HarvSFC

Last season you could excuse the second half performances as our players being knackered. This season, we don’t press and we don’t dominate the first 45 anymore. I just don’t get it. We don’t have any control at all. Bournemouth should be the side looking tired after the first 45. And great. I know KWP’s not having a great season by his standards, but him joining Lavia and ABK in the physio room is just what we need.

This ref is really poor.

Blackburn play high pressing and either win or lose, no draws this season, 9 wins and 7 losses in 16 matches. Sounds quite similar! Although, they're top of the Championship, so it's working for now. I think we need someone more solid, someone who knows how to grind out results, not it's either good, or bad.

As said a few pages back, Pompey claim to win the league and that they'll be playing us in the next after two games with each passing season and by the end they get nowhere near. Plymouth are this year's runaway side. We're bad, but we're not losing 3-0 away to Charlton on Sky in League One bad. 4 of their players on the pitch tonight started against our B team last week and two more were unused subs, so at least they got their big day out for the season.

On the topic of Djenepo, what's happened to him? Done alright as a makeshift left-back in a time of desperation. Signed one of those charitable contracts we like to hand out and then hasn't got near the pitch since. I know it's picking the best of a bad bunch, but surely he should be ahead of Walcott in the attacking pecking order with reports of him starting yesterday and his moments are better than anything Elyounoussi's produced. Seems like we've tried everyone in attack, but him.

We're all Charlton fans tonight.

Norwich at home, 22 games ago, which says a lot to be fair.

Wanted 4 points from West Ham and Bournemouth, so I'll await the midweek result to bemoan another dropped two points. We played well, up until we went a goal up and Adams could've got a couple as well, but after that we were dire and West Ham didn't give us a touch of the ball. We need to stay in touching distance of the rest of the pack and spend the Gakpo money on a star attacker in January, not do the old spread it around 3 mediocre players. But, then again, we could barely string a few forward passes together today and an attacker isn't going to change that, levels need to be upped still.

Red and white stripes have served us well previously.

A reminder of the last time Pilchards pretended to be ITK regarding a managerial change:

He's deleted his Instagram account, so he may miss out on any Goncalo Ramos updates.

Fair points. I still don't think Shields is completely proven either. As said, he very much relied on his Man City youth contacts in the summer. It will be interesting to see how he gets on with a much bigger budget while looking to secure the higher profile players. I don't think he has actually proved anything here yet, but the early signs were promising. But, also, there was probably a better number 10 out there than Edozie, who was ready to be a starter from day one and there was probably a better left-back than Larios. Also, probably a better CDM, as you said, while he was also fixated on Delap, again the Man City obsession, who's struggling in the Championship and didn't secure us an alternative, leaving us weak up top. So, his only summer window wasn't entirely successful and I don't think Chelsea will accept Man City youth players, other than Lavia, who is an extreme talent.

I guess his legacy was liking that Benfica striker’s Instagram post.

So, that’s the set-piece coach and now Shields leaving us already after joining in the summer. Doesn’t look too great from the outside looking in. Not liking the project? I guess we could have a bit more variety on our signings again now, after a summer of raiding Man City’s youth department. Expect Chelsea to add ABK and Lavia to their squad in the not so distant future.

There sure have been a lot of strikers over the years who scored for fun at youth level, but barely made it as a professional. Cedric Baseya the original, Jamie White, Ryan Seager, Olufela Olomola, Jonathan Afolabi. Probably missing someone obvious too. Not a striker, but I liked the look of Kayne McLaggon when he first broke through too, but he's spent most of his career at semi-pro level.

Bradley Wright-Phillips. Ian Wright's son, a striker, brother of Shaun Wright-Phillips, a £21m player at the time, scored on his debut off the bench in a 2-2 draw against Derby. Everything was written for him to be the main man, but he never really pushed on. Had a very good career in America, though. I had a lot of hopes that Idiakez would be the main man after he signed too, same squad.

Feels similar to Dortmund's collapse in Klopp's final season there.

Put him in the same boat as Gakpo and Moussa Dembele, who didn't want to come here. Semmens is on record as saying it doesn't matter where we finish in the league, when it does as the next bracket of players/managers do not want to be anywhere near a side constantly flirting with relegation.

A good lineup for West Ham at home, so if we do get taken apart today, we’ll likely go back to three at the back with Elyonoussi starting and Adams up top on his own next week.

And all those years ago you probably expected/hoped to never see Lancashire in a Saints shirt again!

