything from it.
The squad we have is good enough to stay up, but currently I can't see us winning another game. |
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Comment | Saints V Crystal Palace The Verdict
at 20:18:05
Every time I think it can't get any worse it does. It really is the system and the manager that is the problem. We have a decent squad, but we don't utilise it and we set ourselves up to fail.
Long is not a goal-scoring lone striker, but he is a handful and a great foil for another goal-scorer. Redmond is a decent right-winger, but not a left-winger. Gabbiadini is definitely not a lone striker, and Tadic is not a No10. Good ones are very scarce & he is well below what is required. He is an okay wide-man, though. Not sure what Boufal is, but he is a luxury in our current predicament.
Our full-backs started by attacking but retreated, allowing their wide men into the game. The problem is not the back four – it is our inability to attack meaningfully. We have scored 23 goals in our last 23 home games, 12 of which we failed to score in, and in only 5 have we scored more than once in open play.
Last night the instruction clearly came from the manager to hold onto what we had, when another goal would have killed them off. How many times did one of our attacks end up back at our keeper. It gets the fans on the players backs, it forces them backwards and then Hodgson, like the away manager in our last five home games, sensed blood and made a bold substitution. Not only does Pellegrino not act first, he doesn’t even respond. What was the point in putting Davis on for JWP – it achieved nothing, just another like for like. Going two up front at the end wasn’t a tactical switch, it was headless chicken hoofball desperation.
But he seems incapable of learning. I have heard from two people with youngsters involved in the youth set-up that the ‘template’ of 4-2-3-1 is imposed across the club, which would be fine if it worked, but even the U-23s got relegated playing it! Puel (who I was no fan of last year) is playing 4-4-2 at Leicester and scoring for fun.
I don’t know if it is Reed or Pellegrino or both, but their dogmatic inflexibility is the route of the problem. 4-2-3-1 is fine on occasions, especially away from home, but if the opposition have got to grips with it, there has to be a workable Plan B. Buying yet another forward to leave isolated up front, or another ineffectual twinkletoes like Boufal or Tadic won’t achieve anything if we carry on as we are. It is about tactics and mindset, not players. And you can’t buy that, however much money is in the bank.
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Comment | Saints V Huddersfield Town The Verdict
at 17:39:38
I was finally forced to register to add my comments after yesterday's shambles.
What worries me is that none of last season's issues have been addressed and we have plenty of new ones! I said early in the season we were going to be in a relegation battle and I take no pleasure in being proved right.
In no particular order -
Forster has been found out - certainly by England. We are grateful & forgiving these days if he makes any saves at all, but a 6'7" goalkeeper should be dominating and not staying on his line with crosses inside the penalty spot – is it any coincidence that we concede so many goals from ‘soft’ headers? Defenders aren’t blameless, but if they miss it we have no chance. Compare with their goalie yesterday – even after a kicking from Austin – he came for everything – and that is why we never score from ‘soft’ headers.
Tadic – He is a waste of space, more interested in diving than competing. He’s not a winger, he’s not a striker, he’s not a midfielder. So many times this season I have watched him waft around the middle of the park to zero effect. And yet he keeps getting picked!
Davis – is a decent, if one paced, attacking midfielder. He has never been a holding/defensive midfielder, and we have three decent players who can play there, so why in God’s name does he keep getting picked in that position?
Boufal – has some talent, but he’s not what we need at present.
Redmond – is a decent player, but why pick a right-winger and play him on the left?
In fact, as you start to look at it, more and more the cause of the problem becomes obvious, I’m afraid – it is the manager.
He refuses to change his style, even though it didn’t work last season and still doesn’t now. He keeps trying to shoehorn the above players into the team - ie Tadic & Davis were woeful against Leicester, then he brings them in again. Hjojberg plays well and gets left out. We seem to rotate for the sake of it & it showed yesterday. No cohesion, nobody sure of who was where or doing what and mostly outplayed by a very average team.
We have decent players and the basis of a decent team, but the definition of stupidity is to keep repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome and I don’t think I have ever seen a Saints manager repeating the same unsuccessful actions quite so many times.
I am not normally a fan of sacking the manager, but we look truly clueless at the moment and there is nothing to suggest Pellegrino has any idea how to turn it around.
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