saintant

I think we'll need to score so hopefully Puel will set us up to do our fair share of attacking when we get the chance. The worst thing we can do is to sit behind the ball and invite them on to us because that will be a suicidal approach. Give them plenty to worry about as defensively they really aren't that great as proved by Swansea, Bournemouth and others - you have to have a go at them because they have major mistakes in their back line and goalkeeper (whichever one they pick)

Better tempo and far fewer sideways/backwards passes with no purpose. The wing combos of Tadic/Bertrand and Redmond/Cedric worked well - these are vital but as we know Puel likes to rotate so they don't get many consecutive games. Jrod led the line very well and got through loads of work and the midfield made more driving runs though could still do with more and PEH needs to put some hours in practising his shooting. Goes without saying that JWP had his best game of the season and as others have said we should now be expecting that level of performance every time he pulls on the shirt. My worry is that he only seems to do it against poor opposition and Leicester were certainly dire. Romeu excellent as always and Yoshi was very solid - the only downside was VVD injury. Please Claud, stick to the nucleus of this side and play them consistently with the addition of Davis when fit and we might see a few more good performances, wins and goals.

What he said - and don't tell me the style of play has nothing to do with Puel.

So who takes training, who picks the team and who decides on the tactics? If not Puel then why are we paying him a small fortune for doing nothing? Maybe it's you who is naive and deluded.

Things you'll never hear in the same sentence..."Claude Puel" and "exciting football"

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz x fifty billion. Puel, the man who is slowly boring the life out of Southampton Football Club and is leading us to lose our reputation for playing good football.

Puel will make sure St Marys is packed for every game. He sets the team up to play such free flowing exciting football. Even the pundits are starting to laugh and take the p1ss out of the absolute dross we play under him. When will it stop!

Puel is a genius, what a master tactician.

Usual backward thinking just like the passing. Should have started with a strong side, gone at them hard from the first whistle and put the tie to bed early. Now it looks like being a long slog and might go to penalties. If we then go out it will be extremely unsatisfactory not to say unprofessional. I despair of Puel's lack of tactics and nous.

Is that the shortest midfield in history? JWP and Clasie never works.

Play a strong side and give a few the chance to score some goals. Get the job done early then take off three and tell the rest to coast - easy! Puel won't do that though as we all know.

Glad to hear we are keeping the same style as the first team at throughout the club at every level. Just a shame it isn't the previous model which at least worked.

Should maybe try rugby where you really do have to pass backwards to go forward.

This thread is indicative of the rapid demise of our club and the fans expectations. We have gone from calculating how many points we need to finish in the top six to the current situation where we are looking at where we might scrape enough points together to avoid finishing in the wrong half of the table. I don't believe relegation is a concern but it is disappointing that we now seem like a 'normal' Saints side again where everything is a struggle and we don't appear to know where the next win is coming from. Four league losses in a row and the lack of goals coupled with the largely poor quality of our football does that I guess.

Completely agree with this. Puel came and tried to fix something that wasn't broken. Why Les Reed went for this appointment when it was against everything the club had previously claimed it was striving to achieve ie continuity of a system at every level is a mystery to me. Whatever was behind his reasoning it clearly hasn't worked. We are disjointed, negative and not a cohesive unit where everyone knows his job and as has been pointed out numerous times the constant excessive rotation helps nobody bar our opponents. Add to that the apparent dip in team spirit and it is no surprise we struggle to win matches.

Absolute nonsense. Strikers need runs of games not in one week and out the next. It's pure folly.

And this explains the problems Puel creates. He has managed to completely nullify the strengths of Shane Long and others. Last season Long was very important to the team - ok he is not the most natural finisher but he weighed in with some important goals and created space for others with his tireless running. The big difference is that he was mainly used in a pair last season but under Puel as we all know you only get one bloke up front on his own. The pathetic lack of goals proves more than anything else that it doesn't work.

Agree with all of this. Puel is destroying the offensive side of our game so no surprise we don't score and rarely win away.

Amen to that - this hits home at the nub of the problem.

What was the score? I find it hard to believe that some people can't see we have gone from a team that was offensive and set out to try to win every game in the knowledge that three points is crucial to a side that is set up purely not to lose. Check how many points we won away in the past three seasons. We need to be more gung-ho and less conservative because Puel's tactics are clearly not working especially away from St Marys.

When will this clown of a manager stop being so stubborn and admit that we need to play with two up front? Do that and we might start scoring more goals and winning more matches.

Tell me, what was the score again?

We lost in case you haven't realised yet.

I'm totally bored with Puel now and his complete inability to set this team up with any sort of chance to win/draw consistently away from home. He sets us up not to lose when he should be setting us up to try to win. It is utterly negative dross. We have had a few seasons where the coaches appreciated that you have to go all out to win every game including the away matches because getting the three points is a big deal. Puel is incapable of trying to win by going for it away from the comfort of St Marys. The man is like his football - utterly drab and boring. Missed chances and goalkeeping errors don't help but it's the negativity that does for us every time.

After the effort put in tonight I think CP will make at least 3-4 changes. Don't agree with it but he's never wavered from the constant rotation.