HarvSFC

Seen it discussed in here also, but Alfie House has been quite outspoken on Twitter this evening. As outspoken as a person in his role can be. Pretty much confirming what all of us on the outside looking in believed to be the case. He says there's a "rotten" culture, created by the players that needs to be reset and that there's a clique amongst the squad that needs to go for us to be successful. Doesn't outrightly name the worst offenders, but does imply that Armstrong's a part of it, while stating the only players we should look to keep this summer are Charles, Jander, Fellows, Azaz, Scienza, Robinson, Armstrong (Without the others), Quarshie, Edwards, Wood, Roerslev and Bragg (in a follow up Tweet). So, you can assume a lot of the unnamed players are a part of the damaging culture within the club. This is from someone who has a lot of access to the inner workings of the club. Goes on the pre-season tours, etc. I hate the current inflexible setup as much as the next person. But, also know we'd get beaten routinely playing any formation with the half hearted performances the players have been putting in the last month and then the management will use it as an excuse to say they tried a back four, it didn't work, so will further solidify the want for a back three. Also reiterates what we all said in the summer. The team showed no fight last season, they were very close to all being tarnished with being the worst Premier League side of all time and not even that could motivate them. They couldn't even motivate themselves to put in a performance for the Portsmouth home game earlier this season. The standards across the club are at all time low once more and Jack Stephens is not the amazing leader nor captain that the hierarchy tried to gaslight us into thinking he was and deserving of the new contract.

My issue is, is that this run of fixtures has been quite favourable. We've seemingly faced teams at the right time, out of form, like us and been outclassed and outthought each time with little to shout about. Norwich - 23rd in the league and if not for Sheffield Wednesday would have been bottom, won 1 of their previous 16 before we rocked up. They did have a new manager bounce, but they're still only 22nd now. We should be beating them, yet they saw us off comfortably, Manning's goal gave us some hope, but Norwich won deservedly. Coventry - Top of the league, yet they've suffered recently. 2 wins from their last 8 and played 40 minutes against us with 10 men. Yet, again, we didn't do enough to win the match and didn't test Rushworth or create enough chances to beat them. Oxford - Sacked their manager days before we played. Against another amateur manager in Craig Short, who hasn't had a full time managerial job since 2010. They've suffered 2 defeats from 2 games since playing us, they've lost 5 of their last 7. They've won 2 of their last 13. Really poor result. Birmingham - ANOTHER out of form side? Surely not. Today was their first win in 8 games. They've lost 4 of those 8. Yet, we went up there and gave them the run of the park. If not for Kyogo's misses they beat us comfortably. Millwall - The theme is still going. With today's results Millwall have won 2 from 7. They have an old school manager in Alex Neil and he's done Tonda twice. Can't remember us having a shot on target against them in the second half at home while Bazunu did the unthinkable. Middlesbrough - On a run of 3 losses from 4. Hadn't scored in any of those fixtures. So, up rolls the Southampton charity club. Smashed us 4-0 to reignite their season. Adding context to this run makes it a lot more bleak than it actually is. We aren't losing every week to in form Premier League side's with millions of pounds pumped into their squads anymore. We're losing comfortably to Championship side's on bad run's with a fraction of the resources we have available.

Embarrassing, and we've been heading towards a thrashing since the first half against West Brom, six games ago and nothing's improving. Portsmouth is the only thing left to play for this season and in this current state we're going to get embarrassed there too. Abysmal from top to bottom. Yet another experiment that has gone terribly wrong. Gambler's fallacy with SR, though. They'll believe they'll strike gold on the next rookie appointment.

Wish Manning would pick up a red.

Poor CV, no top club experience, no playing career. Areas where Eckert is also lacking in, so doesn't make up in that area. Another one who won't inspire or motivate the players to listen.

Fraser Forster going to Bournemouth.

How Joe Shields got picked up by Chelsea after a scattergun summer here and remains in position always astounds me.

