HarvSFC

I like this line from the Echo: "Still's side are bottom half for touches in their own third but top four in Ligue 1 for touches in the opposition third, and top for crosses attempted." Never got the fascination of playing the football in your own half, inviting pressure. Lose the ball in your own half and you have a strong chance of conceding a chance. Lose the ball in the opposition's half and they've still got work to do to create a chance. Simple really. Get the ball up the pitch quickly and in the opposition half, and then keep the possession in their half, if you must apply such a system. We've rarely crossed the ball and put it in the danger zone/the "corridor of uncertainty" in the last two years as well. We probably won't have Onuachu next season, but could suit Stewart's game if he remains fit.

Saving money and going for the cheaper alternative because we couldn't afford our main targets went very well last summer.

I don't get the animosity towards Still. Fair enough if it was Cleverley, or the Minnesota manager. But, Still's coming off a few top 10 finishes in the French top flight. Sunderland appointed Le Bris after he was relegated from the French top division last summer and they're going into a play-off final after a 16th placed finish and a season of three managers. We're a Championship club and we're going to struggle to appoint anyone with top flight experience, hence why a lot of the linked names are so uninspiring. On the note of needing experience, Maresca had none when he won the league with Leicester, he was just Pep's coach before they appointed him, while McKenna was 34 when Ipswich appointed him and they haven't done too badly, he also didn't have a senior playing career. We've been down the mid-table Championship avenue before. Nathan Jones had Luton punching above their weight, as Rohl has Sheffield Wednesday and he was a car crash. While, Swansea fans told us Martin's weaknesses, and they continued here, ultimately costing him his job. I just don't think many fans would be bothered if Rohl hadn't previously worked here and would be showing the same disgruntled views they're now sharing on Still. I think Still's done more in his managerial career so far. It would be nice to think the club has for the first time since Sports Republic took over done their homework, with Spors now leading the recruitment and for once we may actually unearth something. If not, and Still ends up being a car crash then it would just add to the long list of errors made. Whoever gets appointed needs to appoint a new captain. Stephens isn't good enough and hasn't kept the team keeping any standards this season under his leadership. The new manager also needs to demand his own coaching team. Rusk is a failed Stockport manager, who was appointed within our U21s, but due to sackings has somehow found his way as caretaker manager of a Premier League senior team. Shouldn't be near the seniors. Lallana should be earning his stripes with the youth teams like Surman and Lancashire are doing, but I doubt his ego would allow him to. While, Carl Martin and Dean Thornton have somehow managed to hang on from the Russell Martin regime. Every game week you're left wondering what the coaches have been doing with the players all week. They need a clear out like the scouting team have had. 12 points, nobody deserves to stay.

Sulemana, Dibling and Aribo don't work hard enough off the ball, so Everton can progress the ball up the pitch at ease, as they did for the goal. Then they're bearing down on a defence, who are all also too scared to commit and N'Diaye had all the time in the world to pick out his shot.

Still has left Lens...

Think Broja's in a similar category to this also.

If Leon Best and Inigo Idiakez didn't miss those penalties, Derby wouldn't have ever got the points record and we'd have become the worst team in Premier League history this season. It's been a very long time coming, but thank you Best and Idiakez.

Well, that was as good as we could have hoped for. As we learned a few times last season, a low block is kryptonite to these possession at all costs tactics as you're needing to pass it through two banks of players and then having to beat the goalkeeper, all of which have had enough time to get organised and setup their structure. Therefore, it needs a perfect pass/individual brilliance to break it. Rotherham at home and Norwich away were the two standouts to my mind that were similar last year for us. Fulham and Aston Villa broke through us with a quick pass into the box, Manchester City didn't try that today. The first half was an attack vs defence drill. The second half we had a fair bit more space and there was one opportunity to snatch the victory, but Archer couldn't get his shot away. Individual performances, Ramsdale stood up when needed, but his kicking is poor. That will be the one thing that stops him from going to one of the top 10. Bednarek got right under Haaland's skin, because he pocketed him today. Welington, so much better than Manning. He put in and won tackles and stopped the cross from coming in on numerous occasions. Fernandes good again. But, Dibling showed why he needs to play out wide, where there is more space, rather than the central position. Aribo came on, and played his part well, as well. A few times he helped us to retain possession. I think the Derby record is the worst record in the Premier League, because it's stood for so long and is the one that gets brought up the most. The 9-0s were mentioned for a year, but other teams have lost 9-0 since. Whereas, whoever's beating that Derby record, if it ever does, is getting a permanent stain on their club because nobody's doing worse from that. And, as predicted the Manchester City press conferences aren't blowing smoke up our arses, because we didn't give them an easy game today, while Martin is still dining out on those comments. The officials were horrific today. The supporters were great, heard nothing from the City end.

