Wes Tender

Poor defending for both of Kane's goals. Should have had 3 CBs as I said, with Pied as RB. I am also amazed that with Hojberg, Lemina and Romeu in the middle, we are not more solid, but Romeu has been poor and Lemina has been largely anonymous. Redmond has been better when he has been on the right, Boufal has been his typical self. Now that we are two down, we might as well go for it and put two up front, but if the maestro genius decides to do that, it certainly won't be with half the match to go; he'll wait until 10 minutes from the end when we're four down, or he'll bring on Gabbiadini for Long. I'm pretty resigned to hoping that Spurs put 6 or 7 past us, provided that it results in Pellegrino getting the bullet.

Another chance missed to play five at the back by using Pied as RB with three CBS and two up front, Gabbiadini and Long. At least we have the most solid middle three with Lemina, Hojbjerg and Romeo. It seems that Van-Dijk is definitely off, as why otherwise wouldn't you play him? I just hope that we don't sell him to Scousehampton. God knows where the goals will come from us, but we do have some pace, provided that the ball gets that far upfield.

There is little wrong with Yoshida being one of a threesome of CBs. He is very quick across the ground and I've seldom seen him beaten for pace by many of the fastest strikers. He is generally solid if he has the likes of Van-Djik or Hoedt alongside him, who are taller and more muscular. His improvement has been noticeable since he has had a run in the team.

As soon as I saw the starting line-up, I knew that it would be difficult to get anything from this match. Watching the first twenty minutes confirmed my worst fears, as Huddersfield controlled possession in midfield, were first to the 50/50 balls and looked to be the only team capable of scoring. Very much against the run of play, Austin scored again and for a while we played a bit better. But their manager made the tactical changes that turned the momentum back to them, and our manager dithered and decided once more that the time to make the changes was after they had equalised instead of before. He made the midfield stronger by replacing Davis for Hojbjerg, who ought to have been on from the start, either him or Romeu. One only had to look at the sheer size of players in Huddersfield's team to recognise that control of the midfield would rely on having some muscle there, not the likes of Redmond, Davis, Ward-Prowse who would be blown off the ball by a strong gust of wind. And what about the defence? So we were deprived of both full backs, but why couldn't we play a five across the back with Pied out wide with Yoshida, Hoedt and Stevens/Van-Dijk? Why wasn't Van-Dijk even on the bench? Surely you play your strongest team when you need to pick up three points against a newly promoted team on your home ground? And once again, why not two up front? Frankly, I've had it with this incompetent oaf and his lack of tactical ability. The football is quite possibly worse than under Puel, who at least had the excuse that he had far more matches to play, so had to rotate the players. Pellegrino could easily play a more settled team comprising our best players in each position, but it is obvious that he doesn't yet know who our best players are, or even what our best formation is. Please Reed, pull the trigger now and get rid of this imposter. He must be the managerial equivalent of Ali Dia. Do it while there is still a chance that somebody with any aptitude could turn this season around whilst there is still half a season to do it in. We have a decent squad of players who at least ought to be capable of beating the poorer teams in the division. All we need is a manager to harness their talents and to inspire them to perform to their potential, somebody who recognises each player's strengths and where to play them, in the right formation. Somebody like Koeman. Just as an aside and of no real relevance to the result, the referee was absolutely dire, pub football standard. I counted four glaring incidents which he either ignored or penalised incorrectly in the space of the first 13 minutes. Now no Austin as well as the other two vital injuries,so as well as a weakened defence, we now have no proven goalscorer either. Long would have been useful today with Austin, but as Pellegrino can't countenance two strikers on at the start of a match, which of ours currently firing blanks will be chosen? Him of Gabbiadini? Spurs could well rip us apart. If Pellegrino hasn't gone by then, perhaps that is what we need to happen for the penny to drop in the boardroom

So he's left because he's spineless - has no backbone. It's what I suspected all along, taking into account his record of failure at other clubs.

Show me where I said I hated Jews. You can't, as I don't. I have some considerable admiration for them. Arabs on the other hand, I have some disdain for. You can put that on record if you like. But you show yourself up as being totally ridiculous where you say that somebody must be untrustworthy for holding an opinion on citizens of another nationality, whilst simultaneously expressing equally obnoxious opinions on your own fellow nationals by labelling the majority of them who voted a certain way in a referendum as thick. You truly are a nasty piece of work. I expect that you have chickened out of taking the bet for no better reason than you know that you would lose it.