90 minutes wasted. We tried the same move over and over again. 10 passes between our backline, Millwall aren't getting pulled out of position, so we resort to hoofing one up to no one, Millwall get the ball back with ease and start a threatening attack. Even without the ball our players just jockey slowly, not really applying any pressure or threatening to put a challenge in to win the ball back. The opposition force us into far more errors than we do the other way. Said on Monday that Birmingham are in poor form, haven't won any of their last 7, we made them look good and they got trounced by Watford today. That wasn't a good result and these performances are way below standards, again. Archer really does hate Birmingham on that note. Only turned up for two games this season, Birmingham home and away. Our best attackers are Fellows - Azaz - Scienza with Armstrong in front of them. That should be the starting front four every week. But, like with Still for whatever reason we're rarely seeing them all on the pitch together. I thought Matsuki was fine today, but no reason why Fellows shouldn't have been in that position with Jelert playing as the right wing-back. Whatever the formation anyway, we're not beating anyone with the lack of intensity that we showed today. This is starting to feel like the form an individual brilliance of Scienza and Fellows got Eckert those early points. They flagged in second halves and so did our performances. Now Scienza's off form and Fellows is returning from injury we don't have a clue. Another SR masterstroke?

I suppose the subs did make a good impression on Monday, so rewarded with starts.

It's an interesting one. The lack of game time obviously a red flag. But, if Hamburg have a secure number one then it's hard for a goalkeeper to work their way in, as Ramsdale is discovering at Newcastle. His previous performances also attracted Bayern Munich to him, obviously as the backup to Neuer, but he has shown he has something about him to make an elite club sign him. Our signings of the elite clubs squad players has served us well previously, before we went hunting in their youth teams. Just have to hope the club's knowledge of German football is bringing in another Scienza/Jander, rather than a Downs. And if the club have identified someone worse than Bazunu and McCarthy, like Long, then that will be impressive in itself.

Well, you called it. Take off a centre-back. Three of them on the pitch when chasing a goal, every week and it doesn't change anything, funnily enough.

Beadle made a good save from THB right after half time, they score. Every week we're asking how our players miss chances. Because the opposition goalkeeper's are actually able to pull off good saves and our lot are training against a mannequin all week...

Standards have dropped right off in the last few games and so far Eckert's shown he's been unable to get them back. The team earlier in the month showed what they're capable of playing, but they need strong leadership to ensure those levels are maintained, but they seem to have reverted back to their comfort zones. A much stronger second half needed. Fellows is our dangerman at the minute, get Scienza on the other side.

Birmingham have only won 1 of their last 7, losing 3. Including our form team seeing them off fairly easily. They haven't got Gray tonight and their manager must also be getting pressure on him now given the money spent. They may be coming into this match in a worse state than us, so hopefully we actually turn up.

Giving Scienza 30 minutes so that he can play on New Years Day..... 🤔

And in 2022 they were 17th after 11 games and sacked Steven Gerrard. We were 14th after 11 games and sacked Hasenhuttl 4 games later. They went for Unai Emery, we went for Nathan Jones.

There's just no forward thinking here. We went into the summer with months to prepare having been relegated at this point last year and our only signings before 29th August, three games into the season, were Downs, Quarshie, Roerslev and Long. Still had us in 21st position after 13 games and some shocking performances, yet there wasn't a plan. It's like his dismissal came as a shock to those above and we promoted from within. Eckert still doesn't have a senior coaching team around him. Look at the bottom of this page for our staff (https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/teams/mens-team) and they're all still "interim". Still got sacked nearly two months ago and there keeps being hints by the media of new coaches coming in, but nothing yet. They probably don't realise it's January on Thursday. We'll get active towards the end of the month after a few more defeats and our new striker signing will be a fit Ross Stewart for two weeks.

Gray gone off injured for Birmingham after 15 minutes. Boost for us next week.

