I agree Beef, but we normally give teams a game even if we are poor, we never had a goal attempt in the whole of the first half today, that has to change.
Well the one positive for me was that I had a brilliant HD stream to watch that load of ****e. Watford were better than us in every area, which is hard to swallow. I don't understand why Lemina didn't get any time on the pitch, or why JWP came off so early.
Next 5 games are Palace A United H Stoke A Newcastle H West Brom H I'm going to consider the United game as a write-off at the moment, but we need to be getting at least 7+ points from them if we don't want to be in a ****storm come Xmas.
When do we say maybe it's not the manager and it's the utter **** we have playing in midfield? Surely that falls on Les Reed. He loves to come out and take all the plaudits when we recruit well doing BBC interviews about the "Southampton Way" and how awesome the black box is so he should get stick when he ****s it up, like the last 3 windows
Power and pace seems to be the 2017 model in the prem with man Utd leading the way. We appear to be utterly devoid of that in midfield. JWP tadic Davis Redmond - there is no pace or power anywhere to be seen here going forward I fear we will be overrun frequently.
Defence and defensive midfield are fine. Attacking midfield 3 aren't and only click now and again. I am not worried about going down, but if things don't change it is going to be another up and down season. Randomly beating a big team then losing to a team we should beat etc. Atm I think we will finish 12th-14th
Okay I've not read anyone else's thoughts so just posting my initial reaction. We'll start with the positives. Hoedt looks decent, and his pace is fine. It was nice to see everyone in the pub. Umm... There are two things I think I will never understand for as long as I live. Firstly, against a really strong, powerful team (Chalobah was excellent I thought) who were so clearly bullying our mini midfield, why Lemina wasn't playing/brought on is beyond me. Secondly, and this is no slight on MP2, I will forever be annoyed we didn't appoint Silva in the summer. I said it at the time, and I still think it now. He's a very, very, very good manager. As yet I'm not sure MP2 is. We shall see. Said it after the Wham game - we're a team with no identity, and we need to sort that out fairly quickly. We're not physical, we don't play with pace, we aren't a counter attacking team, we're not a pressing team. I just don't really know what we are as yet, and I don't think the players do either. It's not a worry yet, but it is a point that needs addressing. There can be no more boring job in the world either, than being Manolo Gabbiadini right now. It's lucky he's paid so handsomely. On a slight plus, we did at least, on a couple of occassions, try and find *that* ball to him today. We just didn't quite manage it. Lots and lots of work to be done.
I'd accept 12th as ok, but I can't accept that we changed a decent manager because fans didn''t like his style, it was always a chance that we never had to take. But what's done is done and I don't expect us to be any more entertaining than we were last season.
Just how is that load of rubbish on the field and the manager off it going to change? Can't see it but would love to be proved wrong that Les got it wrong this summer. I concur 100%
It's not the manager, at least not primarily. We're severely lacking in quality in attack, and until we address that, we'll continue to be one of the worst attacking outfits in the Premier League. Which leads to our second problem: if we cannot score, we cannot afford to allow soft goals. McCarthy, if healthy, needs to get his chance.
Regardless of our quality upfront the players look devoid of ideas on the system/style. If the players aren't getting in the right positions it doesn't matter if we have Lukaku up front. Feel we need to change the formation to try and find some sort of identity.
Doesn't matter who we have up front if the players don't know the system/where to be to pick up good positions.
Nope. The one thing we got wrong was not getting more attacking options in. It's basically left MP with the same problems as Puel.
he one thing he got wrong was changing the manager IMO ----------------------------- I think Les had his hand forced by players. Virg should take some blame.
Watching today I have to say that I can't see any improvement from last season and in fact I think we've regressed under MP2. Usually there is a certain bounce vigor when a new manager comes in but worryingly this doesn't seem to be the case. Today was a very lackluster performance, with everybody seeming out of touch, not in form and lacking in confidence. Our midfield pairing of Davis and JWP looked lost and swamped by Watford, the service through to Gabbi was appalling. There doesn't seem to be any directness or penetration, everything seems to be played at a pedestrian pace either running into a gaggle of players and losing the ball or playing it backwards. Poor Gabbi is making runs off the ball but to no avail, it must be very frustrating for him. Any more of this and I worry we will be in a relegation struggle with the worst kind of team, one that doesn't score goals. I think MP2 will have to start earning his crust and either drop players out of form or find a way in which we create more chances, a difficult task. As a footnote not selling VVD for 70 million and not re-investing with a quality AM and a half decent back up defender might seem like a foolish piece of business come the end of the season when we are languishing at the bottom of the table. Thoughts?
