HarvSFC

Edozie and Sulemana on either wing could be pretty decent. I think the last three matches we’ve been over reliant on Sulemana to create things. Get Edozie on the other side with KWP overlapping and on paper it looks pretty exciting. Two wingers who run at pace and take players on. Also, Russell Martin, you don’t always have to make 5 subs. Probably shouldn’t to a team leading by one goal, as it can also prove disruptive for the team.

Football's weird. Everyone knows that Liam Rosenior was the brains behind Rooney at Derby. Rooney's just been dumped by DC United in the MLS with a 26.4%, while Eustace has Birmingham in the play offs. What more do they expect? Similar to Bournemouth who dumped O'Neil for a foreign name and haven't won a league game in their first 8. If their manager was called Nathan Jones... Every now and then you get a Pochettino, but more often than not these decisions turn out wrong.

The atmosphere was good on Saturday, until we started playing within ourselves, looked too calm/confident/lethargic despite time ticking away and drawing 1-1, but even then there were only a few murmurs. It was only at full time when the boos came out and even then plenty got clapped off. Can't blame it for Rotherham scoring. Russell Martin got a few renditions of the e i, e i o song. They keep blaming the fans, it has been a running theme for well over a year now with Semmens starting it, then Jones and now Martin. It's an easy excuse, there are far more intimidating grounds than ours and this season was full of optimism going into it. Look at the numbers for each game played this season, despite being on TV for 6 of the 11 fixtures. Soon they'll be playing in front of a half empty St. Marys like the Poortvliet year and there won't be many to voice an opinion. Just look at what has become of Stoke last week.

Joel Piroe has 5 in 8 at Leeds, could've just signed him.

We're better defensively, although we couldn't get much worse. Now, he needs to learn substitutions. Against Leeds, the substitutions made us worse, against Stoke, the substitutions made us worse, today, the substitutions made us worse. I think SAA would be a pretty good substitutions for Suelemana, if he can't last 90 minutes, so why he has been demoted back to the Under-21s, I'm not sure. Fraser's a different player, more of a grafter who won't pull off the magic to win a game and Aribo's also different in that he's just so average and lazy. Whereas, Amo-Ameyaw's like a younger Sulemana in that he has that skill and trickery to get fans off their seat and create something. Mara's also not it, so poor. Hope not to see him again for a while when Stewart gets fit. We don't always need to make 5 subs. Before COVID teams coped with 3.

Championship clubs signed some quality players on loan in the 2022 summer window. Nathan Tella, Amad Diallo, Ian Maatsen, Cameron Archer, Harwood-Bellis, James McAtee and the two Doyles. We got this hobbit and Mason Holgate. WTF.

Positives: We looked a level above. Rotherham were just... there? Negatives: Everything else. Three games in a row, the subs coming on have killed our flow going forward. Alcaraz, Sulemana and KWP are the only three who can play on the turn, the rest get a bit predictable and really only pass the ball back to where they've received it from. Manning's so poor going forward. Adams doing a trademark Adams, missing from blank range for the first goal, fortunately, S. Armstrong was there, then Adams was just crap for the rest, as he has been ever since August finished. Can't blame a toxic home atmosphere for this one.

Superb news. Felt like he has looked a frustrated figure in the early parts of this season, but I'm no body language expert. Should keep him here for the season now with a number of reports earlier about a January bid for him.

Good for us in that he won't see playing for Southampton in the Championship as having a negative impact on his international career for the immediate future. I remember when we got relegated to League One and the France Under-21 manager said he wouldn't call up Schneiderlin if he played in the third tier. Thankfully, Schneiderlin remained. I am surprised that he got called up, though.

Hahaha, enjoyed that, even if it was far from convincing. We had to battle for that and it was the first time in ages we've shown a bit of fight, both during the match and after the full time whistle. First clean sheet since March too! Not sure why the commentary team kept harping on about the Downes contact as being a penalty, it wasn't The Bednarek rugby tackle probably should have been, but then Johnson could've received two yellows, not sure how he got away with hacking KWP down, the ref played advantage and forgot to get his cards out once the ball was out of play before his later yellow. Then their right-back Hoever, who isn't very good could have received two yellows also. He also pulled on Sulemana every time he was beaten, which was quite a lot. So, probably evens out. Shame the attacking subs were a bit crap. But, we'll take it! Expect another physical, scrappy game against Rotherham on the weekend. Up the Saints!

