Right, I need to get a few things off my chest.
Firstly, anyone who says the following comments can go suck a fat one;
"We scored"
Yes, we did. A complete and utterly speculatively crap goal with the aid of some inept goalkeeping. Please note, we did not score through any sort of collective excellent team football, it was a fluke. And that, my friends, is why so many people are referring to us as toothless.
"We started well"
Whoopey-****1ng do. That counts for sh1t all, as a lot of teams, poor and good come out of the traps flying. The reality of the game sets in at around fifteen minutes and soon enough, the other team will start to discover your weak points and limitations... and they did.
"We rallied at then end"
Whoopey-double-****ing do. For a team to only start playing with any intensity when they're losing is a disgrace anyway. You should start and do you best to maintain control of a game, not try and wrestle it back desperately because you're now losing with 10 minutes to go.
"We started like this last year"
That is not an excuse. At all.
"We're signing an attacking midfielder - that'll help with the creativity"
No it won't. Firstly, if it does, what happens when said player, your new focal point (1) has a bad stretch of form (2) gets injured or suspended or (3) f()cks off to Africa for 2 months? You revert to type, and type isn't very pretty or effective.
Irrespective, signing an attacking midfielder won't magically rectify our problems, they're far more deep-rooted than that and here's why; channelling the entirety of your play and hope on one player is a recipe for disaster. Football is a team game, and it's a collective effort that usurps a few individual brilliance. Which leads me onto the next talking point...
The Diamond.
F()ck off with this diamond ********, please. If that's what we've been practising for 3-4 months than what an absolute waste of time because (1) We don't have the personnel for it (2) The players clearly don't buy into it. What is the definition of insanity again?
Playing this formation is almost a guaranteed way to murder your own Premier League status. Not only is it ineffective at best, we don't have the players for it and it enables the opposition to slice through our midfield with ease, bypassing the reverse-speed Schneiderlin and any lightweight partner he's picked alongside to have a run directly at our defence.
Ah, our defence. I don't think I've ever seen the poor sods make so many 'last ditch' challenges and panicked clearances in the space of three games before. So, we could do with a proper unit in midfield to protect the back four IMHO. I just hope we don't waste it on 2 attacking midfielders when we're well stocked with good ones who are being criminally misused.
The body language of the team says it all, really - I hope I'm not the only one who has seen things in the past few games and saw this.
So what do we do?
Firstly, change the formation. We're getting murdered by terrible teams through this complete incompetence. If Watford or Sunderland were half-decent, we'd have been on the end of a hammering by now.
So, basics. Assess the players we have and their type. Pick a formation to suit and train in that formation. Assess the weak areas, and invest in the areas required. When everyone knows what they're doing individually and collectively as a formation, you can bring in a strategy, patterning of play, styles of football. Lastly, you can practice set pieces. Get the basics right first though.
I can almost guarantee that our potency will increase tenfold with just doing the above and it's such a workable solution.
Do not pigeon-hole Hojberg into a defensive midfield role because Romeu is inept at it, it nullifies Hojberg's game. Ditch Romeu and get a proper DM who offers real protection, not slow-mo air kicking and laborious sideways passing. Sorry Oriel, either you somehow get better at what you're doing or need to be utilised differently.
Don't just get a DM though, get Boufal and get cover elsewhere. We've got a bloody long, arduous season ahead with the potential for 50-60 games and we've got a lightweight, threadbare squad with a few untested youngsters waiting in the wings.
We're at the very least owed a competitive top-half squad for this season after all the sales and promises. Oh, and Les - don't say our midfield options are the envy of the country unless you're getting Schneiderlin back alongside Boufal.
And stop making w4nky promo videos.
This could have been our most exciting season in years as Saints fans and it's nothing but a turgid, horrible mess at the moment. I don't blame the players too much as I have to wonder what they're actually thinking about all this.
I'll be OK in an hour... Just needed to vent.
