HarvSFC

Remember these two goons at the fans forum backing Jones when every single fan knew he needed to go, only we needed to throw a match against 10 man Wolves at home to actually get them into action. How many is that now since SR took over? Alex Clapham, who SR hired for the coaching team, headed to Brazil after just four months. Now at Genoa in Italy. Joe Shields, another SR appointment. Lasted just three months after a now appalling transfer window. Fortunately, he's now Chelsea's problem, but he still soon shot off out of here. Matt Crocker, seems to be highly thought of after his first spell and up until this season helping to keep us in the league with limited resources. Didn't last a year under SR before handing in his resignation. Now, Rice, who has been head hunted by Ashworth and the mega millions of Newcastle, so must have something about him. A lot of resignations in one season behind the scenes, even Hasenhuttl was a different character to who we had seen previously working under this board, but he also had a massive payoff to clasp onto.

To win promotion from the Championship, you need to attack and try to win games. In 11-12 we won 26 of our 46 games, were the highest scorers with 85 in 46. I don't think Selles' tactics can do that. We've got nothing to lose now, we've been 20th ever since he took charge and still are. Yet, the football I'm watching is like we're playing for draws/trying to stay in the game for as long as possible. There isn't another side in this division who doesn't start their best 11 because of the new 5 sub rule. Yet, we've seemingly been leaving the inconsistent, but dangerous players on the bench, to start the more conservative Elyounoussi to then bring the inconsistent, but dangerous players on when we're losing and the other team is sat back all season. It's a tactic that simply hasn't worked, we're always chasing the game and Selles has been here all season too, so really he doesn't have an excuse. Yesterday, Elyounoussi played 54 minutes, against Tottenham, 70, Brentford before that 58, hauled off at half time by Jones against Brentford away. It's like Selles sees he's the problem in the match, yet he starts him every week hoping for something different. Alcaraz, who only joined in January is already our third highest goal scorer in the league. How does he get rewarded? Benched for shit players who can't do anything but give the ball away at this level. I know Alcaraz isn't the finished article and gives the ball away himself, but at least he has the ability to actually do something. He's essentially the 2023 Mark Wotte. Yes, he's an improvement on Jones, as Wotte was an improvement on Poortvliet, as it's hard to get much worse. But, neither should be here in the long-term. Thank him and say our goodbyes at the end of the season. Only worry is this board aren't known for their ruthlessness and will probably hand out one of their charitable contracts. Only last September Djenepo was given a new three year deal because he had to start the season at left-back. Now, nowhere to be seen again.

Armstrong’s the worst of the lot. Used to really like him as a player, but he’s horrendous now.

There’s someone who supports Pompey at the club, right? Team selections, transfers, tactics all been pathetic all season. We even signed an attacking midfielder that scores open play goals in January. In a side that doesn’t score goals, but that’s too exciting for the decision makers.

Elyounoussi lost the ball on the half way line, Caleta-Car has to take the man as West Ham are countering. But, he’s excellent off the ball.

What did we do to Sutton? Tipped us and Bournemouth to be record breakers this season with it being very impressive to be on just 7 points after 28 matches. For context, Derby were on 10 after 28 matches.

Big test tonight against Mbappe and the rest of the French squad. Hopefully does well and doesn't kill his confidence.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZxqNknjuSw/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading Nice story with us being his last game in charge.

Our recruitment of players was terrible, as was our recruitment of the management team in November. That's the story, really. A lack of research everywhere. Given all the dross Sports Republic have appointed, and I include the short stay of Joe Shields in that given the summer business, it's lucky Selles was above competent really. I guess if you throw enough mud, some of it sticks. Just have to hope Wilcox is more Selles than Shields in his role.

Burnley and Leeds already tried it last year.

He'll get a three month ban over the summer with a large part of the ban being served during the close season.

Got a good first time assist. Kelleher looked as poor as Bazunu has for us at times this season. Latvia scored 2 out of their 3 shots on target. But, Bazunu does it against Premier League opposition and Latvia just aren't that, while Kelleher warms the Liverpool bench. More big club bias on the old international stage. Another Saints link with Pahars still being part of the Latvia coaching setup.

No more "punts" in the summer, if we stay up. We need four quality £20m+ players, rather than eight £10m punts. It's where last summer went wrong and has been the case for a few windows now.

Palace are in their Ankersen-Jones era. Just got to hope Hodgson performs just as badly, which he did at Watford last season, losing 13 of his 18 games, winning 2.

Ran out of favourites.

Mitrovic only has two league goals since October. Compared to our forwards that's world class form, but he's reverted to type a bit after a strong start.

