Bit of a plonker

What really gets to me with Saints is that the opposition are beating us at 80% effort, we are so easy to play against. Without the ball we don’t tackle, hustle, close down space. With the ball, we are sideways and backwards then hope a winger will beat a man to put a cross onto a midget forwards head. Ipswich didn’t need to break sweat to beat us. That should never happen

My first game of the season and went with an Ipswich fan. My thoughts, make THB captain, he was the only one who looked like he was trying to organise anything. Play Charles in midfield, where he is meant to be. Try to play forward and get behind teams, we didn’t manage that once all night. Put some fucking tackles in… nothing I hate more than watching average teams take the piss out of us without actually having to do anything. My mates thoughts, he never felt nervous once that we were going to get back into it. Heads dropped as soon as the goal went in.

Didn’t we loan Cedric to Arsenal until the end of his contract or am I not remembering correctly?

I don’t know about Ryan Fraser but the levels of Dad’s Army “We’re Doomed” Fraser on here is nuts!! We have 7 points, are unbeaten in the league, have shifted a large part of a bloated squad, got great values for those that have left and appear to be treading a path that other successful Championship teams have used (Forest promotion, Burnley promotion, Sheff Utd promotion) experience coming in (“when will we learn from only signing unproven kids”). I am excited for the season ahead, winning matches, playing better football and being competitive. Bring it on.

N'Lundulu impressed me last night, never seen him play before. His hold up play was strong and the way he made and took his goal was very impressive. Also gets involved and is not bullied, think he has a lot of potential. Reminds me of Tammy Abraham. FGR is my local club, quite often go there, really nice club.

One of my all too rare visits and the most enjoyable for a long time. Northam was fantastic, voice was hoarse next day. Hats off to all you regular in there, fantastic effort. Redmond always dangerous, Sims a bit iffy for me, can be exciting and direct, can be a bit too easily knocked off the ball, although Boly is a bit of a beast in comparison to him. Ings looked a bit off the pace for me, but he is clearly got great awareness, brings others in, great assist for Redmond's second. Thought Long came on at right time and was threatening, and looked the player you would want Long to be. Also Romeu played well and steadied us down and bought control. Those substitutions changed course of the game. Wish we could cut out the tendency to play ourselves into trouble, and first half especially, Wolves played brilliant one touch football to get in behind Valery and to the side of Bednarek - they should have scored more from that as we were all over the place at that time. Hojberg could become my favourite player, if I am allowed one at my age! Hassenhutl, what a manager! Everything that we need in a manager, tactically aware, improves players, trusts youth and passionate. If he was manager somewhere else, he would get right on my tits, much like Klopp does. But for us, perfect.

What are you expecting him to say? You cut out the massive amounts of bull**** and drivel, then he is effectively saying that they are not happy with results, they need to change things, first change made, review going on, we need people who understand football. He even said that they can act (buy) in January if they need to (obviously it took a few more paragraphs, but it was hidden in there). However, if he is setting direction, it is easy to see how people could get lost following it.

Really positive, been obvious for quite a while that the club has lost its mojo, and hopefully this is the first step in finding it again. Sets a tone throughout that we are not going to accept mediocrity and that there should be consequences for not meeting the levels that individuals need to attain.

A successful organisation has a single strategy that is the focus of the whole organisation, not applied differently at different levels. That strategy is set by the leadership, and I would assume in our case, ownership. The strategy that we had, that Les called "The Southampton Way", was successful for a period of time, from League 1 up until 2 years ago. And I know Les was not here all that time. But during and since that take over, and I suspect in the build up to that, when Kat decided she wanted to sell, it has gone, leaving us with a ridiculous looking hashtag, along with WeMarchOn. March On we do, but not to a place that we would want to march on to. If we carry on at this rate, next season we can look forward to a day marching on to Portsmouth.

I genuinely believe football would be better if the Top 6 all fooked off into a European Super League orgasmafest. In terms of players, there would be no difference, except more will have he chance to compete for medals, which should (I know) motivate them. All of the rest of us teams will still have our players poached, they will all still want to leave if a bigger club comes calling offering mega money, but for those of us left, we will have the chance to compete. There would also be some great teams to come up from the Championship who would add real value and competition to a competitive top league. I don't really see a downside.

But I think this highlights what is wrong inside the club. Looking at those players, Elyonoussi (highly rated, good champions league experience), Armstrong, Lemina, Boufal, Gabbiadini, Redmond, Hojberg, all have talent and all have the ability to play at no worse than mid table premier league level, and should be better than scraping for survival. Add Ings into that. You have 8 outfield players who should form the nucleus of a decent attacking squad which can compete better than we are. Is Elyonoussi worse than David Brooks or Ryan Fraser? Lemina and Hojberg worse than the central midfield at Brighton or Burnley? Would Ings get a game at Watford or Palace? Obviously, something is happening, under a succession of managers, which is meaning that is not happening. Something larger is wrong at the club. I think it is mentality. I had thought it had started with Puel, who changed the way we played and we became dour, boring and negative, and was obviously continued by the muppet last year. But it must go deeper than that.

If going for a bit of Iron Maiden, got to be Phantom of the Opera. Left field, Don't let me down gently by the Wonder Stuff

I went to the game. He started brightly for first 20 mins or so, but I was generally disappointed in his performance, especially against a really poor Hull team. He didn't really beat anyone or get any decent delivery into the box, and kind of drifted. But at least he did get game time, and judging by the comments by the Reading fans around, he seems to be a bit of a favourite there in general.

All of the new signings showed real promise for us, especially Vestergaard who was very assured. Lemina looked good, he plays a bit more on the edge to try to make things happen, but that does mean he will make mistakes. Stephens is not good enough for RB cover, he was a fish out of water when he was high up the pitch wide right. Ings looked like he loved being on the pitch. I hope he scores goals, because the rest of his play was very bright and he could prove to be a bargain. Need Yoshi back into defence. Not convinced by McCarthy. He made 1 good save, from lennon I think it was in teh first half, but the rest were pretty standard saves, the type you would expect him to make. Thought his distribution put us in trouble on more than one occasion. Glad we have good competition in goal.

If he scores 10-15 goals this season, will look like a tremendous piece of business by us. His purchase price will look as cheap as chips.