Rusk keeps having digs at the fans in his press conferences after the Leicester game. Him, the squad and the owners have had the easiest ride of their lives considering they're sat on 11 points after 35 matches. The fans who went last week rightfully decided to air their anger last week, as despite Fernandes going to Portugal, he was still our most dangerous player on the pitch and a half fit Fernandes is better than a fully fit Smallbone. Plus, the performance last weekend was shocking. However, his comment today "I don't get to stop the game and announce on the tannoy the data behind why." Was just weird. The game's done, leave it. Rusk isn't blameless this season either. He has been a first team coach for the most part. But, there hasn't actually been any evidence of coaching since Wembley last year. Anyway, onto the game. It's going to be a really dull Saturday. Manchester City are going to pass it around our strolling players for fun. We'll be chasing shadows all afternoon. It's going to be really dull. It won't be a heavy defeat, as Guardiola's City team have never really hammered a team despite them being capable of doing so most weeks.

Only seen the goals, but it's good to see that completely slowing the game down and passing backwards at all costs hasn't filtered down to the youth teams. Now, there might have been times in the match where they did so, but there is a time and a place to play slow, and there's a time to play fast, not being predictable and mixing it up. From the goals, we attacked with pace and it worked, pulling the Fulham defence out of shape, revolutionary.

Aside from Bednarek who's already done it. Imagine lining up with those at Fratton Park. Stephens would get caught up in the moment and get a red card, Manning would stay even further away from the touchline as he currently does when defending and Smallbone would get dominated by a fired up Portsmouth midfield. That's the worry for next season. Bournemouth and Brighton have already moved ahead of us as clubs, but we can't let Portsmouth move ahead of us.

Only our recruitment team could go to City and spend big money on Gunn and Bazunu, while they had a perfectly capable young goalkeeper in James Trafford.

The lack of forward thinking/any plan from the club was very clear when we started the season with Alex McCarthy. Not only did we hand him a new two year deal when we should have been saying our thank yous and goodbyes, we started the Premier League with him in goal. Goalkeeper should have been a priority, but we only went and panic signed Aaron Ramsdale when it became very clear that McCarthy wasn't up to it. Which every person in Southampton could have told you, apart from the people making the decisions. A lot has been said that we've never replaced Ings, Mane, Pelle, etc. But, last summer's recruitment team couldn't even replace Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong. Abysmal off the pitch and abysmal on the pitch. Everyone associated with this season deserves a lot of criticism. The players, the managers, the board members, the coaches, the scouts, the recruitment team, everyone. You just have to hope that Sports Republic have got something right for once with the new team they're setting up, otherwise we're in a lot of trouble.

Fernandes and Sulemana off, Smallbone and Robinson on. He's thrown the white flag up.

One day these players will learn just standing off and letting the opposition pass the ball around them isn't going to work. You have to get tight, put in a challenge, put pressure on the ball and try to force an error. Today is not that day. Allow a free cross into the box and get punished. What was Bednarek doing with Vardy also? Good riddance.

Timing's key with this one. Romano gets his information from agents and Bednarek's agent will have asked Romano to make the release clause public knowledge as well as the throwaway line of "several clubs attentive to this opportunity" which doesn't actually mean anything but may push a club into making a move. He must have his eye on a move this summer. We can thank Bednarek for his service. He has kind of redeemed himself after refusing to play in the Cup because of the upcoming international break and his comments after joining Villa. However, we've never had a good defence with Bednarek in it. Not even last season in the Championship. We need someone more dominant and physical in the position. Villa quickly found out he wasn't good enough and that was when they were below us and we tried to replace him and Stephens two years ago, yet here they are starting every week. So, yeah, not going to lose too much sleep over this one. Bednarek leaving is one of the keys to getting a squad refresh.

House and Blackmore provide additional information and the finer details, but yeah, they're both some way behind Romano and Ornstein when it comes to transfers and breaking news these days. Don't think either of the latter two cover takeovers that much, though. They get their information from agents. Both House and Blackmore have said on Twitter that they've heard the same rumours before Jordan said it today. But, both seem to know as much as we all do today. You'd have thought that had the statement been completely false then the club may have communicated something this evening, but nothing. Or, maybe they still all have Mondays off. With all that said, Alfie House did say on Saturday that season ticket information would be coming out this week...

