The Southampton Way is the Problem not the Players/Coach - Discuss

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I think you are right. All managers are living on a knife edge. Some of them play safety first (even Jose when he plays the top clubs). It is time to try something different. Austin is a proven goalscorer at this level. Set the team up to give him the ammo and go for it. Better to go down fighting.

I was lucky the Murphy’s had arrived and was in no fit state to watch listen to the match

Woke up and we had lost 1 nil to Burnley at home.

I-nil defeat by Burnley

Brighton are now above us in the league

I am normally the happy clappy yes we will win this week.

But this cannnot go on

How many shots on goal did we have at home and how many on target?

Just sack the entire first team and put the kids in at least they seem to try and win a game.

We’re one big shop window, what is the fucking point of that? Fuck the stepping stone and academy bollocks, yes it pure and innocent but others couldn’t give a fuck for the development of players and the national side so why the fuck should we? Why should we be a kindergarten for the big clubs cling on fanbase cunts? Why should we feed the parasites that only want to be in Europe anyway? Fuck that, just buy 25-28 year olds who can scrap, play a bit and have little sell on value, that way they’re here an they ain’t going anywhere and will want a crack at success as they know it their chance to do so, our shower can not be arsed they seriuosly can not be fucked so why should the fans?

That said anyone booing Forster was a cunt, he is shit yes but he also probably knows that at the moment, boo the team, the club, the Chinese owners but not one bloke.

Haha I dare not look on Sweb.

I did that from behind the sofa earier. There was actually a VERY good post about the state of the EPL this season where everyone outside the top 6 is playing boring shit. I was SO shocked I almost replied.

Then sanity returned

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For some people it’s time to stop looking down on ‘little Burnley’ and to have a reality check.

They are a better side than us.

As were Watford who outplayed us in every department.

We are in a division of about ten ordinary sides battling for 7th-17th…and below.

We’re not the worst team in the league but on our day we can do a very good impression of a side that gets sucked into a relegation battle despite the individual components of the side being good enough for top ten.

Arses need kicking - we just need someone capable of connecting wth them.

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_If we don’t come back from the break with some sort of direction then we are going to be hovering above the rubber pants zone. We have the basis of a team. In comparison to those around us we have some players and they have teams. Nothing will change until that does. Unfortunately I don’t think that will happen until some of our On Paper best players do one. It’s starting to look a little like the crap year in transition that all teams go through. _

MP needs a kick up the butt. His statement that the results will come just doesnt wash unless he makes changes. We have seen situations before where we know that things will improve because all the components are there, and they do. No one can see anything good coming out of plugging away as we are except MP. I dont think we have a bad squad and have the players to take us higher, but it isnt happening for us and that needs to change. MP has the international break to rethink his approach and then until Christmas to kick this squad into shape. If he doesnt we are in for a very grim second half of the season and he may well find himself hanging out with De Boer, Koeman, Bilic and Shakespeare.

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While we are on this, when the club is doing well we do all March Together and all that As One shit, but free clappers is no way to hide the fact that we are struggling.

Nor are PR statements about the players fighting for the shirt and feeling better about the next game.

So, the dressing room needs to cut the shit and do some talking on the frigging pitch.

Until then, let’s not bother with photos of players happily smiling in training or _‘here’s a video of Tadic hitting a worldie past the goalkeeping coach’, _when he looks clueless every weekend.

Get some results, then I’m happy to hear what the players have to say - but even then I have zero interest in seeing Redmond doing keepy-uppy on a Wednesday.

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Ok from this BBC article about expected goals we can see a couple of things

Forster is not the worst 5 keepers, nor is he in the top 5 keepers.

Saints are not in the top or bottom 5 of the other stats.

Pope, the Burnley keeper, is apparently the best keeper his goals scored against v expected goals is the best in the Premier League.

You’re right there SOGs. … the thing that gets me down as much as the results is his reaction to them in the pre/post match pressers.

He seems oblivious to our problems on the pitch and the ‘calm demeanor’ he’s trying to portray, comes across as ‘bewilderment’ to me. He’s starting to develop that haunted ‘Lovren’ look about him

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Wow just in for a visit on footie related stuff. What has happened to everyone? I hope the bed wetting has spread to the board so we get something changed. Didnt MoPo come in during this equivilent international break?

