James

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.

Unfortunate but probably the best move we could make. We’ve gotten even worse under him.

Yeah we really ought to be able to judge how it works on 4 minutes of evidence...

You can say that again.

We just aren’t very good anymore.

If calling someone weird isn't an insult then I clearly don't understand the English language and bow to your superior intellect.

I just don't understand the manager's decision making. Gabbiadini - scores in our first three games = dropped. Long - hasn't scored in 18 games = keeps his place. Redmond - consistently crap = automatic starter, Boufal - crap in a game where the whole team were crap = instantly dropped. Change or go for me, this guy is Puel MKII.

You realise that saying its meaningless (i.e. likely won't affect the result as we won't score) isn't the same as saying he'd have preferred he let it in right? Some people need to learn to read posts before dishing out the insults.

FF saves! Unbelievable.

Another loss as no way we'll score here.

So having a different opinion is being a t*at? Got it. For what it’s worth, your assertion that he had no service is wrong. He missed a header in the second half which went miles off target (quelle surprise) and there was one moment that sticks in my mind when Cedric got he ball over and Long was nowhere near it as he hadn’t anticipated it. Had Austin or Gabbi been on then it’s one one. Bluster and call names all you want, it won’t turn Long into a better striker. There’s a reason he rarely gets over ten goals a season, it’s because he can’t finish and doesn’t have a goal scorers instinct. You strike me as the kind of fan that just loves players who run around a lot and get “stuck in”. Long has that in spades but goals win games and in a lone striker system you need a reliable player who can actually score. Long isn’t that man unfortunately. If we want a front man who runs around, wins a few headers and wins the ball back then we may as well play Yoshida or Van Dijk up front. There’s a case for Long being on the pitch (hence the earlier comment that, if he were a midfielder, it would have been a decent performance) but in a team that struggles for goals you can’t have a non scoring striker as your main man, no matter how good they are at “hassling”.

Yet he never looked like actually putting the ball in the back of the net which is the primary job of a lone striker. He’s pretty “pony” at the job he’s primarily paid to do, scoring goals.

I remember going to OT in 1999 and the same thing happened. Didn’t delay kick off and we arrived at half time.

Dripping Gabbi just shows me that MP has fundamentally misunderstood why we are struggling to score. If it works, hats off but I bet it won't.

Absolute madness. Replacing Gabbi with a striker even less likely to score when we can't score is just ridiculous.