SWLondon Saint

Points are always good especially when you're in 21st, but the 'team' just looked even more like a bunch of randoms sent out in a vague formation and everyone just doing whatever they felt like.

- Scienza, 1 shining light, pure quality. Robinson at least put himself about and scored a decent if lucky goal. Fellows tried hard but spent most of his time defending. No ball out of defence except to Scienza, AA totally invisible except for the pass back to Robinson for the goal. Jander gets a pass as he's trying and he's a kid. Rest of team total shit. - NO F***ING LEADERSHIP. Robinson air kicks to give away a corner, he's clearly running entirely on adrenaline after the goal, where is the f***ing captain who should be calming him down, don't worry, let's defend this? Nowhere to be seen. - THB looks like he's trying to get sent off, dropped or whoever the f*** knows, answers on a postcard please, he clearly doesn't want to be there. Downes the same, talked himself into a yellow, how stupid do you have to be? - Press hopeless except for the one time Robinson dispossesses their guy and then we score. Defenders too deep. - Defence somehow got worse but managed to concede only 1 goal. Baz shit, should not have lunged at ball for their goal, BUT the 3 CB's were just as much at fault for that. Wood and Stephens were looking at the ball and completely ignored the man who got in behind them! What the actual f***? Shambolic defending. Baz also spilling the ball on a routine save FFS. - Front 3 did not seem clear on pressing pattern, whose man was whose. Downs needs to be in the U23 until he learns how to press, he's just marking space, what's going on there? And that dive at the end by him I just don't understand. He had control of the ball, there's only 1 defender back, you have to attack, even if you're not the most talented as he can't dive in as he knows if there's a mistake he's off. Football IQ 0.

Awful, so slow every time we have the ball at the back, Cap'n Jack and his security blanket backwards and sideways passes. Every time Downes gets it he goes backwards, there was once Manning actually turned it round the corner to him, he had space to take a touch and move forward and .... He plays it first time back to Stephens. That's why you got benched, you twat.

I don't think it's a coincidence that as soon as Still is gone, Cap'n Jack is back in the starting lineup. All the trouble started when he and THB were unceremoniously dropped for being shit against Hull.

You honestly think it'll be easier next season if Wolves, West Ham and Forest are down here going on the current table? If you can get promoted, get promoted has to be the rule.

Cheers Glen and good to see you on the BBC Solent thing! Couldn't agree more about our so-called senior players not buying into Still from the beginning and also the mutiny gathering pace after he dropped THB and Stephens after Hull. But let's not forget Stephens got to still be captain AND got his contract renewed after a complete personal shit show of a season last year so he probably feels he's the real boss. Should sack him instead.

After last season you reckon there'd be takers? Not to mention lately THB has been getting dominated by the likes of Ollie McBurnie and whoever Blackburn had up front? And Downes is mostly reliable only for yellow cards and is sick half the time? You seriously think any Championship team would want to spend more than a couple million on them? 😅

I know I slagged off the u23s manager for playing it, but the last 3 games we lost were to teams playing 3 CBs, it's more about how you play it than the system itself.

The most worrying thing about the RM links are these rumours of senior players wanting him back. What the f*** are they on? He got them humiliated week in, week out in the PL until they quit on him and got him sacked. Did the ginger kid dropping them for being shit hurt their feelings so much they want their poncey mate back? FFS.

I doubt we'll ever know the truth, but it would make a lot of sense given the senior players constant reversion to Russ-ball, and also makes me even more angry at so called 'Captain' Jack for being a poisonous piece of shit, and SR for giving him the contract extension instead of a P45.

I was just complaining about the 3CBs the B team were using the other day against Madrid - literally all 3 of them were stood around marking either 1 guy or.... No-one at all while Madrid kept the ball in front of us, then attacked with movement down the flanks or in behind. Hard no on that coach and also Lallana and Trollope need to do one as well.

