Wes Tender

At least the position we find ourselves in the FA Cup is a bit of an incentive to an incoming manager, who could etch their name into football history if they can get us to win the next three games in the Cup

I agree that our choices are extremely limited, because the club should have acted before the January window, when the prospects for an incoming new manager would have been brighter with him able to bring in a player or two. What we are left with now is a shortlist of candidates who have to take a gamble on keeping us up in order not to be managing in the second division next season, even if their services are subsequently retained if they keep us up. Neither of us is privy to the list of potential candidates that we are looking at, but personally I would be quite disappointed if we got Hughes. I am just hopeful that despite getting it wrong with the last couple of appointments, there is somebody that we have in mind that will be capable of motivating the players and playing a style of football that gets the fans to back him and put some fire in our bellies. I still think that we have a fairly decent squad, but that Pellegrino had no idea of how to play them. If we appoint somebody quickly, then there is some time before the next PL match to get across a change in style and some motivation.

Wide of the Mark, as usual

But the choice isn't between staying with Pellegrino or getting Hughes, is it? Only in your mind, it seems.

NO!!!

How does your mind work that when someone lambasts a single manager, that it therefore follows that every other management candidate is ruled out?

We need a manager either whose name or place of birth allows the chant that he f*cking hates Pompey.

Nothing bizarre about it at all. Hughes has hardly inspired wherever he has been and I just don't like the person he is. Potter has achieved considerable success in Sweden and his methods appear to be innovative, with an ability to motivate his players. He's a bit left field, but I'd rather that than most of the potential ones on the list.

Pochettino - Pellegrino - Pellegrini No, Graham Potter maybe. Definitely not Hughes.

Didn't you read down as far as the last two lines. I think I did blame the players too, didn't I?

I recall in the Lowe protest era how there was quite a decent number of fans who marched from the Bargate to the stadium before a match and made a lot of noise outside of the boardroom. Maybe it's worth doing something like that again. Plenty of time to organise it.

And just to cap the afternoon, England lose to the frogs in the Rugby. Perhaps Jones has been playing them Pellegrino's motivational tapes before the match and at half time

I just feel numb. As the match commentators on the feed I was watching said, it was a bit of a mystery why Pellegrino wouldn't play two up front in a six pointer. Well, if they knew what a gormless oaf we had as a manager, it wouldn't surprise them one bit. Also as they said, our downfall had been that although other teams had lost more matches than us, we had had too many draws and perhaps Pellegrino was a fault for not having the courage to put out a more attacking team against those around us in the table. One point against Stoke and Newcastle is really feeble! I understand that Romeu might not have been played because he was a yellow card away from not playing against Wigan in the cup. It begs the question whether the Cup is more important than relegation. A match like this was crying out for the strongest midfield of Lemina, Romeu and Hojbjerg, but instead we had lightweights like Ward-Prowse, Tadic and Redmond, so Newcastle were able to bully them for possession and launch attack after attack against us, particularly orchestrated by MOTM Shelvey. Had we played a stronger midfield, we could have cut off their attacks and played the ball into their box, although that would still have left the out of his depth Carillo isolated without support, as the strategy of playing two strikers up front is a totally alien concept to the cretin who is our manager. I understand that West Ham who lost by the same margin, at least had the initiative amongst their fan base to show their displeasure to their board in a high profile media way. As far as I'm aware, our board might have heard murmurs of dissent, but appear to be under the illusion that we are not as passionately rebellious as West Ham's fans. It is about time that we stepped up that dissent by actions that will bring that message home to them. The whole thrust of opinion on here and (presumably the rest of the fan base) has altered within the past few weeks. I believe that it has shifted from solely blaming the manager for being out of his depth and of being incompetent tactically with his team choices and substitutions, to a widening blame of the board for not sacking Pellegrino, and for not bringing in the players that the squad was shouting out for with the mountain of dosh that we robbed Scousehampton of when they bought V-VD. Those chickens have well and truly come home to roost. All we brought in was a mate of the manager who has so far failed to find the net in several matches. We might as well have brought back Gallagher and saved ourselves £19 million. We failed to sign another CB, so our defence has become increasingly weak from the moment that Yoshida became injured. What happens if either Hoidt or Stephens are injured or suspended? It wouldn't be so painful if we were going down fighting, but we aren't. There is very little steel and backbone, the players obviously get no motivation and inspiration from Pellegrino, they lack fight and intent. As professionals, that is unacceptable. It is a very poor situation to be in, hoping that there are three teams worse than ours. I'm not sure that there are. We are going down with a whimper instead of a bang.

