verlaine1979

Isn't the heart of the issue that we promote ourselves as having an incredible, technically advanced scouting department, and yet rather than unearthing a Vardy or Arnautovic or some unknown who would represent great value for money, we ended up overpaying for a journeyman of limited talent? It's not that Long himself is a problem player (surely everyone knew exactly what he is capable of, and his contribution will have surprised no one), but that his signing undermines everyone's belief that the 'black box' is anything other than the same old collection of scouts in a room with more tv screens.

I assumed he was talking about Yoshida's weak clearing header that went straight to (I think) Cabaye to start the Palace move.

Both Zaha and Bolasie looked several cuts above our attackers today in their ability to take on opponents and open up space.

Yup, leaving aside the question of whether you really want your central creative player's most visible skill to be defensive harrying, there were plenty of instances last season (particularly from December on) when SD was a positive liability both in surrendering possession and marking the opposition.

Campbell has been great for Arsenal tonight.

Davis has made or scored 17 goals playing 8308 minutes, equalling a contribution every 488.7 minutes. Over the same period JWP has made or scored 13 (mostly made, natch) in 4365 minutes of football, equalling a contribution every 335.8 minutes. For comparison, over the same four seasons, Shelvey's average is a contribution every 268 minutes (and a lot more goals scored) and I don't think anyone would claim that he's a particularly coveted attacking midfielder.

Nah, he's still not good enough. His two goal flurry still makes his average over the last season and a half something like a goal every 25 games, which is rubbish for an attacking midfielder. He also doesn't create much, and we need someone better than either Davis or JWP if we're to get out of our attacking rut.

Was brilliant last season, with and without MS. This season his defensive work is still good, but his passing has gone back to where it was during his first season. It seems like he really needs to be settled and to concentrate, otherwise his passing gets wayward. On his day though (and with a ref who doesn't constantly penalize him just for being bigger and stronger than his opponent) VW can dominate a midfield like very few others in his position.

Like his set pieces - gets great pace and trajectory on the dead ball most of the time. With a moving ball it's a different story, as he rarely seems to make a clean connection whether passing or shooting. Watching him yesterday he almost seemed to want to stop moving before making a pass so he could orient his hips the way he does when lining up a free kick. He's currently got absolutely no acceleration either - no idea about his top speed, but in chases for the ball yesterday he invariably lost by some distance each time. Like I said, I really do think he has great technique from set pieces, but in open play, he looks like a smart kid who has read lots of books about being a top class footballer, and is trying to do an impression based on what he's read.

Lukaku, Costa and Benteke are all quick as well as strong, which was the dichotomy I set up. Of course, it's better to be both, but really the question is, if you can't have both, which seems to be the preferred option elsewhere?

Aside from Pelle and Gestede today, which other teams in the PL regularly play 4-2-3-1 or other single-striker formations with a slower target man rather than a quicker, less physical centre forward? Giroud probably fits the bill, but I'm not sure who else.

Pretty dire. Good chances in the first 15 minutes, but more the result of Villa sloppiness than any particularly incisive play on our part. Davis was indeed probably our best player second half, but lets not kid ourselves - if busyness and a couple of decent forward passes that don't lead anywhere are our idea of 'outstanding' then the rest of the season promises some pretty dull games. JWP was abject, moving without pace and passing without conviction - very strange technique, he seems to stop running every time he passes the ball as if setting himself for a free-kick, but still scuffs half his passes. I like Pelle and think he's a technically sound player, but I'm starting to hate the fact that the entire team is set up to serve him. Could Mane ever play as a central striker the way Sturridge does for Liverpool when fit? Greater mobility and fluidity across the front line would surely give the opposition more problems than this tactical dead-end we've blundered down.

We've had chances, but most of them feel gifted rather than created. Finishing is characteristically awful, but more depressing is the fact that we're just so f-ing dull to watch. Watched the Stoke/City game earlier, and saw Stoke play attacking football more intricate and inventive than anything we've managed all season.

According to Squawka, JWP and Davis have attempted to 'take on' opponents a total of 10 times all season. I'm pretty sure Arnautovic, Shaqiri and Bojan have all just exceeded that total in the first half against City.

