Lighthouse

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?60403-Les-Reed-Out-Official#.W-QLlJP7SUl

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2018-11-08/southampton-football-club-statement-les-reed-november-2018 Discussion and potential replacements here please. About time IMO, things have long been not right with the playing and coaching staff.

They haven't played a home game in 4 years. Sadly, we can't do that.

I think our problems largely started from how we played under Puel. Right from the word go we seemed to play with zero intensity or ambition. Our relatively good defence was helped largely by just sitting back and not being interested in pressuring the opposition. Those 0-0s against Burnley, Newcastle and Bournemouth are no different to the Puel's performance's against Bournemouth, Hull and Be'er Sheva.

The attitude and general atmosphere of the whole club is rotten; there are players there with obvious talent. Gabbi, Lemina, Hojbjerg, Bertrand, McC, Ings, Cédric, Romeu, Vestegaard and Yoshida all have the ability to be competing for Europa League places if managed correctly. Even other players I’m less convinced about, like Hoedt, Armstrong and Elmo have fr more talent than we are managing to extract. You only have to look at the repeating patterns of our goals to see we have a psychological problem. Whenever we play a big club we just completely hide whilst the game is actually there to be fought over. As soon as we go 2-0 down in 25 minutes, there’s almost a relief that it’s over and we can start passing it around a bit, now that the big scary men have got what they came for. Then there are the stoppage time goals. It was 4 in 8 games before we let one in against Liverpool and 2 against Man City, don’t know what tally we’re up to now. It’s as if they’ve already checked out mentally and just plod through the motions, thinking about what playlist they’re going to put on their Beats by Dr Dre on the bus home.

Didn’t realise it was actually pronounced Michael O’Bafemi.

Basically just people trying to hijack Remembrance Day with their pacifist, nuclear disarmament agenda.

BTW, if you see someone wearing a white poppy, you are allowed to stab them in the head with a fork.

I don’t have a problem with him not wearing one, although I do think he is a massive hypocrite given that he is happy to live in England etc. Turning his back on the anthem a few years ago was a step to far; that’s an active gesture of disrespect, when he could quite easily have stood there and done nothing like everyone else.

Long and Ings get us goals? When did this happen? For me it’s got to be Gabbi and Ings, for 7 or 8 games. Not chucking Gabbi on with 25th minutes left of a game we’ve already lost, when the rest of the team has given up, and proclaim that he obviously isn’t good enough. A consistent run of starts together.

Dodd hardly played, he was usually injured. Lundekvam and Fernándes we useless bottle jobs who went missing most of the season. I’d have Anders, who at least got 4/5 goals, and Cédric. Probably wouldn’t bother with bother CB. I’d just have Yoshida, a massive gap and stick Phillips up front. Might get the odd 7-6 win in amongst all the batterings.

Not sure what the point of this is.

This is our last home game before the 26th November. The significance being that if we fail to win it will be one win at St Mary’s in the last year. In that period, Leicester will have won more games at St Mary’s than we have. Going to this one but other than a couple of beers with my mates I have little interest.

On for who? I’d start with JWP.

I guess for professional tradesmen it might be different but they haven’t let me down so far with the DIY and gardening.

Just come in for a brew and a Cadbury mini roll, have I missed much? Hope it’s not another boring 0-0.

Off down the garden now the sun is poking out, so I’ll leave you lot to it. Incidentally, I’d recommend the Ryobi One+ reciprocating saw for minor tree surgery and pruning work*. *my views are my own, other power tools are available. Ryobi are not endorsed by SaintsWeb Ltd.

Burnley are pretty hopeless defensive, wouldn’t write them off yet.

Carrillo is nowhere near Premier League quality, however your statement is factually correct.

No, he looked alright playing under the ultra cautious Puel but is frequently found out when we try to attack or when he comes up against better opposition.

Delph who was comfortably Villa’s best player at the time but looks rather mediocre amongst City’s elites? JWP would struggle to get into their ladies team.

Doubt any of them would make the bench TBH.

JWP just isn’t good enough. He is neither quick, nor strong nor tall, nor is he an aggressive ball winner. He looks comfortable in possession and delivers a half decent set piece but that’s about all. A succession of managers from Adkins onwards have decided, over more than 6 years, that he doesn’t really fit into the team and has been a bit part, in/out sort of player. If he was named Antonio Romano and Cortese had signed him from Chievo, he’d have been gone years ago.

No, our usual game plan is to set up very defensively and play with no purpose or intensity, so that they can attack at will. We will be 2-0 down within half an hour, both sides will be content with this and just play gentle, possession football from then on. We completely switch off in both sets of injury time and concede another goal or two, for an ‘acceptable’ 3-0 defeat, after which Hughes talks about their obvious quality, the ref and our great resolve to keep things fairly even after we’re 2-0 down.

I’ve got some brambles which need shredding down the garden and an old shed which needs to come down. Anybody want to come around and give me a hand instead of watching the game? The only real question is who to make my fantasy captain. Aguero could grab a few but I’ve also got Laporte, who is guaranteed a clean sheet.