Two weeks off after the three games this week. Our 2009 to 2012 teams also played three games a week a lot for three years and coped alright. Lambert, Lallana, Fonte and Hammond certainly didn't miss many and they were the core of the team. That was also when only three subs were allowed and a five man bench. I'd be pretty annoyed if the good creative players (Alcaraz and Sulemana) were rotated again as they were exactly what we had been missing in the recent losses. Neither have got call ups to their international sides either. Also please don't shoehorn Adam Armstrong around the midfield. Play him as he did on Saturday, Adams on the bench.

Steven Davis named interim manager of Rangers tonight.

Made a smart stop at 1-0 when one of the Leeds players cut in from the left and hit an effort from range too. Parried it away from safety as well. Also dealt with a lot of their corners that were close to him. I know they scored from a corner, but it was well away from him when it went into the box. Good, solid game.

Unchanged 11, nobody loses their place after today. Today's team was the perfect balance. Could argue Smallbone for Charles. In Smallbone you get a player better in possession, while in Charles, you get a player better at winning back possession. But, after today, his goal and playing against an ex-club* I'd go Smallbone for this. *It's probably just Saints where every ex-player scores against us, though.

Get in! First half was very good. The players were playing without shackles and showed what they could do. The first goal, especially, some quick forward passes and Armstrong was in to chip over Meslier as we caught the Leeds defence out. Exactly what we have all been asking for. The second half was more of the same regarding what we've been seeing over the last few weeks, but we were 3-0 up. We definitely lost something in our attack when Sulemana went off. I'm surprised that Edozie never came on, would have brought him on ahead of Fraser, Aribo and Bree as we didn't really offer much in attack once Sulemana was taken off. Now, last season was full of false dawns. Please don't let this be one and please don't tinker with that starting eleven too much. That's the best eleven with arguments for Edozie and Charles coming in. No inverted full-backs. All good. KWP was my man of the match. He doesn't seem to do too well defensively these days in that the opposition keep getting crosses in down his side, but he setup the first goal and most of our good attacks came from him running forward with the ball. Sulemana a close second. Ref was shit, every Saints foul was a yellow and not the same the other way. Up the Saints!

Imagine Alcaraz is constantly on the phone to his agent at the moment too.

Livramento had a very good game for Newcastle tonight. 🙄

Not too sure why some people have been so against what you said regarding Adkins' sacking and Pochettino's appointment right after. I remember it being as how you said it and Poch very much needed to show fans he was a good manager right from the off, which he did. The evidence is also in the thread, find a positive post:

Also hoped he had a bank of names at the least that have caught his eye previously in his previous recruitment role that Aberdeen weren't able to finance a move for. Instead, he didn't seem to contribute/have any influence or say on anything over the summer.