Unless Long is deemed to be a striker in this match, then Pellegrino can't countenance having Carillo and Gabbiadini on the same pitch. No, that couldn't possibly be an option when chasing a match

Pellegrino - what a c*nt

Weaken our midfield taking off Lemina? What the f*ck!

What a useless lump of sh*t our manager is. We were all over Stoke in the second half in our last game, but as usual, the incompetent clown learns nothing and decides to change the team yet again. No chance of an established team learning to play as a unit under this idiot. And let's play Redmond on the left and Tadic on the right instead of in their more natural positions. We have Gabbiadini and Long on the bench, but let's carry on with just one striker and leave him in splendid isolation once more. Sims has been great, a real live wire in the last two games, so let's maybe bring him on when the game is already lost. Shelvey has always been a great passer of a ball with a good shot on him, so let's allow him plenty of space to get off a dangerous ball into the box for their strikers. Having a reasonable hope for a win at the start, even with this nincompoop in charge, but now at half time, a draw would be received with gratitude, such has been our fall into near oblivion. Redmond, Ward-Prowse and Tadic off, Sims, Gabbiadini and Long or Boufal on, please. But knowing Pellegrino, he'll wait until halfway through the second half, as that is the speed of his thought processes.

Also he was certain enough to agree to a £50 bet that we would end up with a Norway style agreement too

The bizarre team selections and substitutions tend to argue against that proposition. But even if there was an element of truth in it, then we need to get in a manager with great tactical and coaching ideas who is capable of getting the players to respond to them. If Pellegrino isn't capable of doing that, then what is the point of having him as manager?

Spot on. It's called Fergie time. The amount of time shall be stretched until the glory team scores and then immediately after that, the referee shall blow his whistle.

Interesting watching the little cameo of the Hoidt/Diouf interaction on MOTD. They highlighted that Diouf had twice deliberatly stamped on Hoidt's foot and then showed the retribution that Hoidt served up to get even. Well done, Hoidt. The dirty little sh*t deserved his injury. What surprises me, is that if he might have dislocated his shoulder, why did he have to hobble off at the pace of a constipated tortoise?

I don't think that we necessarily lack the players to break down a defence like theirs. We lack the manager capable of setting out the right team and a strategy to achieve it. It will never happen when we p*ss about passing sideways and backwards allowing defences to organise themselves when the ball finally makes its way upfield. We need to press quickly, play balls fast through the midfield and get behind a team before they have prepared to defend. We need to play with width and speed up the flanks to get behind a defence and then we need two strikers up top to play off one the other, with movement in the box to pull the defence out of shape. It also helps to have players in the positions that suit their strengths, i.e. playing on the side of their strong foot. A settled team playing together more frequently would help, as they would get to recognise their team mates' strengths and weaknesses. We seldom have any of these under the incompetent idiot Pellegrino.