This is on the money - most of our play is in front of the opposition. Even out wide, Tadic and Mane are usually faced up against their fullbacks rather than played in behind (I think it was early first half against Liverpool that one of the commentators said something along the lines of 'look, Tadic does this every time, he goes outside, cuts back in, goes back out then crosses'). The problem is, playing between the lines usually requires someone to beat/evade their opposite number to open up the space between. We almost never do this - as an example, Davis has only attempted to 'take on' an opponent 6 times in 14 appearances (13 starts) according to Squawka, while JWP has only tried it 4 times. By way of comparison, even a distinctly average attacking midfielder like Shelvey has attempted to beat his man 23 times over the same period, while genuinely talented #10 like Payet is streets ahead with 45 attempts. You could argue that this makes us a slightly sturdier team that either of those two, but I'm not sure we're sturdy enough these days to make up for our lack of attacking threat.

Oh, I meant Davis. Tadic can be brilliant or rubbish, which I prefer to being mediocre or rubbish. Not that JWP has put in many performances that argue he should be ahead of SD. We just don't have any real attacking quality in central midfield.

Clasie is, and has been played as a DM in all his recent starts. Where did this idea that we haven't been using two DMs lately come from?

Well, my negative opinion of one particular member of the midfield is pretty well known...

We've haven't been an especially potent attacking team for a couple of years now, but we definitely seem to be getting more set in our ways as this season progresses. Most spells of possession either end with a long pass looking for Pelle, or a slow shuffling of the ball out wide looking for an overlapping fullback. Tadic occasionally swaps wings, and Davis does that thing everyone loves where he pops the ball five yard to someone with no appreciable chance of influencing the game, but aside from Mane our support around Pelle is static and disengaged. Another problem is that no one apart from Mane has any desire (or possibly ability) to actually move with the ball, and his ability to create overloads and stretch play is generally limited by the fact that he generally receives possession in the final third. Both fullbacks will run, but only if there is an open channel, while Wanyama, Davis & whoever plays as third midfielder almost never risk going past their opponent. We've become slow and predictable, and recent contemptuous away performances by Stoke and Liverpool suggest that other teams have started to notice.

We're a team that converts possession into crosses rather than chances.

Maybe the specific branding was Cortese's, but I'm pretty sure Reed and Kruger are still talking about a unified style of football across all age groups, a first team heavily reliant on academy graduates and the idea that the manager is always subordinate to the identity of the club. Ultimately, whether the club are actually practicing what they preach is immaterial here - the public perception is that we are a 'project' club, and our manager has just come out in public and said he isn't a 'project' manager. Maybe it was heat of the moment and he didn't really mean it, but compared to the 'spend more' stuff you hear from every coach this time of year, I still think the 'project' stuff is a much bigger warning shot.

Of all the comments he makes, that strikes me as the one most pointedly aimed at the hierarchy of the club. With its lofty goals, academy graduation targets, five years plans and so on, what is 'the Southampton Way' if not a project?

Their best players are better than our best players, and their mediocre players are as good if not better than our mediocre players. The only area of our respective best XIs where we're better is that our weak links are probably less of a liability than theirs.

JWP definitely has decent technique, and I do think that the pace and trajectory of his free kicks are very good compared to both Tadic and Davis. However, at the moment he is completely lacking in the confidence-verging-on-arrogance that separates good players from mediocre. I wonder if this is basically the down-side of his boy-scout reputation - sure, he gets fewer negative headlines that the likes of Grealish and Barkley, but he also never seems to exhibit any of their will to impose themselves on the game. To actually utilise technique and vision, you need to believe that there's no one else more capable than you of making a difference - until he decides that that's the case, he'll continue to play safe passes, handing over responsibility to others.

Yup, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that neither of them are capable of putting in dominant attacking CM performances. They are both just conservative, ball-preserving midfielders, with Davis' better physicality and tenacity giving him the starting edge over JWP's superior dead balls most of the time. In recent weeks Clasie has shown signs that he might be capable of playing incisive passes from a central position, but until he recovered from his injury, the middle of the park was pretty much a creative wasteland.