Holmes_and_Watson

Selles: Speculating too much... not good enough from all of us...JWP had a bad night, some chest issues... harder and harder...keep fighting...have to recover quick...show we can be more constant... Couldn't say anything remotely positive. And he'd have been slated for it, if he had. And that's how a lot of losses with these tactics looks. When you set up not to attack, dominate or push your opponents, defeats make us look as though we've never tried, had no energy, and miles away form getting goals.

The commentators did not shy away from pointing out what we've been seeing for such a long, long time. Yet the coaching staff will go away, and crunch the numbers on how we just managed to lose by such a narrow margin. Oh, if only we could be better defensively, they'll think. Utterly, utterly clueless. The worrying thing is that the people making the appointments might buy into this for next season. When they have tried something different, they gave us Nathan Jones. Their data cound't see what we were all seeing, when Ralph's tactic got found out. They thought it was just a matter of tightening that defence, and they could unleash their genius recruitment plan. Their research, despite months long, completely failed to spot all the evidence from Stoke that Jones couldn't handle players at a higher level. If anything, his failure endeared him to Ankerson. When failing to bring in another coach, they gave up the rest of our season to the guy who had been part of the coaching team of the previous failures. While he didn't come in with Jones, he was very involved in those Ralph's tactics that doomed us to those narrow 1-0 defeats as we're seeing now. Benali: "I feel sick. My stomach is churning." I don't blame him. It's clear that depsite all that money spent we have players who are not Premier League quality in that side. Those that are of that standard are shadows of their potential under coaches like this. There's no reason why we can't regroup and do well next season. We do have some of a team in there. A new manager is a must. It must be someone capacle of insisting on what needs cleared out, and that has to be followed. If that's the rest of the coaching staff, then fine. We're going to be losing players for all sorts of reasons. A clear plan, and not one based on Sports Republic spreadsheet, to squad management is a must. I don't trust those in charge to get it right, and can only hope they are involved in none of the decision making going forward. They should have someone strong enough to pont out the numerous flaws in their recruitment policies, if we're to get the key missing players that we will need to bring in to get out of the Championship. Benali mentioning that we've conceded goals. That's despite setting up to not concede goals. Defensively minded coach, Selles' work. Benali then says if you're conceding, you have to be scoring. Except that we've abandoned that coherently, due to that defensive set up. It's not the narrowness of the defeats, Sports Republic. It's that setting up to sneak a goal is doomed to failure with us. But we've never learned to change it. Inflexible and useless.

And that's why we're so much more tactically astute thatn they are. Our relegation was built on a solid foundation of tepid, narrow 1-0 defeats. 🙂

oh noes.... his toe is offside...

Yeeeeees!!!!!!!! Stu and Che!!!!!!!!

AMN is never going to able to delvier in a cross. Some good movement, but nothing. Then a passback from him, rather than the clear forward one. He's not been alone with that. No physical threat with no Big Paul either.

2 chances to get a ball in. Both utterly wasted. Mainly Lyanco. Just not capable of getting even basics right.

AMN never looked like getting the ball in there. Just so poor in everything.

"Saints showing more life." Only a little. Bournemouth have changed tactics, fairly happy that we look a bit clueless in the final third. Alcaraz may be getting a card for being gravitationally challenged.

The worry there is that we've been watching them that long, that we'd all miss. 🙂

Well, worse than normal SellesBall, is SellesBall without JWP on the park. changes being made. Adams putting a brave face on that injury that prevented him from starting (that culdn;t have been tactical surely. 🙂 ). Still time, still hope. But seen not a thing since very early see anything coming.

Disapointed in Sutton. His old school "This is a game Southampton have to win" fails to take into account the subtle tactical, counter attacking, nuances of SeelesBall. In his dinosaur world he'd have an attacking team, dictating play, getting the crowd onside, creating chances and retaining a place in the Premier League. I shall be sending a letter of complaint in. 🙂

And there we go. The massive, fatal flaw in SellesBall. Inviting pressure, in the hope that not only do all their team fall short of xG, but that the ball falls kindly enough for us to run up the park with it. And yet again, inviting pressure just means we concede. But we never , ever learn.

Now that's a brave substitution. I could only imagine a JWP penalty or freekick. Injury? Maybe he got told it would be SeelesBall for the second half and he finally snapped. "He's not feeling very well". So some idiot showed him the highlights reel for our season. That makes us all ill.

You mean as a manager, or just to take away to live with them, away from football? 🙂

That was SellesBall at work. Look to make sure we don't concede, although in doing so give them a fair number of shooting opportunities, and hope that they don;t come off from the positions we're trying to get them to shoot from. Make sure not to have strikers like Big Paul or Adams start to keep it that bit tighter. Try to catch them by surprise, even though our players look just as suprised to be pushing forward, resulting in disjointed attacks and no prolonged preiods of momentum. Same as usual, and much like RalphBall after it got found out, I'll be glad to see the back of it once the season is done. A miserable watch every time. Still, we've got a chance of getting that goal. Not quite sure how, but possible.

Shame none of all those notes said "front footed" or "aggressive". we'd look more of a threat. 🙂

It can't be that bad. Or am I just numb to it now? No, it can't be as bad as that was.

Lucky that Alcaraz pass was deflected. it was zooming past everyone.

Perraud off, but the bench have confirmed everyone's after game takeaway choices with notes. That's the level of detailed planning our coacing staff bring. 🙂

The Fish in the Box, just doesn;t have the same ring to it. 🙂 Perhaps the note that went on to him said "shape up or you've had dock."

Ball passed back for a deep cross into the box... passed sideways...passed back and straight out of play... This moment of despair was brought to you by Southampton FC. 🙂

It's why we're so much cleverer than all the other clubs in everything we do. 🙂

spoil sport 🙂 My next thought was, but it ended up liek it always does. 🙂

AA going up the gears ahead of recapturing his Blackburn form for next years' Championship. Corner.