HarvSFC

It played out like a lot of last season. Good first half, poor second half, but grind out the win due to having better players. We were slightly fortunate to get promoted, although that play-off run was fantastic. However, nothing's being learnt. Football's not about being predictable and struggling to put any danger on the opposition because by the time we've got up the pitch, the opponent's half is congested and easily able to mark our players out of the game. The fact Cameron Archer only had six touches is telling. He brings nothing playing with his back to goal. He needs to be released quickly, like the two chances he got against Arsenal and Manchester City. He scored one of those, but really he isn't getting enough of those chances. We need to exploit space more. When we win the ball back (although we're also awful to watch without the ball) we need to take advantage of any gaps left by the opposition. I don't know why a football manager wouldn't want that.

Never want us to lose to get a manager sacked. But, tonight's win was anything but convincing and must be ringing alarm bells.

Never seen a player from a losing team get cramp.

I would've started Taylor over Bree and SAA over Fraser. I fear SAA might become another Meghoma if he continues to see minimal amount of minutes, especially in the cup against lower league competition and SAA has definitely shown in the past he has talent. Thought he should have cemented his place as a cup winger following his performance against Cardiff.

Proof is also in the pudding of what I've been saying all season. City have a 1-0 lead, does Pep Guardiola make five changes to completely disrupt his team. No, he makes two changes, Ilkay Gundogan in the 86th minute and John Stones in the 97th. The starting 11 that Guardiola picked were able to see out the victory and get the three points. This fixture was also between midweek fixtures for City. Please learn and copy this one Russell Martin.

Only finished 1-0 because City couldn't finish, otherwise another terrible 90 minutes. It's the pressing teams that attack with pace and get in our face when we play it around our own box that we struggle against, which is a lot of the rest of the league. City's low tempo allowed our defence to reset and setup at every attack, like we always allow, also.

City's defence has been poor for a while now, they've kept one clean sheet in the league this season. They can be broken through and that proved with Archer hitting the bar in the final moments. I'd like to think we'd switch up a bit in the second half, test them a bit more. But, I predict it will be another low tempo borefest. Nathan Jones worked out a way to beat City, which he then didn't apply to any other fixture, but Martin's going into every single game with the same tactical instructions.

https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/b-team-report-strong-saints-side-beat-boro Just a reminder that Sekou Mara bagged four and Theo Walcott scored a hat trick when they dropped into the Under-21s. So, how bad is Brereton-Diaz?

I think if we are going to persevere with Martin then best case scenario after that would be to get a coach with Premier League experience in. Like Eric Black. Sammy Lee would be good, but he has been out of the game for four years now since West Brom in 2020, so he probably isn't interested in working in the game anymore. Just someone who can pass on some more knowledge and help guide Martin, if we are stuck with him. Someone who could perhaps organise a defence too. Using Nathan Jones as an example, he was successful with Luton, but he also had Paul Hart and Mick Harford assisting him throughout. Two who weren't the greatest of managers, but two who have plenty of knowledge and could set him straight if he was going on one of his mad ones. We brought neither with him here.

Steve Cooper isn't allowed to be shown on TV pre-watershed.

Not to mention that he let the Leicester player remain on the pitch after receiving treatment, rather than the usual having to spend a period off the pitch after receiving treatment to stop time wasting. Then when Smallbone received treatment in the second half, he had to go off and we were playing with 9 men for a phase. But, yeah, today was crap. Ref was crap, substitutions were crap yet again, Archer and Fernandes didn't need to come off when they did and if Fernandes has to go off, bring on Lallana, VAR's crap. Crap, crap, crap.

Leicester were the only team to outclass us over 180 minutes last season. Hopefully it was a Maresca thing.

Norwich's legends are much better than ours.

The Championship was shite between 2007-2009 too. (Barring the final day match against Sheffield United in 2008). The Championship is probably shite for Leeds fans too, after losing to us they also lost Gray, Kamara, Summerville and Rutter, replacing them with the likes of Joe Rothwell and Jayden Bogle. Another of the middling Championship clubs are probably looking at next season already too. The parachute clubs coming down once again and then the bankrolled Wrexham and Birmingham going up, most likely. The Premier League's shite because we've been mismanaged for years now. If we could sort that out, we could be competitive again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cly3z0rjq4xo He's doing it again.

