coalman

Martin laid the groundwork for the rotten culture we have now. This didn't happen overnight. He recruited his mates and bent over backwards to make them happy. He kept hiding behind bad luck. Those same players are the ones infecting those around them now with their sense of entitled mediocrity. I remember THB coming out last season to say how Martin's system was working and the fans couldn't see because they didn't understand football. Armstrong is a lost cause for me. He came out after Boro and claimed we just needed a bit more luck. A captain stood mutely after each goal, hands on hips like a fucking teapot.

We really were lucky to have him. When I look at our current squad I have to think that Ralph left to his own devices would be doing significantly better than the current succession of puppets.

He inherited all of those players didn't he? And had to manage the team around getting some kind of tune out of them while offloading them. Despite that handicap we held our own in the Premier League.

An underrated feature of Ralph's tenure was how he managed to clear out a lot of the dross from the squad. SR have undone all his good work.

They practice defending crosses against Adam Armstrong, Damien Downs and Cameron Archer. Two of whom don't score headers.

The trouble with self proclaimed geniuses is their "genius" doesn't leave space for other people to be brilliant. Which is great until they get to a position of authority.

Or he came to Southampton with a chip on his shoulder that he didn't get the credit he deserved or because they weren't listening to his ideas.

I think he's brought in Rasmus and co because he knows he doesn't understand football. He's backed them financially. He's continued backing them despite last season. And, you can argue that's a good thing as, we did get promoted back up and he has trusted them to fix their mistakes. Which you want to an extent. The problem becomes one of being ruthless versus the sunk cost fallacy. At a certain point you'd have to think you've spent enough on players and changed managers enough that maybe the problem lies elsewhere. But then, Tonda genuinely seemed to be happy with our football in the first half. And I seriously doubt Mr Football's board updates bear much resemblance to reality. Solak will be hampered by the people he trusted to run this for him sharing selectively. Without another line of information he's going to reliant on those that are the problem. Which is the problem with being rich and going into a business you know nothing about with people who talk a good game. Or so they tell me.

“Not good enough,” Armstrong reflected. “I’ve touched on it before in a few interviews; first half we have to punish. “That’s where we’re at; we need a bit of luck on our side at the minute and we have to go in front early doors. When you don’t do that in this league, you get punished. “Second half was just flat. We didn’t come out going for them or anything, and then it’s a sloppy goal for the first one – a lack of communication, switching off, and their guy gets a free hit at goal. The way we reacted to that wasn’t good enough all over the pitch, myself included. “It’s a tough one to take because we’ve had a lot of games come up recently, we’ve taken every game to the best of our ability to go and put it on to the pitch, but today we weren’t good enough. We have to go again.” I see Armstrong is also pushing the not good enough after we conceded nonsense. A classic example of the Saints mindset right now. Pretend to take responsibility while bemoaning bad luck like we were on top in the first half rather than under self indicted siege. What does doing better look like Adam? It sounds like you're saying it wasn't good enough but we were unlucky and did our best. Make your mind up. Also, saying you have to score first is just bollocks. You deal with what happens rather than shrugging and downing tools because something doesn't go your way. If you were captain why didn't you try, you know, captaining? The armband isn't just there to keep your fucking arm warm.

I'm surprised he hasn't put his back out patting himself on it yet.

One of the first indicators of incompetence in any leadership group is the belief that people are freely interchangeable.

Indeed. We take risks at the wrong end of the pitch and play it safe at the wrong end of the pitch. As someone noted last season it's high risk no reward football.

So is it fair to say that Ben Garner is the George Long of coaches?

You mean he isn't going to be sacked while any successor might have a realistic chance of turning things around.

The reason they got this way is because our culture is broken. When all roads lead to Rasmus nobody needs to take responsibility. When you keep getting managers who want to be your pal and don't offer direct feedback nobody grows. When your manager stands up after every game and says we played really well then nobody learns. When there isn't some angry bastard kicking lumps out of you in training because you're not fully committed you never learn to play with intensity. When you can blame bad luck there's no need to change. When you fire the manager every few months there's no incentive to build working relationships - just to learn how to maneuver to gain favour with this next manager. You can see it in the way their heads go down at the first sign of adversity or when we haven't blown the other team away in the first half. You see it in the way that it's about getting rid of the ball, not progressing it. You see it in the way that nobody tracks runners into the box. You see it in the way nobody challenges the player crossing the ball. Any manager coming in has to address this rotten culture before any progress can be made.

Reminds me of an old boss of mine. Every single appointment he made was either fired 6 months in for not being able to get things done while being micromanaged or rage quit around the one year mark when he remembered he had employed them and started trying to micromanage them.

On a more serious note. It's been nearly 2 months - we're due another manager. Can't believe what Rasmus is thinking keeping him in position so long. Everyone knows managers peak after 5 games and then it's all downhill.

And hopefully they'll receive a sincere and extensive apology before they get back on the coach to head home.

The subs will cover the important task of protecting Manning from a red.

Now we've just got a load of wannabe teapots with hands on hips. No desire to get back into the game. This could get ugly.

Now we've conceded time to make some changes and make sure we hold on to this 1-0 defeat.

Boro played the first half with 3 centre backs. Will be interesting to see what happens if they switch after the break.

Ball comes in. One striker. Three CBs. Nobody near the striker. Lucky he was offside.

Ball goes wide to Boro's right. Manning nowhere to be seen. Great tackle by Quarshie

Three players and not one tried to put pressure on the crosser.