The Ross Wilson effect.

I don’t get the Elyounoussi selections either. The argument against Edozie and Djenepo is that they give up possession too easily, which they do. However, to my eye Elyounoussi surrenders possession for us just as much and brings nothing and we all know it’s absolutely nothing going forward either. The only thing with Elyounoussi is that he loses the ball a lot of the time indirectly. Indirectly when he can’t get to a through ball because he’s too slow against any full-back in the league. While he also loses it directly because he moves at a walking pace when he does have the ball and he’s also a bit crap on the ball. Leicester being the most recent example. He was brought on to help us defend a lead. We defended the lead, but it wasn’t any thanks to him as the ball was coming straight back down our end every time it went up the field. Now, I also know that Edozie and Djenepo are a bit crap. But, for now they are Southampton players. They are two options and two better options than Elyounoussi and they’d have given the Brentford players a lot more to think about than what we offered up last night. Heck, they’d at least win free kicks and that’s our best scoring opportunity at the moment, while opposition defenders take the ball off Elyounoussi with ease. You get nothing from not taking any gambles and this shit risk averse football that we play is leaving us rooted to the bottom of the league table.

Need to appoint an attack minded manager in the summer. Selles is safety first and it will be even more dour to watch us play sideways football against Rotherham. Adkins set us up to win every game, we were the highest scorers in the league in 2011-12 and that's what we need.

We lost the game before kick off. Unforgiveable to start Diallo and Elyounoussi in any fixture after being here for 27 league matches, let alone a fixture of this importance. The one winnable fixture of the three this week. Diallo's comfortably the worst central midfielder in the league. Can't make a simple pass and gives up possession every time, meaning we had no control of the game in the first half. Whilst, Elyounoussi is a trier, but he can't move. Our passes to feet weren't working, so when we did try to pass into the space on the side that Sulemana wasn't on, Brentford were just mopping it up as neither Elyounoussi or Adams have any legs. I guess Edozie and Djenepo were too forward thinking for our manager, as even though they do lose possession more often than not, Elyounoussi also does, but also doesn't create any excitement either. Too many sideways safety passes that gets you nowhere against Premier League defenders. I made a joke in the week, but how Toney continues to play after admitting to 200+ betting offences, only the FA knows. Best bit of the match was Bednarek giving him a bit after he left a boot in on Bazunu towards the end of the match. KWP going off injured was shit. He should've also been brought off straight away after going down, don't know why we kept him on for a few extra minutes. Nathan Jones' son looked crap. Can't carry the ball and just hits the ball and hopes for the best, even when he hoofed what should have been a simple pass down the line to Walcott. Ref was shit. Predicted it on Sunday, we've been false dawn football club this season. Only show up against the big boys.

Time for Toney to finally be banned from playing football, I reckon.

Very good result and performance to boot. Only complaint we can really have is that we didn't take all 3, which I wasn't even thinking of prior to kick off. Almost exactly a month ago we were playing against a 10 man Wolves team with a goal advantage at home and lost 2-1. We were by far the worst team in the league, had no fight in us and were sinking without a whimper. Now, we're fighting again and that's the main thing. We're fighting at the right time, while the likes of Leicester, Palace and Forest after a little resurgence are struggling when time is running out. Yes, we could have scored today and a better team would have, but we also had to get through Varane, Martinez and De Gea, who are all playing at the top of their game, barring last week and currently up there with the best. Shaw's back to his best also and Wan-Bissaka is known for being one of the better defensive full-backs. Their strength is their defence, while Rashford is in the best form of his career and scoring everything, which we stopped today. One thing that always leaves me perplexed is how Walcott's technical ability has diminished almost over night. He's lost the explosive pace he had, but I always felt he was a bit underrated for his actual footballing ability at Arsenal. It was only 2017 when he hit 19 goals in 37 appearances in all comps (10 in 28 in the league) and some of the goals he did score were of a high quality. But, today, nothing fell for him. The header, the 1 v 1 and the failed through ball on the counter to JWP. You expect a player to lose pace, etc. as they get older, but he's not playing like a player who spent 13 years at Arsenal and won 47 England caps. But, ah well, suppose his footballing brain is still good and he's better than a lot of our other number 10s who can't even work a chance. Key thing now is that we give a similar performance against Brentford in midweek. We've had plenty of false dawns this season, beating Chelsea twice, beating City in the cup and then following it with an amateur performance where the players don't look like they've seen each other before. We need to make this the start of a good run now, up the Saints!

Was against Jorginho at Chelsea.

Now that's a depressing stat!