The result belied our performance, as did the fact that Chelski managed to score only one goal, and that wasn't even from open play. Fraser was good in goal, but Chelski didn't really produce much in the way of shots that you would not have expected him to save. It could have been 5/6 to Chelski had their finishing been more deadly, but if the football gods had smiled on us, Charlie would have scored with virtually his first touch to gain us a point, and if the they had been up for a laugh, then we wouldn't have given away the stupid free kick on the edge of the box, and taken all three points. But football is an even stranger game when one tries to work out any sort of hierarchy based on results. How crap must Leicester be for Crystal Palace to tonk them 3-0? All this disguises the fact that once again Pellegrino was tactically inept in his choice of the starting line-up and the substitutions. I have been urging him to grow a pair and play 3-5-2 and Sky showed our formation as that. But if anybody believes that Redmond is a striker, they need their brains tested. At least Gabbiadini was up top, but when can we actually see him there alongside Austin, the striker in form? A shame that Cedric had to go off injured crashing into their ridiculously dangerous ditch around the pitch. And then at the end, we lost Bertrand too, so there goes our best two wing backs and our width, which isn't Pellegrino's fault. What is though, is not playing Hojbjerg against Leicester and then taking him off during the second half. Redmond who has only pace, but no football brain and an inclination to pass backwards when the simpler pass was forwards, should have gone off for Boufal, or even not have started instead of him. We haven't been too far off from getting some points against some of the top teams, but our position is dire and slipping, from not producing the performances that should have seen us beating the lower down teams, many of which are starting to pick up points and looking over our shoulders. We are not far from halfway through the season and have to beat those teams to put clear water between them and us. I am not confident on the evidence that Pellegrino has displayed so far that he is up to it.

I'm looking forward to a charity benefiting to the tune of £50 from you when we don't go down the Norway route.

Don't you? They are supposed to be professional footballers, paid more than most of us could ever dream of earning. I can accept that some of them might be better than others, but all I ask for is that they give maximum effort and commitment for the 90 minutes in the week that is crucial to the success of the club and the fans. I would rather have a player with less ability but more fire in his belly than a prima-donna with great natural skills and ability who sometimes can't be arsed to make the effort. We have too many of the latter and not enough of the former. Burnley epitomise the team of lesser known players, mostly of British stock, and an unfashionable manager who is able to get them playing as a unit, a team that is capable of punching above its weight because they play for each other. Who would have thought a couple of years ago that Burnley would be where they are now? Their success perhaps suggests that we ought to go back to basics and build back up from there. At the moment we are nowhere near the Southampton Way that the club likes to crow about; we have lost our way.

Yes. That was indeed how low we have sunk. How can we go from a team that held City to a draw right up to the end of extra time *****il the referee found some extra "Fergie" time) do much the same against Arsenal, and then suddenly collapse defensively so badly against Leicester? Speaking of extra time, how with all the substitutions and Leicester's extreme time-wasting, was there only 3 minutes added on? OK, the whistle couldn't have come soon enough, or they might have scored another, but 3 minutes was farcical and had we been chasing points, then we would have been justified in being very angry about it. Three minutes would have seen us ending Man City's run of wins, even with an additional added 2 minutes. Where is the consistency?