We didn't really expect the first half to be worth watching with the team that Pellegrino selected, did we? He never disappoints with his trademark incompetance, but always disappoints the fans instead. We ended the match against Burnley on a high with the team reinvigorated with the guile and speed of Sims and the goal threat and movement that Gabbiadini brought when we had two strikers up top and Sims feeding the ball into the area. So the nearly man nearly got it right by playing Sims, but forgot that it was having Gabbiadini up top with a striker partner that got us back into the game. So a lone striker once more, his compatriot Carillo. I have given up hoping that one day the penny will drop and that even just out of idle curiosity he might wonder what having two strikers up top might produce and go for it to find out. So the first half was one of the most dismally drab and boring halves of football I have witnessed since probably the last dismally drab 45 minutes within the past few home matches. It is Pellegrino's forte, so he must have been delighted with our performance. To much ironic amusement, my neighbour in the stadium sarcastically opined that we would come out a completely different team once they had had the benefit of the inspirational half team talk from the manager. Actually he almost had to eat his words right away, as we forged two decent scoring chances within the first two minutes, whereas we didn't have any in the entire first half at all. The second half was that rarity at St Mary's this season, quite an entertaining half of attacking football, several scoring chances, decent passing and movement, forward attacking momentum, evident desire to fight for the ball, virtually everything that was lacking in the first half. So what are the lessons that Pellegrino ought to take from this second half and carry it into the next match? Exactly the one that he should have taken from the last second half against Burnley, that two strikers are required. The question that begs to be asked, has already been asked on Radio Solent and by others on here; why the f*ck can't we put out a team like we had in the second half and play like we did for the first 45 minutes like that too? Comments on the first half are not worth dwelling over, the least said about it the better. The way that their injured player was treated on the pitch and the time that he took to hobble off at centenarian granny pace was farcical and he should have gone off on a stretcher. At least, 5 minutes was added on as injury time. The two minutes added on at full time was farcical too, that should have been at least 4 minutes and then the stupid ref blew the whistle whilst we were in the course of taking a free kick. Unbelievable. Throughout the game, Romeu was totally invisible. Hojbjerg instead next time please. Lemina excellent once again. First half Bertrand poor, second half much better. Stephens better than Hoidt, but both reasonably unstretched by a poor Stoke attack. Stoke's shots were comically abysmal mostly, apart from one excellent shot which McCarthy did well to tip around the post, whereas Butland made a string of saves second half, although they were ones you would expect him to make. Tadic was pretty useless most of the match, so no qualms about him going off, especially for Gabbiadini. I wasn't sure about Sims going off, as he had been involved once again in some of the standout chances in the match. Boufal almost scored with his first touch of the ball, but misdirected his header wide of the post. Good to see Long back and I'm not unhappy that he was brought on, as he adds something different, but it would have been interesting to have seen him on for Redmond maybe, leaving three strikers effectively on the pitch, with Long playing out wide. Redmond had done OK in the second half when he was switched to his natural right wing slot ahead of Cedric and Tadic improved Bertrand on the left flank where he is more effective. Why can't this idiot manager play the team to their strengths? Just a couple of incidents I wondered about; wasn't one of their players on a yellow lucky to stay on the pitch when he committed quite a bad foul early in the second half? Wasn't there also a blatant foul in the box which might have given us a penalty, an obvious shirt pull which prevented one of our players getting to a ball in? I wondered whether VAR might have given it. I don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but when discussing the doom and gloom of our drop towards the Championship, there is a glimmer of hope that Austin could return to fire in the goals that might save us. But then again, if the imbecile manager can't countenance the possibility of two strikers on the pitch until the match requires it as a usual last desperate throw of the dice, then it won't change much. Regarding our record signing, the illustrious Argentine striker Carillo, it invites a couple of interesting questions; will he score before the end of the season? Is he more likely to score before Long does next?

What a bore-fest! We've not really been under that much pressure, but neither have we exerted that much pressure on them either. Our only real chance via Tadic, who has not done much else. Redmond is Redmond. Makes the wrong choices often and doesn't really offer much threat, especially playing alonside Bertrand on the left, when Tadic has often formed an understanding with Bertrand and looks hopeless instead. Bring on Hojbjerg for either Redmond or Ward-Prowse to take control of the midfield. Bring on Simms for the other one to increase the forward momentum and provide some support for Carillo, who has been totally isolated up top. A typically inept team choice and tactics from the Argie clown once again. We do have a chance of scoring against Burnley and sneaking the win, but then again, they have every chance of winning too as things are.