Saints 0-0 Millwall - Match Thread

[trousers]

4 hours ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

I find his post match comments insulting and patronising.

Having endured the game at Oxford and yesterday it is utter tedious garbage and yet he tells me it's all OK?

After the draw at St Andrews he said if we pick up 3 points v Millwall it would have been a good point. After the game today he said if we win at Middlesborough then the point v Millwall there would be positives from the game. It's basically AI generated surely?

 

3 hours ago, Appy said:

Exactly, Will Still was crap but at least he said when it wasn’t good enough, we’re just being gaslit by SR’s yes man. 

 

8 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Exactly this, I know a lot of people didn't rate Will Still but he at least was straight talking - he told it how it was, if it was shit he'd say it was in certain words. I always thought Still saw the same game as me and the supporters, he just wasn't able to change it unfortunately. 

Now with Tonda, he's doing the thing I hate most in any manager. Trying to create an illusion of positively by frankly lying to the supporters faces. No one can get behind someone who sees an entirely different game than the one we've paid to watch. He said it was a good performance yesterday and that there were lots of positives - major, major alarm bells from that. He doesn't see what we see, which means nothing is going to change.

He's probably fooling himself by thinking we're dominant because THB, Stephens and Wood pass it between each other for 70 mins, but we can all see through that bullshit.

Yep... The very same arrogance and/or disregard for fan opinion that made Martin such an unlikeable manager in the PL. It's a slippery slope... 

[Cabrone]

I don't know what's happened, back in November the clouds seem to have finally lifted and the team was playing fast attacking football with huge success, we looked odds on for playoffs and even a tilt at top 2. Now they have gone back to stodge ball.

Some people on here are saying it's SR but if it is then why were they happy to allow the November form to continue? As incompetent as I think they are I don't think it's them - they want us to win like anyone else.

Looks to me like a combination of a manager that has lost his balls and a bunch of players who are comfortable playing under performing  stodge ball.

4-4-2 please and show some fight!

I'd rather lose playing attacking football that dying of Russball boredom.

[AlexLaw76]

3 minutes ago, Cabrone said:

I don't know what's happened, back in November the clouds seem to have finally lifted and the team was playing fast attacking football with huge success, we looked odds on for playoffs and even a tilt at top 2. Now they have gone back to stodge ball.

Some people on here are saying it's SR but if it is then why were they happy to allow the November form to continue? As incompetent as I think they are I don't think it's them - they want us to win like anyone else.

Looks to me like a combination of a manager that has lost his balls and a bunch of players who are comfortable playing under performing  stodge ball.

4-4-2 please and show some fight!

I'd rather lose playing attacking football that dying of Russball boredom.

It is obvious that teams are now pressing is in a way that stops us playing. It is fairly straightforward 

[Lee On Solent Saint]

18 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

It is obvious that teams are now pressing is in a way that stops us playing. It is fairly straightforward 

And we have a manager who has no idea how to counter this. One way of playing and that's it.

[BARCELONASAINT]

I'm sure as youngsters many of us had it drilled into us by managers we played for at kids, youth and senior level that the best form of defence is to attack and that is certainly how i grew up playing the game. I just don't understand this horrible crab like football that barely gets beyond the halfway line because we are so slow to release the ball to our wingers and attacking minded players.

If this is what the modern game has become then you can bloody well keep it Saints but you are going to lose many fans if you persist in playing this shit. I now find myself changing channels to watch the darts or something else that is just more entertaining!

[S-Clarke]

1 hour ago, BARCELONASAINT said:

I'm sure as youngsters many of us had it drilled into us by managers we played for at kids, youth and senior level that the best form of defence is to attack and that is certainly how i grew up playing the game. I just don't understand this horrible crab like football that barely gets beyond the halfway line because we are so slow to release the ball to our wingers and attacking minded players.

If this is what the modern game has become then you can bloody well keep it Saints but you are going to lose many fans if you persist in playing this shit. I now find myself changing channels to watch the darts or something else that is just more entertaining!

Sadly it's not just at Southampton though, this is now 'football'. Look at all those PL games y/day, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-1. All too scared to lose. It's rubbish.

I used to love the festive period as it was just stuffed full of football from all divisions, it was a great fun - but it's just a load of shit now, because it's all dictated by Xg, XGs, stats, possession and Sky feed into it so much.