I have also waited to see whether the ire had abated in any way having slept on it. When I got in last night, I decided to watch The Apprentice which I had recorded and then Match of the Day. Watching the Apprentice, I could visualise Pellegrino's performance as manager being dissected cruelly before being told that he has had his chance and blown it, so Pellegrino, you're fired. There was one good thing to come from the match against Leicester though, we were featured as the second match on Match of the Day. So to last night; I still believe that it was the worst performance from a Saints team that I have witnessed all this season and all last season too. Had we been the away team, I would have expected a refund to our supporters from the board. But the time has come for them to sack Pellegrino before we sink even further towards the relegation zone. He has been given ample opportunity to turn things around, but results against Everton, Bournemouth, Manchester City, Arsenal were a false dawn. On the face of it, the team selection was a better one than that against Arsenal, but for whatever reason the players' attitude stank. After a frenetic 10 minute start when it looked as if we were all over them, things changed to complete control for Leicester and it continued on like that for the rest of the match, with misplaced passes, always second to the ball, lack of movement, little closing down of players or space, a complete lack of desire or conviction. There were only two players who appeared to care and gained some credit, Bertrand and Lemina, although even Lemina became more sloppy later in the match. Forster was also generally OK, not at fault for any of their goals and making some good saves that would otherwise have increased the agony. As for the others, Boufal and Tadic on the pitch at the same time always worries me. Neither shone last night and both were in trick pony mode losing possession as a result. Cedric had his worst match for a long time. Usually so reliable, his lack of movement up the wing lost us that width and outlet. The defence has usually been strong this season, but Yoshida's poor positioning and lack of closing down cost us dearly. Tactically, Pellegrino cannot countenance having two strikers up front unless we are chasing the game and it is too late. We have four centre backs who can do a job for us, but playing any three of them as part of a five across the back with our best three strongest midfielders in front of them and two strikers is not something that he has tried as far as I can see. Last night, we were being overrun in midfield, so he takes of Romeu and makes us even weaker there. He was tactically inept and needs to go as soon a possible. I'd rather watch Bournemouth or even Brighton at the moment. At least their matches provide entertainment instead of the dross that we are serving up.

I don't blame fans who booed that dismal performance at all. It was deserved. Most fans work hard to afford to go to matches, to watch massively overpaid individuals earning more in a week than most of them do in a year. They go for entertainment, not to be bored or angered when those players don't give their all.

MOTD deigned not to show the incident where Austin was clean through on goal when the linesman flagged him offside, despite the ball having been deflected into his path by an Arsenal player.

http://www.gunnerstown.com/arsenal/2017/12/10/floundering-mertesacker-hot-headed-xhaka-and-the-incompetence-of-referees/ Sour grapes Arse fan reckons that Austin's goal was a good two yards offside and that they had a stonewall penalty claim denied when Lacazette had his legs taken from under him "after the ball had gone" Therefore the score would have been 2-0 to them, he claims. This assumes that even if the penalty had been awarded, it would have been scored. And whilst he is having his little sulk at poor old Arsenal's suffering at the hands of incompetent match officials, he should say whether he thinks Austin was offside when the ball rebounded into his path off one of their players.

I saw it as deliberate too. The shout went up right around the stadium. It prevented us getting clean through on goal too

When I first saw the team, I thought that Arsenal would give us a thrashing. In my opinion we were too light in midfield with Redmond and J-WP, and too light in defence with a back four. I had thought that we needed a back five and Lemina playing with Romeu and Hojbjerg in midfield. How wrong could I have been? The team played with poise and solidity until close to the end of the match. That first five minutes from us was devastating and we could have been 3 up. It would have been interesting to have heard the commentary on Sky wondering what exactly Arsenal were doing at the back. With Austin scoring so early on, it looked like a long afternoon of back to the wall defending if we were to get anything from the match, but we carved out several good chances to extend the lead, hitting Arsenal's high line on the break. Overall in the match, we can proudly claim that we shaded it, with by far the better chances. Even towards the end, we had a very chance to settle it before they equalised, when Austin was clear through when the ball was deflected into his path from an Arsenal player, and the idiot linesman flagged him offside. This is the sort of luck that the glory teams get from match officials, whose eyesight is sharper when they are in danger of conceding goals. I agree with most other opinions, that generally we played very well. Long would have been a potent weapon to counteract Arsenal's high line, but I understand that he is out injured. In the absence of Cedric, who is missed, Stephens had an excellent game in a back four with Yoshida and Van-Dijk very good in the middle. Bertrand was exceptional in getting up the line, but fluffed the most gilt-edged shot of the entire match, but I won't hold that against him in light of the rest of his game. Hojbjerg had another outstanding game and begins to look the real deal for the future. Romeu also was good, but why wasn't Lemina played? When we were holding out towards the end for the three points, why wasn't he brought on then? Much as I always like Davis, surely the additional muscle would have been useful against Welbeck and Giroux. Redmond was indeed frustrating. The guy just doesn't have a quick enough footballing brain. He was a weak link today and Boufal would have been better earlier. Austin has proven during the last few games that he is a natural scorer and at this rate, he could end the season with 15 or more goals. A shame that Pellegrino just can't countenance the possibility of two actual strikers up top, As I'm sure that Austin and Gabbiadini could click together And there is another player who deserves the plaudits for an outstanding display. Step forward Frazer Forster. He didn't have much to do compared to Petr Cech, but there were two exceptional saves, one a worldy. His general play and command of his area was also good. I hope that he gets a confidence boost and continues to grow back to his best. Very much two points dropped today. We should and could have beaten them.

