saintant

I think you miss the point Georgiesaint. I am not saying that Lowe should not have worked within a reasonable budget. My point is that his wage cap meant that, as you stated yourself, we ended up with a bloated squad of mediocre/not good enough players. That was his huge mistake in my opinion.

History will show that Lowe budgeted for failure and that's what he got. His total lack of understanding of the mechanics of running a football club both as a business and in terms of building a squad to maintain Premiership status has been exposed for all to see. Lowe could not fathom the simple fact that to survive in the Premiership you must have a sprinkling of stars on high wages. Whether you get those players on loan or pick them up from abroad or on Bosmans you must have them. His strategy was to have a wage cap that meant our best players were driven away and the ones brought in were not good enough. Pretty soon he presided over the building of an ever expanding squad of mediocre/poor players that no manager could get a decent team out of. The wage bill for that large squad was probably as much or more than it would have been had he had the nous to sign some quality players. We found ourselves desperately trying to improve the team to get out of a self perpetuating mess. Add to that the revolving door managerial farce which partly resulted from his failure to authorise buying of decent player and the wheels for the demise of our fantastic club had been set in motion. The outcome was inevitable. From that point it was a sharp and slippery slope to where we now find ourselves. Budget for the lower leagues and that is inevitably where you'll end up. Reach up instead of down and you're planning for life on a park bench. The sad thing is, it aint rocket science. Sorry, couldn't come up with three things he did right no matter how hard I tried. Nothing could compensate for the place he left our beloved club.

It's simple really. Play Jan's funny formation away from home where it has had some success but not at home where it has had zero success. At home we must play 442 because opposition teams come to defend and hit us on the counter and the current formation does not work against that. Keep playing Jan's way at home and it'll be a continued succession of draws, defeats and the odd victory. 442 is the way to score goals and win matches at St Marys.

The harsh rality is this is all just a rip off. Southampton FC are charging first team prices to people to watch what is virtually a youth or 'A' team. Most of these players you could expect to watch for nothing and they are charging full price.

Back four was shocking...completely clueless. I lost count of the times they stood arm raised appealing for an offside decision that didn't come. Without a figure like Claus to marshall them they have no idea. You need one defender with some nous and the others take their lead from him to keep a good line and catch forwards offside - we were completely bedraggled hence their attackers could get down either flank or through the middle with ease. We must play with more than one forward as we looked far more dangerous when we introduced some support fro Robertson.

Have to disagree with those putting Cork forward as a centre back. Today he missed headers, fell over, stood off players and generally allowed Blackstock to bully hima and give him the run around. He is not physical enough to handle the type of forwards he will come up against. Whether that is bacause of his young age I am not sure but for now he is not ready to play CB so I would play him as a full back if anywhere. Wotton looks a better bet at centre half than Cork as at least he can handle himself and stand up to strong forwards.

Cork is not a centre back - too light weight and not good in the air. He was a real weak link at the back for us today and Surman wasn't far behind him. We have a good footballing side but until we sort out the defence which looks so fragile and weak in terms of pshysical strength and nous we will always gift goals to the opposition. No matter how well you play going forward if you are giving away gift goals and presenting your opponents with chances galore you will not win many games. We made Blackstock look world class even though he was playing up fron on his own and that says it all. There is so much talent in this side going forward but somehow we must develop a sold foundation at the back. Thought Lalana was superb today and deserved to score what was a superbly worked goal.