James

Exactly. If MP is so worried about our defence then why not stick with it?

Redmond, Boufal and Tadic in the same team will be interesting. More attacking for sure but can see us getting bullied by a hard working Burnley.

Odd to chop out Hoedt again. Don’t really understand that.

Agreed. My old man called his major weakness in his very first start for us away at Liverpool when he was slow out/down to that one on one against Sturridge. Not a mistake by any stretch but immediately illustrated his limitations.

Makes his appointment all the more bizarre. Wasn’t exactly raining goats at Alaves last year was it? Reed has a lot to answer for I think. Looking for the next Poch, a man he might not even have unearthed in the first place.

How are you supposed to score doing that? Ridiculous. Seems odd that we sacked Puel because he wouldn’t employ a more attacking style only to employ another dullard defensive manager. Whatever happens I can’t see MP lasting more than a season unless he changes things.

I agree he will do well at Leicester (and I also wanted him gone last summer) but they've got a decent squad of decisive attacking players. Puel played to our strengths which was to keep us tight and try and nick a goal. When we did create chances our woeful strikers contrived to miss them unless Austin or Gabbi were playing. On Pellegrino, it doesn't seem to me like he actually knows what he is doing. Looks a terrible appointment at present.

I normally agree with a lot of what Pamplemousse says. Fair play, in hindsight, Puel was a better manager than I thought and I'd swap him for MP given the choice but "World Class"... no way in hell.

NC may not have signed those players, but neither did Reed.

It's classic MLG - correcting people for the sake of it. Boring.

Yes, MLG I'm comfortable with my grasp of the English language. Thanks for clarifying though. Much appreciated.

How on earth do you know that? He's been long term injured and hasn't been given any game time in the league at all. He was fine in his sole appearance at home to Sunderland where we kept a clean sheet. Forster has been awful for the best part of a season and a half so to say McCarthy will be worse with absolutely no evidence to the contrary is complete "pony".

Wasn't good today. Bar the relatively fortunate penalty I can't remember him touching the ball in the second half. We must be the only team that isn't willing to give our top scorer from last season any kind of chance to show what he can do. He must have spent a fifth of the time Long has on the pitch this year and has already scored.

Absolutely but at least when Poch left we appointed a big name manager who was well respected and used his influence to help us acquire players of a significantly higher quality than we've recruited recently. We could have kicked on from our strongest ever position by appointing a high profile replacement for RK but unfortunately, to the watching world, we lost our most successful manager to a team that finished below us by some distance and then subsequently to appoint a manager that almost noone had heard of and who the players (allegedly) took an almost instant dislike to. Given some of the managers on the market during the summer of 2016 we clearly made the wrong choice and its looking like we've done it again with MP. Reed should, IMO, stop looking for the next Poch and appoint the best man for the job. I'd like to speak to someone at the club to work out how it was concluded that, following an "extensive" interview process it was determined that MP was the right man for the job. His record at Alaves for example didn't exactly scream that he'd sort out our goal scoring issues and he's only served to make us worse defensively.

The fundamental difference is that Man City actually pass it forwards, with accuracy, to their more clinical forwards. All we do is pass it backwards or sideways in front of the opposition which just creates slow, predictable and ultimately defendable build up. We keep possession for the sake of it, Man City actually make use of theirs.

If Yoshida had been at fault in the same way as Virgil then he would get absolutely slaughtered. It was, for me, Virgil's worst performance in a Saints shirt by some distance. Rusty he may be but, when you've acted like he has, it won't help his cause with the fans. His attitude and demeanour on the pitch just scream of a half arsed effort. Quite what Hoedt has done to be benched or Stephens has done to be dropped from the squad I really don't know as, at the moment, selecting Virgil is doing nothing for us. He's been at fault for 2 goals today and gave away a penalty last week. As I say, if Yoshida had done the equivalent he would have been absolutely destroyed on here.

This is completely right. Carry on as we are and we will be in the relegation scrap for certain. We still can't really score (individual brilliance from Gabbi and lucky penalties won't happen every week) and we are conceding stupid goals against teams that have awful attacks (here's looking at you Newcastle and Stoke). Feels very 2004/5 to me. Not foot stamping to see that it is not and will not work with MP. Get rid or its a struggle to survive for me.

This. He was absolute awful from where I was sat - wasn't even arguable that his mistakes led to both goals (although both would have been prevented by even a reasonable goalkeeper). That attempted clearance for the first goal was utterly pathetic from a player who, as with most of our first team, thinks he is considerably better than he is.

Pellegrino is completely out of his depth here IMO. How on earth was he deemed the most suitable candidate to replace Puel? Reed needs to go as well, he's let the Pochettino appointment go to his head and is now looking for the next one. Our downward spiral started when we employed Puel at the expense of a host of better options when we had just finished sixth and were in the Europa group stage. Although I'm convinced we will go nowhere with Pellegrino I'm not even sure who we could get to improve things. The point today was earned by the individual skill of Gabbiadini rather than anything MP did to influence proceedings. It's alarming how much worse we look with him over Puel.

Possibly, but he is still significantly better than Forster.

Virgil was solid? He was pathetic. The attempted "clearance" for the first goal just screamed of a half arsed effort and he completely lost his man for the second. No matter how he played, he cost us two goals. Forster was also awful - especially for the second but Virgil was garbage.

I completely agree that Reed has dropped a b*llock (will probably get told off for criticising him) but MP has to make the best of the squad he has available. We’ve got goalscorers sitting on the bench and a man that now hasn’t scored in 19 games as the one up front. It’s poor management, plain and simple.

We didn’t been Huddersfield, we didn’t beat Swansea, we didn’t beat Watford and we didn’t beat Stoke...all teams I’d hope to be better than.

Will probably swap one of them for Ward Prowse which will make no difference. Where is the tactically astute, forward thinking manager we were lauded for appointing by people like Balague? Making Puel look good here.

Gone backwards under MP. Very worrying as we just don’t look threatening at all. A freak finish from Yoshi doesn’t mask our constant lack of goals. Poor performance and, given the penalty miss, we really were well beaten. Hoping we can scrape to 40 this year as I see absolutely no reason to hope for anything more than that. Sad to see just how far we’ve regressed.