The player who was offside went to play the ball?

Well that was a fast piece of play. Fernandes wins the ball, one pass to Archer, goal. Simple.

I posted in the non-Saints games thread that it's a weird era for football, and it really fucking is. You've got League One and Two clubs playing this way also, which is inevitably upping their goals against tally. A few years ago conceding a goal was the worst thing you could do on the pitch. Goalkeepers would berate their defenders for allowing a shot on target. These days, manager's risk conceding a goal by playing it around at the back and I'm not sure it's giving us much of an advantage, as the ball ends up going backwards, allowing the opposition to reset and reposition, negating any advantage we did get by beating the initial press, or hoofed up the pitch when the options aren't there. So, it's a risk of conceding a goal, but it's a few phases of play before you get the reward of scoring a goal so can't really be attributed to scoring, unless you're doing it in under 10 passes, which we never do. Essentially, the risk far out ways the reward. Now, I know Guardiola and Manchester City play this way. The best club in the country and probably the best manager in the game of a top club in the game. But, that last bit is important. Guardiola doesn't play this way with anything less than top quality footballers. He hasn't proven he can work these tactics with your Southampton's, Wolves', or even a Tottenham. He has always handpicked the best club in the country, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. Even then, Manchester City's defensive record is pretty poor for their standards. They have kept one clean sheet in their first six league games this season and they kept 13 over the entirety of last season. So, for 25 games they had to score at least two goals to win a match and that of course is a lot easier when you have a free scoring robot upfront, but no other clubs have this. I just don't think these tactics translate to a club like us in the football hierarchy. I think we work better when we press and outwork the opposition while playing good attacking football. This was us under Koeman. While Pochettino and Hasenhuttl for a period got us punching above our weight with a fairly limited inherited squad. I just remember the immediate uplift we had when we went from Hughes to Hasenhuttl and our squad was poor back then too. Perhaps we need another one of these: https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/tactical-football-evening-with-russell-martin-and-jason-wilcox

Yeah, there was a stat on Sky last night that we're the 19th slowest club in the league at moving the ball up the pitch. God knows who the 20th club is, those poor fans. But, I don't think it's helping our forwards. Whenever they get the ball, they've then got to get through a defence which has had the time to setup. Only Dibling is good at getting past players with individual skill in our attack. If they get the ball in the box, they also have to try and work a shot through a crowded defence. While our forwards have been poor this season, they also aren't getting the chances due to the slow tempo that we play at. You look at Ipswich at the weekend where Delap had a few one on one chances, scoring one. We just don't give our forwards those chances. The only time really was one Archer chance against Ipswich where he hit it at Muric. But, as I said. Delap missed one, one on one against Villa, with Martinez saving with his foot, but he then got another chance which he put away. There are ways to play football and slow and ponderous isn't one of them. An old saying in football was that you always had to keep the ball moving, but watch how many times our players stop it dead.

So that's what happens when take a free-kick quickly. Will never see us do that, we go back to Bednarek when the defence has set up.

Tonight's triple sub will be Stewart, Lallana and Brereton-Diaz on at around 60 minutes. The latter will play out wide again. Adam Armstrong will get the last 10 minutes and then the additional sub in extra time could be anyone.

Lavia, at a similar, or same age went for £50m after one good season in the Premier League, which was also affected by injuries and our relegation. Solanke had one good season in the Premier League (His highest scoring in the top flight prior to the last one was 6). He still didn't hit 20 goals and he cost £65m. Also 9 years older. We should be looking at big, big money for Dibling if he continues on this trajectory. It is a shame this is how we look at football these days, but then we only got half a season out of young Walcott, a season out of Bale, a season out of Oxlade-Chamberlain and two seasons out of Shaw. These elite academy talents have never stuck around for long.

This and the Leicester game are must wins in between Arsenal and Manchester City now. Also, another international break coming up after the Arsenal game on the 5th October. 🤢

This era of football is so weird.

Same as Lavia. You just know Chelsea have got a sell on clause for a month's work as well, which is annoying. Something must benefit them for them to let us have him back.