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Well. Seems Claude proved a point last night.

Not going to gloat or ram this back at everyone, but for me personally, last night simplied gave more weight to my argument that Puel then MoPe have to an extent had their hands tied by how we want to play football rather than playing the football to get results.

Obviously Citeh and Arsenal showed I could well have been very wrong but after some success we switched back to the old formation, so not seen the answer to WHY? yet.

Thank fook won’t be watching the next few games #holidays

Lightweight. :lou_wink_2:

As for last night meh…I’ve seen worse against Leicester. I was in the Archers watching Saints vs The Foxes in the pouring rain when Shilton scored in a 1 - 5 defeat. It was the last time I left the game early…and missed Big Ron score our only goal. :lou_sad:

The worst hammering I witnessed was many years ago at a very wet Valley when Charlton hammered us 6-2. We had the likes of McDougall and Channon playing. It was end to end stuff and could easily have finished 8-8 but they took their chances and we didnt. An old school friend was playing centre half for Charlton that day, Les Berry. We got our revenge at The Dell though beating them 3-1. Getting stuffed by several goals at home always sucks more though.

Not sure it was the “Southampton Way” or MoPe that was at fault last night. It was a pefect storm of 10 outfield players all deciding to have an off day.

Ironically that team is what lots of people have been crying out for. Possibly our strongest back 4. Romeu and Lemina. No redmond. No JWP. and austin up front.

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I was thinking the same thing. Having just read the meltdown on TSW it occurred to me that the same people throwing their dummies out of their collective prams have been screaming for Lemina to play, for Redmond and JWP to be dropped and for Charlie to start. When I looked at the line up before the match I thought it looked strong. Trouble is, as you say, they didnt turn up.

Seeing as Twitter and Fiverweb are currently torn between meltdown and cheering from the rafters, perhaps it is time to have a solid debate about this again.

This is pretty much the key statement from the series of Krueger interviews yesterday. I’ll follow that with some thoughts

The club’s transfer strategy will almost certainly also form part of those talks and, after attempting to keep Virgil van Dijk last season before eventually selling him in the January, Krueger wants Southampton to again prioritise squad unity in their decisions this summer.

“We consolidated our squad last summer, we didn’t sell anyone we didn’t want to sell for the first time,” said Krueger. “Retrospectively we gave up our Southampton way of building a team. We stopped the pathway through to the big teams, did things out of character.

“For a club like Southampton, everything begins with a group of players who really want to be here. Let’s get back to that. We should also have been quicker in our response to all the [early season] draws. I don’t think we felt the desperation enough.

“I take responsibility for how, as a board, we thought Southampton really needed to consolidate to go to the next level. It wasn’t. An overambitious club stumbled on its own ambitious and needed a regroup and a reboot.”

Krueger, then, is repeatedly adamant that it would be unfair to simply blame Pellegrino or indeed Puel for the slide but did feel that it became hard to identify any consistency in selection during almost two years between Ronald Koeman and Hughes.

There is no comparable situation to Van Dijk looming over the club this summer but their two full-backs, Ryan Bertrand and Cedric, have respectively attracted interest from Manchester City and Barcelona. Both still have two years remaining on their contracts and, should big offers come in, it is clear that Southampton will open their ears and not again want team spirit to be threatened.

The future of executive director Les Reed is also likely to depend on talks with the club’s new majority owners, the Chinese Gao family, about his ongoing control over the football operations.

So far, the Gaos have had complete faith in the existing executive team to drive the club’s direction and transfer strategy. Krueger sits on both the football and ownership boards and is confident that they will emerge stronger for going so close to relegation.

“Les Reed and Ross Wilson [the recruitment chief] are excellent leaders in our football department,” he said. “We have to see the bigger picture – we don’t need a wholesale change here. We need to take a few percentage points, fix those and we can surge back up. That’s our reality.

“On average we were the best of the rest for four years. Where we would like to be is sat in that range and, once in a while, p*** off the big boys. We want to get back to that again.

“Our metal has been tested. Either we were going to break apart or we were going to come together and fight for the cause.

“The first feeling is relief but I’m very proud of how we came together in the final stretch and I mean everybody who cared about Southampton FC. You felt this unbelievable hunger to stay in the Premier League.”