Like S-clarke said, I think he's a decent bloke but this was a case of wrong place, wrong time so it's a bit hard to know if he's actually a decent manager or not. I'm also not especially relieved or upbeat, more concerned about who comes next and can they turn around this shitshow. As far as Still wasn't inspiring to us, I just get the feeling that our senior players never respected him, not having had a playing career and probably being younger than some of them - and so they just reverted to playing the way they're used to, ie Russ-ball. They've now seen off 4 managers in under a season and 1 of them is doing OK in Serie A so he can't be that bad. Talking of Juric, I seem to remember an interview soon after he took over where he seemed genuinely amazed at the lack of fitness and overall physical level of the players. That's relevant because it points to the senior players being lazy and / or unprofessional. I can't help but worry that our problems will continue because the problem players are still in the building. I don't think it's a coincidence that when we beat Sheffield United away, our starting 12 only had Manning and AA of the 'old guard' in it.

You definitely can press with 3CBs, but I agree, you need wing backs who have the engine for it as typically you put them on the opposing full back. At the end of the day, pressing is just the fancy sounding modern version of man-to-man marking all over the pitch.

This is exactly what gets me as well, it's like there's no planning in place at all - what have they actually been doing in training all week? You literally know every team is going to come out and put 3 players on our CBs and push their full backs onto our wing backs, and push their midfielders onto our 2 so there's no easy ball on. WHY THE F*** is there no plan to deal with this? It's not rocket science, I'm sure plenty of people on this forum could come up with decent strategies so why can't our coaching staff???

Save yourself the grief and don't have any expectations for the Ashes other than hope to avoid 5-0 again! 😅

Couldn't agree more with all of that. I've been saying that about Downs for a while, he needs a run of games where he's told what to do if he doesn't already know, you can hear the manager / coaches much easier in the u23s anyway. We can only wish we had tall Paul back instead! Our players just seem to have given up completely, particularly the ones who've been here longer. At least Scienza, Fellows, Robinson seem to be *trying* to make things happen, but the movement and energy from most of the others is hopeless. We just seem to revert to Russ-ball at the first moment of pressure and then everything goes backwards at every opportunity. Someone needs to get into the defenders heads it's OK to play optimistic balls into the channels if we then press up after it, do that a few times and it opens up the midfield as you force the defenders to worry about it. When players make runs in behind, give them something to chase and the oppo something to think about. Too easy when it's all in front of them going round our back 5 + 2CM. Switch it PROPERLY, in 1 pass, don't go round every defender first as it takes so f***ing long they're back in position by the time you've got the ball to the other side. I could go on but I can't be arsed, much like our players. Who is even captain? I don't see anyone picking their teammates up, bringing conviction we can get back into the game, driving us forward.

Still is so passive on the sidelines, Heckingbottom making a sub in the last minute, up, active, talking to the player coming on. Still just stands with his hands in pockets, no instructions, no....nothing. I hoped he would come good but this job is too big for him.

Yep, he's done. Can't survive after that. Players awful too, no fight. Whole coaching team has to go, Nivea boy included.

3 CBs just doesn't work for us because against the ball we always have 1 man standing around marking space on the edge of our box, so we're outnumbered in midfield. It can be different and better, but not the way we do it.

Feel for you. We look clueless, we are so easy to press I have no idea what the plan is.

Nah, he didn't put Edwards in MF the other day, he put Stephens there even though he's probably worse on the ball so it'll be the back 3. I reckon Azaz will drop back into mf when we don't have the ball to match up as they normally play 3 at the back as well.

Also got no idea why he puts Downs on the bench if he doesn't think he can make an impact, it can't be any better for his confidence than just being put in the u21s for a few games.

I'm guessing Azaz will play as a false nine. But I just don't get it, a lot of our problems are because when we play with a back 3, they just recycle the ball endlessly, especially with Manning / THB in combo.

Bloody hell, thought you were just being ironic but that is a proper old school centre forward header 😂 Totally unmarked, but still a great effort!

Was just watching from about 75 minutes, we've been absolutely appalling, who is the U21 boss? We have 3 CBs literally standing around at the back next to each other marking space, of course our press has no chance of working. Went 1 nil down and... Nothing, no change in tactics.