HarvSFC

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.

Good eleven, come on you Saints!

Their opening seven fixtures have been quite favourable, other than Chelsea and Liverpool - Forest, Brentford, Leeds, Villa and a currently terrible West Ham.

I'm not buying the start good players on the bench because there's five subs now excuse. Use the best players from the start, be proactive , take the lead and hope Elyounoussi can help us see it out, as he's incapable of giving us a lead. I'd rather have the likes of Aribo start the game at 0-0, rather than coming on when we're chasing the game every week. Watching a lot of football also, and every other team is starting with their best eleven. I thought the reason we went for five subs was so that we could maintain a high press for longer than just 45 minutes with players rotating throughout the match. We've seemingly dropped the press and developed some overly passive, keeping it safe crap that I don't want to see any of on Saturday.

Is this what happens when you look to attack?

Bring Luke Shaw back?

Similar to when we were linked to the young Arsenal striker Balogun, who decided to sign a new contract at Arsenal, went on loan to Middlesbrough and did poorly, scoring just 3 in 20. Although, he is scoring for fun in France this season with 5 in 6.

Gregory Vignal is a Liverpool legend.

Managers are weird.

The rewriting of history of the Fonte situation always baffles me. He left Crystal Palace in the Championship for us in League One for more money and he left us for West Ham, for more money. Although, he, like everyone else probably thought he was United bound. Jorge Mendes wasn’t always Fonte’s agent, he switched agents at Southampton, during Koeman’s final season. A player doesn’t switch to Mendes to stay at Southampton for the remainder of their career. He wanted out, there isn’t any ifs or buts about it.

West Ham's new signings don't look up to much.

Well, they definitely should’ve replaced Schmeichel.

Brighton are now in transition. They've lost a lot of key figures this year, starting with Ashworth to Newcastle, Bissouma to Spurs and Cucurella to Chelsea. While, Maupay seemed to be inconsistent, he was still better than Welbeck, who's been their main striker this season and he's never hit more than 9 goals in a league season, last time he even hit that number was 2014. The only consistency they had this season was Potter, and now he's gone along with the entire coaching team there. It's going to be a very big job to take on now, especially following their good start, expectations will be pretty high for the new man.

I just want to go to football, essentially. 😕

Feels like we’re being forced to mourn the queen, rather than going about life as normal and showing respect together, as a country, as a fan base, as a community/a city.

Plenty of names, Bertrand and Vestergaard were two I wasn't too unhappy to see depart. But, Ings, Fonte until Lille, Clyne, Schneiderlin, Shaw, Lambert :(, Lovren, Lallana, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, even Bale initially all left being the stars of Southampton Football Club and many moved on to become nothing but a number at their new clubs, many of them often mocked. We did get good money for many of them and they of course have made a lot of money themselves and do have some trophies/medals to add to their cabinet, even if they played a minute part in winning them, but they could have also built a legacy at a club, been remembered, which I don't think is on any footballer's minds these day. The majority were all proven Premier League players also, but failed to bring the quality to their new clubs, so goes to show how unpredictable transfers can be.

The Delap thread on the Stoke forum doesn't read too well for him: https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com/thread/305490/thoughts-on-delap?page=6

He could've let the ball drop and kneed it in, if he so wished. Basically, if the ball had hit any other body part, other than his arms and hands, it would have gone in and counted. Scores a remarkable acrobatic volley against Leicester the other week, but can't score when pretty much on the goal line with a free net. Ah well, onto the next one. Gives the new signings another week to work with the team.

I think Glover was probably told to go, like the coaches. Difference being in public it looked more like Glover's decision and helped uphold his reputation. His history with clubs isn't great, oversaw the summer transfers of Sunderland before they finished 20th in this league, bringing an end to their nine year stay, oversaw Everton spending money on nothing for three years and then has a poor record with us for three years. Leicester wouldn't have been a particularly big draw this summer, either. "We're looking for a new head of recruitment, but we can't actually afford to sign anybody." While, we've been very active in the market for the first time in years. Shields was perfect for us really, fit the owners' ethos to a T and has used his contacts well. I don't think we'd have not moved to appoint Shields if Glover was still here.

The cheek of Bournemouth. 😂 I wonder how that conversation went. Bournemouth: "We want to sign one of your contracted players, Nathan Redmond." Southampton: "Okay, what's your first offer?" Bournemouth: "Can you terminate his contract?" You're a Premier League club, not League Two anymore even if you haven't worked on your infrastructure. As for us, we've had a good window, a forward away from an excellent window. I mean, we are relying quite a bit on Adams staying fit, as Mara is still potential. Our first eleven stays in this league comfortably, but an injury to one or two of Adams, Armstrong or Mara would leave us quite short. I don't know much about Edozie, but I suppose he could be like Lavia, who we all expected to be a squad player when he signed and he could provide the desired competition to Elyounoussi, or A. Armstrong if he continues on the left. Bazunu's looked solid in goal, which was key, Aribo's had flashes of brilliance, as has Mara, Lavia's arguably been our best and most consistent player in this start of the season and ABK has made our defence so much better. I don't know a lot about Caleta-Car, but his name has popped up on here every window, so hopefully he can stop us from shitting ourselves if one of Salisu, or ABK get injured. Same for Maitland-Niles, a good, experienced player to have in the squad. As for the notable outgoings. Very sad to see Romeu go. Our best moments of the last two years have been with him at the top of his game, but unfortunately our worst moments have also been with him either injured, or just struggling to keep up with the game. Signed as a squad, but was so much more. On the other hand, you have Bednarek... A player who bottled an FA Cup quarter-final. Okay, he's not THAT bad, he's a squad centre-back, who found himself as a starter because we didn't look to invest anything. The arrival of ABK makes you realise how much better's out there than Bednarek. He can make all his big club comments and how its the right place to improve. They're 19th, we're 9th. It's a step down in footballing terms and we've already seen Ings' career drop off from the same move. My only issue is that we can't face him.

Similar to Quincy Promes in that we missed out on him in the January and we’re supposed to go back in, in the summer. Never did… Although, he ended up being a bit of a dodgy bloke.

Links to AMN and Gakpo in the press and then Larios and Edozie come out of the blue. Happy days, although I think we were linked to Edozie earlier in the summer when it looked as though he was going to Leverkusen.

Great win, up the Saints. Stark contrast from the side that let Chelsea run past them at ease just four months ago. The cult of Ralph lives on, although he has made it difficult at times. We've seemingly learned from the mistakes we were making at the beginning of this season, addressed them quickly and now we're beating Chelsea. Lavia and ABK are stars. I hadn't heard of either before they were linked and then signed, but they're far too good for their age. They're going right to the top, enjoy them while we can and hopefully we get plenty of millions for them. 7th and we haven't had that favourable a fixture list with Spurs, United and Chelsea within our first five. We're staying up again, lets go for Europe.