Fed up with being insulted by arrogant tossers like you, I expect.

Lord D hadn't mentioned it, it was Red Keith. And you say that you didn't see Neville's comments on Boufal either? Not like you to go off at half-cock without proper research into the facts. Does Neville have to include an analysis of what Boufal does right when he states that Boufal can be a match winner on his day? We all know what he can do right, but as the whole point of Neville's analysis was that Boufal can be frustrating, it was pertinent to show examples of his play which illustrated that. John Boy Saint: If he was more consistent in keeping the ball, or more accurately passing it to one of his team mates more quickly instead of being closed down trying to beat three defenders, then he wouldn't have to track back to try and retrieve it. I admire his talents and his attitude is laudable in attempting to track back, but he is still a raw young talent whose game could be greatly improved by having some of the show-boating coached out of it.

Was it a rant? I thought that it was a fair enough appraisal of him. He IS frustrating. He has so much talent, but often seeks to showboat, when a quick incisive pass would keep up the forward momentum. As you say, he had an up and down game and the down parts were what is being talked about. He reminds me so much of Fabrice Fernandes.

We really should have won that, although having gone behind before the break, then a point away was just about acceptable. Did Pellegrino buy himself much more time following the win against Everton and the team's good performance against City? This seems like a bit of a reverse, as it is a match that would have been viewed on the fixture list at the start of the season as a probable three point banker. We have the better team on paper, but I can't help but feel that Howe is the better manager and would relish having our players at his disposal. I watched the match and afterwards was interested to listen to the analysis on Radio Solent. It appears that Pellegrino won't play two up front because most other teams don't. As Merrington rightly responded, surely the best formation is the one that plays to the strengths of the players you have at your disposal. In our case, we have two fast wing backs in Bertrand and Cedric, and a solid three CBs in V-VD, Hoedt and Yoshida. We have as solid a midfield as any in Lemina, Romeu and Hojbjerg. We have a surfeit of nippy, fast intelligent play-makers in Boufal, Tadic and sometimes Redmond, and a mix of strikers who could work together as a pair if the best combination of them could be worked on to provide a conclusive choice depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents. Pellegrino is credited by some as slowly getting to realise what the strengths of the team are, having belatedly recognised the eye for goal that Austin has, the flair that Boufal can bring and that Hojbjerg can be effective in midfield with a good range of passing too. Perhaps today he will have realised that Redmond is better coming in from the right. But despite the number of matches played so far, he doggedly refuses to experiment with two up front for any sustained part of a match. Long and Gabbiadini have both been firing blanks for a long time, but just how effective could each be if they were partnering each other, feeding off each other's movement in the box, holding up play until support arrived, pulling defenders around to create space? And how much better would either be, or how much more successful still would Austin be, if one or the other played alongside him? In this match, plaudits to Bertrand, V-VD, Forster, Romeu in particular. Boufal was generally good, but frustrating when he overplays and then loses the ball trying to dribble past three defenders when he should have passed the ball immediately before being closed down. Redmond was decent when he came on for J W-P. Hoedt OK apart from farting about and gifting them the goal-scoring opportunity by fannying around instead of leathering the ball clear. I fully expect to see the City match tactics against Arsenal and it would be typically Saints to make hard work of the likes of Boscombe and then hold our own against a glory team.

It's really quite incredible that we can defend so well against some of the best players in the world on Wednesday and yet defend so badly against Boscombe. Perhaps they are more up for it than we are, which would be a disgrace

Back to the same old farting about at the back and we have been punished for it. We need to strengthen up the midfield. Boscombe are getting too much possession. Only one shot on target. Why couldn't we play 3-5-2?

P*ssing about at the back. Get rid for christ's sake