I believe Crocker and Cooper will have worked together previously when part of the England setup, so he'd definitely be on our radar. I, myself am ooing and arring with him. Before this season, I wanted him, if Forest didn't get promoted. He got Forest promoted against the odds and did a very good job at Swansea also. The only glaring thing, is that Forest have conceded 8 more goals than us this season, and we need somebody who can shore up a defence up here. Sometimes the Premier League is one step too far for managers. Although, I'm also pretty sure he himself didn't want two new squads worth of players this summer, not signing any of those they had on loan. Last season he was influential in his one January window with Forest, signing players he knew from the England youth levels in Surridge, Panzo and Davis, while also bringing in the experience of Cook to get them over the line. This summer, from the outside it looks like someone from the top wanted to grab the headlines. You can probably attribute Williams, Henderson, Richards, Toffolo, O'Brien, Lingard and Gibbs-White to Cooper's influence from his Liverpool, England and Championship knowledge. But, I doubt he's looking at players like Aurier and thinking they're up for a Premier League relegation fight.

Six of Forest's 23 signings were full-backs. Was an uncoordinated and a scatter gun approach. Their owners are slightly more forgiving than Watford's when it comes to manager's, so expect Cooper to go next.

Pochettino took over midseason, four matches after we were sat 18th under Adkins following a loss to Sunderland and draws with Fulham and Stoke, which was probably when the decision to make the quick changeover was made. We then beat Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City under Pochettino that season, staying up comfortably in 14th. Had the same squad as Adkins, but got the players working harder. The players still played for Adkins, but Pochettino got them fitter with double training sessions and getting them to press the opposition. Hasenhuttl took over mid season, we were 18th with one win in 16. Again, we stayed up fairly comfortably, in 16th, winning 8 of those last 22, including wins against Arsenal and Tottenham. Had the same squad as Hughes, but got the players working harder and getting them to press the opposition. Noticing a pattern. Even Hughes got the players showing a bit more heart when he took over late on, although couldn't get much worse than Pellegrino. So, it isn't rocket science. We're not going to get a January transfer window like Newcastle did, which saw their sudden upturn alongside postponing fixtures to a later date. We need to employ someone who's going to get the squad working hard again and making up for the lesser talent with higher desire and work rate. The good times under Hasenhuttl have been very good and for many of us we've been clinging onto those hoping they'd come back. But, for over half a year now, we're still turning up second best. Everything that was good under Hasenhuttl has been scrapped. The press? Non-existent, even with five subs now. 4-2-2-2? Deviations of it, and a failed three at the back formation. Coaching players through games, during lockdown football all you could hear was Hasenhuttl? Stands on the side-lines now with his arms crossed. Something's changed, we're not the same side anymore and after changing the players, the coaches, even the owners, the only thing left is the manager and I'm getting tired of this football. I'd rather we still turned up for 45 minutes and lost than this current serving.

Even getting shout outs in Championship matches now - The last team Watford scored two away goals against.

The Aribo goal papered over what was a near dire performance up until then. As said earlier in the week, we're just too passive and make it far too easy for the opposition. Whether it be defending and just standing off the opposition, no press and give them the freedom of the pitch to pick a pass and as for our attacking... Too much sideways, backwards shite and allowing them to set up their defensive unit, which we don't have the quality to then break down. We used to be quick, force teams into mistakes and capitalise on them, but now it's like turning up and watching the same Southampton that we watched under Pellegrino and Hughes. We responded to the two 9-0s far better than the Aston Villa 4-0 last season, which has brought a complete change of everything and seemingly killed off this team/management. If we aren't playing well and losing, then the manager's got to go for me and this has been the case since February. As with England in the week, today we played a lot better when we went 2-1 down. But, nobody wants to see that. I want to see us playing like that at 0-0, when there's a better chance of getting the three points and taking the game to the opposition. The only way this play is taking us is downwards. Always say this as well, but the team is just too nice when it comes to gamesmanship. Rarely do I leave St. Mary's thinking the referees been quite favourable to us that afternoon. Pickford was running the game for the last 30 minutes, used every trick in the time wasting book, didn't get booked for it. Everton players kicked the ball away every time we were given something, didn't receive any bookings for it. The subs delayed the game as much as possible, the ref wasn't interested. The ref was weak as piss. Bring back the drinks breaks if it was actually working for us. We should've at least had a player go down and delay their free-kick right after the Aribo goal to take the sting out of the game, but we didn't. Once again showing our amateurishness with the points lost from winning positions stat. As for Maitland-Niles. Always been a very average central midfielder, ran a game against us for West Brom once, but still got relegated and never been given an extended run as a central midfielder since. He's a Premier League right-back, who doesn't want to play right-back and usually our best player (not today) is our right-back. Was a weird signing. We missed a player like Romeu massively.