There’s just nothing really positive to say about this team in recent matches. From a fans perspective it looks like they’re playing as half arsed as you’d expect a team to play once the manager’s lost the dressing room (Like under RH), not into his first few months in charge. We’ve been routinely beaten by Gillingham, annihilated by Sunderland, schooled by Leicester, eased out of a match by Ipswich and been seen off by a then bottom of the league and then winless Middlesbrough. We’ve scored in three of the fixtures, but we’ve barely laid a glove on the opposition across the 90 minutes. Just nothing to get excited about. Every week you’re watching the opposition get forward in numbers and attack at pace. Often outnumbering Southampton defenders. Something that is hard to defend against, often forcing errors and is proving to get results. You’ll never see a Southampton attack under Russell Martin outnumber the opposition defence. Instead, we’ll let the defence regroup, setup their block and outnumber us, meaning there isn’t any openings and we certainly aren’t good enough to create any openings. A lot has been said about the static nature of our attack, and I think a large part of that is because there isn’t any space, other than standing in an offside position. They’re constantly marked, playing with their back to goal and watching the likes of Downes, Smallbone and the defence pass around themselves while the opposition watch and setup. We’re not forcing any errors and there’s a lot in the Championship - see the one time we did play a long ball against Leicester and scored from it after I believe Doyle messed up his clearance. Teams are so well coached and set up tactically these days that you can’t really effectively breakdown defences with endless passing and possession. The best period under RH came when Vestergaard was playing long vertical balls up to Adams/Ings. Bypassing the midfield, catching the opposition defence out/sleeping. Which you don’t do when you’re passing it around the centre of the pitch in front of them. Bertrand to Ings’ quick goal against Arsenal, one pass, easy as that. If we’d have made 20 passes, Arsenal would have soaked it up and cleared. We have Sulemana, Adams, Alcaraz, Edozie in our attack. KWP down the right too. All have the individual talent to cause problems, take risks and overload the opposition, but we’re playing out matches while losing as though they’re friendlies and that’s apparently called not being brave. Adams needs someone up top near him. Even if it’s Armstrong to recreate the Adams/Ings partnership, who Armstrong was supposed to replace has got to be better than this rubbish. Finally the signings - Downes played under Martin, knows the system and he’s been more useless than most in his first outings. Same for Manning. Fraser, his mate from Scotland who we all knew had some question marks over attitude hasn’t delivered, Stewart, another Scottish mate injured. Even Harwood-Bellis, who proved himself at Burnley and England Under-21s is being hung out to dry with these tactics. What was Mowbray doing, because he didn’t really unearth any talent, Charles was known by Wilcox. Can’t keep blaming last season either, because a lot of the starting eleven weren’t a part of it. I do wonder however if it’s because we’ve got a bunch of loans and they don’t care because they’ll be going back to their parent clubs next summer.

Despite his height I think Vestergaard must have won a handful of aerial balls during his time here. He was awful in the air considering. Then you had Salisu, who had a 50p head in terms of attacking the ball. He was also awful in the air.

Another assist from a corner for Ward-Prowse. Our shrinking violets really were just shit at attacking corners.

Anyone know why we did stall on Piroe for so long. When Stewart signed we still had Adams, Armstrong, Mara and Onuachu. So, we could have just signed Piroe earlier anyway. Again, there wasn’t a lot of foresight or forward planning going on this summer from observing outside.

I'm just getting bored of all these managers playing "nicey nicey" with the players. Jones with his stupid nicknames and "Romeo done" banter, Selles saying we were fighting to stay up every week, when we were just limping to the finish line and waiting to be put out of our misery. Now, we have Martin saying he's proud of the players after a 4-1 defeat and they just need to be "braver" after a third straight defeat. What does being "braver" even mean, give us something with substance. Our players have had an easy ride from their bosses ever since they beat Norwich near two years ago. I keep referring to Koeman recently, but he was ready to drop players like Wanyama and Mane who were two of our best at the time when they were unprofessional and turned up late. Standards weren't allowed to drop. However, this Saints squad's standards have been rock bottom for over a year now, making it worse when they actually turned up against the big six last season, showing they were actually capable and it was a mental choice not to turn up for the other fixtures. I think part of the reason the managers keep blaming the fans for the atmosphere is because they players have been putting in unacceptable performances for so long now, but the only place they're hearing it from is from us. If they were playing well, but losing we all know they'd be clapped off the pitch as has been the case at St. Mary's many a time before. However, we're getting routinely beat every week and watching the same old players put in lacklustre performances every week, again, for over a year now. Give me a manager who says the players weren't good enough today and their performances are unacceptable, while dropping those players the following week and putting someone else in their place. Rather than starting Adam Armstrong, Will Smallbone and Ryan Manning every week no matter how they played the week before. It was the same with Elyounoussi last season, did nothing with the ball, which is important in football, but started every week.

We were supposed to get relegated so that we could reset the squad, win more games and play more Saturday 3pm kick offs. Instead, we got left with a lot of the dross from previous seasons, decided to spend money on just two players, one being injured while losing our poster boy and captain to West Ham. Won 3/7 league matches and played just 2 of those 7 at 3pm on a Saturday.