Match Day Thread Hull City v Southampton Sunday Nov. 6 14:15

Point me to where you said you were talking about league form?

No, it is not all about the league ... where do you get that idea? Has Claude told you that? Cos publicly he's competing on all four fronts, hence all the rotation.

 

Which is fine, however it isn't just that. 8 players listed and quoted as "not good enough"

That seems an extreme reaction and is possibly what rattles some people. Justifiably so.

 

11 players or so weren't good enough on Sunday. Nah sack the lot........ lets get a new batch. Perhaps they can do better. They messed up for goodness sake. All teams have couple of those. During by any season even the best.

 

We have seen enough games now though, where I think we can start to identify weak spots. Of course every team takes a bad loss now and again, but right now we are in tenth place. And I think we are well short of the top 5. Is it wrong to strive for that as a goal? Or to think that what looks very much like a mid-table side can be improved?

If someone said that Saints need another striker after a win, would that be more acceptable? Because I notice when we win it's "We won, why can't you be happy?" and when we lose the same people claim "Oh, it's a meltdown."

 

I think some are just crying meltdown with their tongues in their cheeks to be honest and some maybe just to be contrary. There is little doubt that a lot of the lads had an extremely poor showing on Sunday. From what I gather Puel was not a happy bunny after the game.
Let's just see what happens over the next 3/4 games. May give us an idea as to who we need to replace. I think personally they really do need another decent striker. We are relying to heavily on Austin. Redman is just not up to scratch at the moment and long is long in coming back from injury!! Although he is nowhere near the standard of striker we need.

 

We have played enough games I agree. This tells me about your expectations and that they were different to mine, which is fine. Neither of us right nor wrong. I'll expect to read back and see you saying we should be top 5. That's fine too, I just didn't think that back in the summer. It is clear to all that we are not scoring enough goals and that Jayrod hasn't found his feet yet (and may not).

Is it also not fair for people to comment that listing those 8 players as not good enough was perhaps a little extreme? I did say that some maybe, but clearly not all of those 8 you listed.

You have complained about me before, yet you seem to refuse to even acknowledge this. I've not been aggressive, just asking a question. Perhaps you didn't really mean all 8, which is fine but it doesn't hurt to come back and say that.

Tadic, Boufal and Austin are the ones I questioned, that is all - was I fair?

 

This is simply not acceptable. I messed up at work once. Just once, mind. Overall I was a genius. I was flogged publicly and forced to join the Tory party.

This kind of meltdown is the usual supporter tripe. In the unlikely event that we turn Liverpool over in our next game, there will be scousers calling for Klopp's head. The more rational of us look at the bigger picture, recall truly crap results (sorry to mention it again, but that 2-0 defeat at Tranmere during an excellent run in our promotion season from League One stands out) and say "heigh ho, that's what supporting Saints means".

Just one other point. These "not good enough players". Someone said Jay Rod needs to find his feet (end of your ****ing legs, Jay, FFS) and I'd agree. Others "not good enough"? Sorry, guys. Reality check. We are Southampton. We are not Real Madrid or Barcelona. We are not in the "let's pick up a bargain at £100m" league. We recruit good kids. We buy good players. Some we turn into stand out players like Mane. Others turn up and put in an honest shift. It may never be good enough to beat an on-fire Chelsea team. It should have been good enough to beat a poor Hull side. It wasn't. They didn't play as well as they could. I am sure they know they under-performed. If not I am sure M Puel would have told them! Move on.

 

FTFY.

Vin

 

Fair point, Vin.

 

and just what does that mean only IHNFI.

 

Long is nowhere near the standard of striker we need? I think that's a tad harsh. We were all singing his praises last season when he was in terrific form. Admittedly he hasn't hit the ground running this season but he's very much a confidence player who goes through streaks of good and bad. If you mean that he's not the type of striker we need (not a reliable goal scorer) then I would be inclined to agree but he's definitely of a high enough standard for us in my opinion and he offers something different to Austin obviously. That's just how I see it, of course your opinion is equally valid.

 

Ok I'll change the words a bit....Long is not the type of player we need.......he is not a bad player by any means. Yes he does offer something different to Austin but he is not in my opinion an out and out striker as such. Sorry to say he is too inconsistent. For what ever reason we need that consistency. Also unfortunately he is injured.....although they tell me he is back in training.

 

Long has been injured a fair bit, so he isn't getting a run in the team (even by Puel's rotation standards). He needs more game time, but that can be hard to give him whilst Austin is available.....but Charlie won't always be there. Long will not score you goals all season, but I expect he will score us some important goals once fully fit. He must also be missing Mane...the player that could keep up with him and that he could feed and feed off. We are short of a striker as we all knew. I don't buy the idea that Puel didn't want another one.....what manager would say that? But we probably couldn't get the one(s) we wanted, so he knew he had to manage with the squad he had. Wouldn't have gone down well with the club if he started whinging as soon as he arrived (not that we would have understood him if he did ).

 

We didn't have that ultimate weapon available, the ex Player that scores against you, Long could have been it at Hull!

 

If Austin can replace Pelle's goal haul, which I expect him to do, then that leaves Mane's. I don't think our midfield scores enough goals in general, when we had a Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Davis midfield they were all chipping in with 5 goals each. I can't fault Clasie and Davis for trying to shoot but the ball usually ends up out of the stadium. Clasie's effort on Sunday was the first I remember even being on target. I yearn for a Sigurdsson or even Shelvey style midfielder who can test the keeper a few times a game, whether we have that in Boufal remains to be seen.

 

"It is all about the league" = We need to focus on the league so we can get a European spot, which we will then not focus on because we need to focus on the league to get another European spot!

 

Very selfish I think.

 

I'm rather glad I started supporting Saints in the days of limited back page coverage when you moaned to the nearest person who walked away because they didn't care about Saints. These days Saints supporters can have a moan to anyone in the world, which means even more people are not interested. This internet gubbins lets arguments go on too long. It happened move on. Life's too short to spend it arguing over 90 minutes of footy. Here endeth the first lesson.

 

Or alternatively, wining the Europa League (or the cups) will give us the same reward of European qualification ... and the memories will last longer!

 

Oh hell yeah. Being born after our most famous cup win allowed my to read up on it in later times, but my bread and butter was annual league struggles & getting jettisoned from the cup by some awful team year after year. Wouldn't change a thing. I still have ambition and hope, but I cannot fail to see that these truly are the good times, perhaps even the easy times.
Now, lets put on hands together and hope all Liverpools players are carrying knocks & dreaming of playing for City. Amen.