Graffito

I can't see us putting a run of wins together so I'm hoping we lose more games so we can have a relegation battle and we can all get excited.

The Times had a feature on struggling Southampton the other day.

You think Mike Ashley isn't a mess behind the scenes?

We haven't had one of Ralph's motivational speeches for a while.

Me too. Pretty obvious why he's selected him.

Impersonating Martin Samuel eh? Who'd do a thing like that?

A bit early to be writing obituaries.

Better teams than Saints fail to breakdown the likes of Burnley. It takes quality on the ball and as you say we don't have it where it's needed, in the final third. I don't want Saints to go the way of Burnley and West Brom. I do think if we are going to "control the game" and get mugged anyway we may as well take more risks on the ball. Wholesale changes aren't possible. The manager has to work with what he's got and give the players more licence. Move the ball quicker and be more aggressive.

I can't disagree with any of that. What I disagree with is the implication that Bertrand can't be arsed. Firstly, I haven't noticed at any point in any recent match that he can't be arsed, though granted he's been in better form than recently. Secondly, pretty much the whole team is underperforming. Thirdly, Bertrand has a World Cup place to play for. It's barely credible that someone can't be arsed to cement a place in the squad. Imo underperformance is down to the way we play and responsibility for that rests primarily with the manager. As an aside, have you noticed how many threads there are on individual player's shortcomings. They can't all be individually responsible for poor performance. The witch hunters never run out of witches. There's a whole herd of scapegoats.

The problem lies with how we play as a team (the manager) not with the players attitude. SM or MT would be worse options under the current manager.

Bertrand provided the only decent cross (which Gabbiadini narrowly failed to convert) in the whole match. Not a chance he'll be dropped.

He may be as bored as the rest of us with the football Saints are playing but really I fail to see how you can arrive at your conclusion. He's a quality full back. If only the manager would use a formation or find a way of playing which gets the full backs forward more quickly, and instructs Cedric to put in low hard early crosses as Bertrand does, our scoring would improve.

I noticed that Brighton had two wingers. Maybe the manager wanted to match them. If he did, it didn't work.

Has he got a plan B yet?

I don't agree the football is unstructured. It's too structured if anything. A little more off the cuff unstructured football might create more.

So how do you account for the fact that LR gave Puel the opportunity to stay if he played a more attacking style of football? If LR was issuing instructions to Puel evidently he wasn't following them. No, I think the style was down to Puel's caution and lack of pace in the team. Different players, different style at Leicester. But their style is cautious too and he won't change it.

More likely he plays Boufal from the beginning and he fails to ignite.

He's got magic in his feet.

Do you remember that spoof film of Sven preparing to get into bed with Nancy. 20 minutes getting undressed. 10 minutes folding his underpants. He never got there. That's Saints.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/oct/14/mauricio-pellegrino-attack-stuttering-southampton A down beat assessment of the current state we're in.

Just seen this. What a very generous post.

It would be nice if the club were to invite him to attend the next home game against Newcastle, or whatever home game follows his return from holiday, so we can show our appreciation.

I can't even be bothered to answer this ********.

See post 12.