Chelsea v Saints Saturday 16/12/17 KO 3.00pm.

Great results for the bottom of the table this weekend. I wonder where we will be in two games time....

 

I tend to agree with you. The individual parts are much better than the team collective. I can't see it being fixed as long as MP2 is in charge.

 

Not just today but I still can't see what he is trying to do, players have to be accountable but I just don't see what is being asked of them so how do you judge that?

 

He is all over the place. He changes the centre backs every week which is absurd. He constantly drops the best performers from the previous match. And I have no idea what style and tactics we are trying to employ. To top it off 3 of our best performers Austin, Boufel and PEH are the 3 he least wanted to pick according to his own selections early in the season.

 

We don't have bad players, but with is our strength as a team? What are the skillsets we should be exploiting to score more (and hopefully improve our defending, as well)? That's the part I can't sort out...I don't think that Pellegrino has been particularly good, but our talent base is lacking a defining trait. For a team that talks endlessly about The Southampton Way, it strikes me that we have a bunch of players who all want to play far different styles of football.

 

I don't know about that schad, we have a good variety of players and they're all good premier league talent. I have to think that a better manager would have them on the same page.

 

Which manager would you bring in to manage the players?

 

Wonder if Van Dijk's attitude will improve?

 

It'll improve when he finally gets what he wants...

 

But none of them are particularly good fits with each other. We have a striker in Austin who thrives off crosses, in a squad with wide players who are not notably good crossers (playing Tadic on the right certainly does contribute there, however). We have another in Gabbiadini who thrives off throughballs, playing with central players who are afraid to play them. We have an attacking mid in Boufal who wants to get into the open field, and no one who wants to be there with him.

We aren't untalented, we're just ungainly.

 

Slow?

 

We don't have a good variety of players. Austin and Gabbi are pretty similiar both strikers who use clever movement to get on the end of balls Austin better in the air and Gabbi a bit better out wide. Tadic, Boufal and Redmond are all pretty similar. one footed wingers who use tricks to get past players or put crosses in and can't shoot. all slow down play to use those tricks. Really there's only small differences between them. then we have Long who is so out of form and Prowse. we really can't change the game much by bringing on players past the extra freshness.

 

Fair!

Our talent base is lacking a defining positive trait, then.

 

My pick at the moment would be to nick Benitez off the toon.

 

A wise man once said that hard work beats talent, if talent doesn't work hard.

Right now we have the talent, but don't work hard.

God I miss Nige sometimes.

 

Good timing of the post, given that West Ham - who couldn't be arsed at the start of the season - have just been on MOTD looking right up for it, and on top. Moyes has got a grip on them.

 

Courses for horses then. Good luck to Moyes, if not so much to West Ham. Pehaps he is proving to himself that he is not such a bad manager after all, and his time at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and Sunderland were just bad career moves for him.

 

Fair points about the variety of players we have. Or lack of.

I guess my feeling is we have the quality to be playing more free flowing solid footy but we aren't getting it. different to having variety I guess.

 

Palace is similarly situated: after opening the season with seven goalless losses, they're unbeaten in seven, and are closing in on our goals scored total for the year.

Next one to make the move might be Stoke; I'm presuming that Mark Hughes won't be there much longer given their shambolic defending (at their current pace, they will surrender more goals than any team since the woeful Fulham squad that got relegated in 2013-14), but they aren't bereft of talent.

Crazy stat of the day: there are ten teams scoring less than a goal per match. Last season there were three, and all three were relegated. Two years ago there were only two, Villa and West Brom.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that Serie A is now the freest-scoring of the big five top divisions. The PL is at the foot of the table.