It does take far less money to make Goztepe/Valenciennes decent sides in their country's. Look at Goztepe for example, we've sent them a load of players that we signed for only a few million and they're trying to get in Europe. Whereas, it costs £20m+ and over £100k on wages these days just to get a proven Premier League player. It comes to a point where Solak must think he's spent hundreds of million, and what has he got to show for it? Almost the worst Premier League side of all time. If he was guided properly on spending on all that money we could have had a very decent side now. But he wasn't. Kraft's already jumped ship, Ankersen's focussing on Goztepe, the SR team has fallen apart over the last year and there isn't really any smoke without fire, especially in this age of reporting where nothing really stays secret. We could do with an actual 'in the know' right now.

If they want Ramsay, give him to Goztepe/Valenciennes to prove himself. Not Southampton. Thought that was the point of this multi-club model.

Les Reed is the football mastermind at Wrexham as well. He has done very well in the transfer market with the high resources available to him there. You can definitely see Birmingham and Wrexham signing better players than we do in the summer window.

Not too much to get excited about aside from the goal. Fulham completely dominated the match, they had 13 corners to our 0, 64% of the ball, damning stats for a home team. Been saying it all season, if the team lacks quality, make up for it in effort and this team lacks both. Football shouldn't be this predictable, upsets exist, a lot of this team lost to Grimsby two years ago because they were more fired up for it than our "Premier League players" and this side are incapable of pulling off an upset and getting a shock result. Every time we had the ball Fulham swarmed us. Every time Fulham had the ball, our players backed off and gave them space. Only Flynn Downes is capable of putting in a challenge in this team. Watching the first goal back. Iwobi is able to scoop the ball into the box at ease. Emile Smith-Rowe is then able to bring the ball down in the box, he's then allowed to turn in the box and then get a shot off that deflects off Bednarek some yards away. The second goal, Dibling loses the ball too easily, which is become a common occurrence with him, Manning once again is nowhere near Traore, who puts in the cross and then it finds a Fulham player, of course and goes in. Our players are just too slow to everything, jog around and can't compete in the Premier League. Dibling can't get a start for the worst top flight Southampton team of all time, nobody's paying more than £30m for him as when he does play he just goes through the motions. Far more talented players have seen their careers fall off a cliff as there comes a point where they can't just rely on their talent, just putting the warning out there... Stephens and Bednarek need to go. If the next manager keeps Stephens as captain it will be a joke. He isn't good enough to warrant playing every week and his leadership skills are lacking if this season is anything to go by. Didn't have the difficult conversation with his mate Martin to say that his tactics weren't working and the players weren't capable of playing them. Didn't ensure the team maintained standards under Juric and has let us down time and time again while on the pitch. While, many say Bednarek is at least good in the Championship, but we've never had a good defence with Bednarek in the side, even in the Championship our defence was poor. The club tried getting rid of the pair of two years ago and they're starting every week. As for the forwards... Well, Sulemana doesn't have any end product and the others can't cause any problems for a Premier League defence. KWP and Fernandes once again the only positives.

Injury could be a blessing. I feared another Forster/McCarthy situation coming up this summer, when we were handicapped by having them both as our senior goalkeepers in the squad and on good wages that they wouldn't get elsewhere. This time, it would be Bazunu/McCarthy, but we just really need a new goalkeeper when Ramsdale inevitably goes and with Bazunu injured again, it could force our hand and make it a priority. Or, we could ignore the goalkeeper situation once again and go into the season with McCarthy as the number one, just like we did this season before it became very apparent that McCarthy wasn't capable.

Fernandes could definitely be our Hamar. Just need Fernandes to do a Schneiderlin and work an agreement to give us a season in a lower league and see how it goes. Amazingly, Schneiderlin gave us two in League One after the initial summer hysteria regarding his French youth international manager. Although, Fernandes has a lot more of a profile now than Schneiderlin did. Just show him Portugal legend Ruben Neves playing for Wolves in the Championship.

Agree that full-back could be a problem area next season, if we don't get the recruitment right, but I think we're pretty much saying that all over the pitch now. On Manning, I don't think he has ever stopped a cross in his Saints career, he always gives the winger enough time and space to do what they want, putting pressure on an already weak defence. I said last week, that he's got all the weaknesses of Danny Fox, but none of the strengths in an attacking sense, either. Defensively very poor, and attacking wise, as you said never puts in a good ball and most of the time when he does have the ball, he turns back and goes for the easy pass. Manning's one of the Martin friends group, but he was the only one from the group Martin doubted could make the step up, hence the signings of Taylor and Wellington and why Manning wasn't getting a look in at the start of the season and linked with a move away. He's now in the team because he's got a bit of fight about him and does put in effort, but we do need more quality there.

Another positive bit from today is that with Sugawara dropped from the match squad, it's looking more and more likely that he has got one foot out of the door. So, hopefully we replace KWP with an actual right-back under the new recruitment regime.