The product is dying, someone needs to rip up the blueprint.

Edited 16 hours ago by S-Clarke

[saintant]

13 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Sadly it's not just at Southampton though, this is now 'football'. Look at all those PL games y/day, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-1. All too scared to lose. It's rubbish.

I used to love the festive period as it was just stuffed full of football from all divisions, it was a great fun - but it's just a load of shit now, because it's all dictated by Xg, XGs, stats, possession and Sky feed into it so much.

The product is dying, someone needs to rip up the blueprint.

3 points for a win was brought in to encourage teams to go for broke and it did work at first. Now sides are just scared shitless of losing so we get this boring possession football and lack of excitement. I'd much rather watch us bust our balls and take risks going for the reward of 3 points than the current propaganda football which is basically us trying to make sure we don't lose. Tonda has said numerous times that he will always go all out for the 3 points available in every game - basically this was yet another lie for the fans to swallow. Take the fucking handbrake off and go for it from the first minute - it might work! This will mean leaving out one of the 3 crap centre backs we play every match so another positive to take.

[Viking Saint]

22 hours ago, Football Special said:

I lost the will to continue arguing with people earlier in the season making this exact point, our team really isn’t that good with glaring weaknesses that other teams can figure out quickly. 
poor at the back, weak in midfield and so soft up front just get bullied by championship defences, high wage bill though 

Spors failed to address these in the summer despite having months to prepare, combined with his management appointments it’s clear he has no idea what he’s doing. 
every single person in a management role at the club must be completely embarrassed at their incompetence 

If they were embarrassed, wouldn't they try and change something or do something different??

 

What puzzles me is how they simply cannot see the patently obvious. Most of us in the stands or watching don't profess to be football managers or coaches, but some things are so evidently clear, you don't need experience or qualifications to know that we are a very boring and gutless team to watch.

[St. Ciervo]

41 minutes ago, Viking Saint said:

What puzzles me is how they simply cannot see the patently obvious. Most of us in the stands or watching don't profess to be football managers or coaches, but some things are so evidently clear, you don't need experience or qualifications to know that we are a very boring and gutless team to watch.

Tonda would say that you "have an idea and a pair of eyes," but that you should trust them instead. The real question is, do you have hungry eyes?

Edited 13 hours ago by St. Ciervo

[LGTL]

5 hours ago, Cabrone said:

I don't know what's happened, back in November the clouds seem to have finally lifted and the team was playing fast attacking football with huge success, we looked odds on for playoffs and even a tilt at top 2. Now they have gone back to stodge ball.

Some people on here are saying it's SR but if it is then why were they happy to allow the November form to continue? As incompetent as I think they are I don't think it's them - they want us to win like anyone else.

Looks to me like a combination of a manager that has lost his balls and a bunch of players who are comfortable playing under performing  stodge ball.

4-4-2 please and show some fight!

I'd rather lose playing attacking football that dying of Russball boredom.

We are predictable. That’s it. Before the game yesterday I predicted about 10 things that were guaranteed to happen. And they pretty much all happened. I’m just an idiot on a football forum, imagine how fucking easy it is for professional football managers to set up against us! Our absolutely shit recent results are no coincidence and not due to anything changing on our side. We’re just boringly, mind numbingly predictable. 

[qwertyell]

3 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Sadly it's not just at Southampton though, this is now 'football'. Look at all those PL games y/day, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 1-1. All too scared to lose. It's rubbish.

I used to love the festive period as it was just stuffed full of football from all divisions, it was a great fun - but it's just a load of shit now, because it's all dictated by Xg, XGs, stats, possession and Sky feed into it so much.

The product is dying, someone needs to rip up the blueprint.

Is it that, or is it just a byproduct of teams being absolutely knackered at the back end (there's still two more rounds of PL games to cram in before the FA cup starts) of an over stuffed fixture schedule? Fast and dynamic football is the first thing to go when you can be neither fast nor dynamic. 

I managed to watch three games yesterday, and they were all 0-0. Great start to the year for me. But I didn't think anyone was afraid to attack, they were just all incredibly flat. 

That being said, Saints still managed to miss two injury time sitters to walk away with a forgettable 3 points. 

(For what it's worth, average goals per game in the PL this season so far is 2.77. Which, over the previous five completed seasons, is only better than 2020/21 (2.69), but not drastically below the average for the period of 2.91 goals per game.)