The goalkeeper position was a problem in the summer and still is now, heading into January. Therefore, the one goalkeeper we did sign was pointless. Also pointless giving a loan slot up to a player who will never step foot on the pitch. At least Richard Wright, Scott Carson, Marcus Bettinelli are signed to boost City's homegrown quota, so they provide something. We don't have an issue there.

Hopeful departures for me would be - George Long, send back, just completely pointless as we all predicted. Ronnie Edwards, just isn't going to make it here, still rated somewhat in this division so could recoup some fee and we did pick him up on the cheap. Joe Aribo, as shouldn't get anywhere near the current side with Downes, Charles, Jander, Romeu and Bragg. Damion Downs, either on loan or sell, but don't think anyone's offering money for him next month. It's a failed experiment, cut our ties early, there's too much pressure here now for him to play his way into form if he is any good. Similarly with Cameron Archer. He'll probably bang in a few goals at his next club, but it isn't clicking for him here and again he isn't going to regain his confidence here. Edozie's a tricky one. I don't know if my memory is playing up, and it probably is. He's probably crap, hence why he's still here. However, playing wise I think he's got very similar traits to Scienza and Fellows in that he'll look to take his opponent on and beat them. Whereas, Fraser's just a clogger nowadays and Robinson's very uncontrolled at this level. We need backup for Scienza and we could definitely find better than Edozie, but it's a big ask in January when we've already got higher priorities on either side of the pitch, so we could manage with him until the end of the season and then let him go in the summer. Hopefully we make an early signing for a change and we should have some funds to play with left from the summer, or use the loan market.

One record we didn't manage last season. We had 6 points at Christmas.

Yeah, was mentioned many times on the Sky commentary, David Prutton and Frank Lampard in his post match interviews that the "two strikers in the studio saw it as a penalty". Two strikers in Charlie Austin and Kevin Phillips who don't look at their time at Southampton fondly.

Charlie Austin and Kevin Phillips hate us, of course they're going to say penalty.

Hasn't hit a decent free kick since August either.

Going to draw another Sunderland comparison, but last January they made the ambitious signing of Enzo Le Fe on loan from Roma with a £20m fee based on promotion. He turned out to be a technically gifted player and helped get them promotion. They also signed him for £20m in the summer and didn't go, oh we've already committed £20m on a loan player, so we can't spend much more this summer. So, they're ran very differently, especially considering their success this season. But, it would be nice for us to not coast through January for a change. Go in assertively and get what we want. A David Brooks style loan would also be very welcomed. A good player from the Premier League who needs minutes. Think if we want to have a serious go then Long being recalled by Norwich would be great. No more signing players because they tell good jokes, please. Then getting a new goalkeeper in on loan is a must. Bazunu doesn't make the match winning/promotion winning saves. Every shot against him we seem to say the attacker does place well. But, so do most attackers in the top two leagues in England and every now and again a goalkeeper gets to them, see Scienza against Birmingham. Bazunu doesn't. Plus a good striker who can give us an alternative to the small ones we have. Armstrong and Archer are the same player, Armstrong just puts in more effort. Stewart's permanently injured and Downs should be loaned out from January to try and rediscover some form as he isn't going to play his way into form here, if he is any good. They're the two positions we need to focus on. Another attacking player to take the load off Scienza, Azaz and Fellows would be beneficial, but that feels like asking a lot for January. As for the above, we need to continue making lots of changes to the players who played in the Premier League last season. We've had a good run and some of our best players in the run have been the new guys - Scienza, Fellows, Azaz and Jander. Will Still's tactics were just shite, passive and slow that didn't get the best out of them and when they didn't play well he dropped them and limited their minutes. While our lesser players in this run have been the old guard, the usual names. Stephens, Bazunu, Wood, Manning, Aribo and Fraser have been the weak links in the side. We need to continue phasing those out. Edwards' time is probably up here too. Worth getting a bit of money back on him now.