Match Day Thread Southampton VS Huddersfield: 23/12/17 - 15:00 Midtable Teams Doing Midtable Stuff

That, plus it's hard to be objective when every single opinion expressed appears to be an attempt to compete for the title of "Most Desperately Depressed Poster".

I'm not finding it easy to be positive about Saints myself at the moment, but I'm glad someone is, because all the negativity just creates a giant suckhole of gloom that benefits no one.

 

Thing is, I hate being a neg-head. It bothers me.

In other news, Iaueueaeuen Roberts was watching a few rows ahead of me today.

 

Very true.

 

That's it in a nutshell - in a results business, we're just not getting the results.

 

It's tough when you feel so differently from every single person on a thread.

Vin

 

The problem is that we've had a long run of games that fell into the category of "didn't play that badly, but didn't win", punctuated with a few "played badly, didn't win" affairs. We lack cutting edge at the front, and we have been worryingly pliable at the back for some time now, a combination that has turned an awful lot of winnable games into draws, and draws into losses. It's a recipe that will involve a lot of matches where we're on top more often than not, but don't generate a result, but unless we solve one or both of those problems, it doesn't mean we can expect the wins to pile up any time soon.

The further concern is that we've played more home games than any team in the PL to date; the back half of our schedule is harder than the front, and while our home form hasn't been good, our away form has been worse still. Brendy (I think) pointed out how difficult our finishing kick this year will be, and he's 100% right...it culminates in a nine-match slog where we'll play at home only three times, two of which are against Chelsea and City. We need to get more than credible draws, and soon, or we're going to have a serious problem when March rolls around.

On the meltdown: I don't really see a meltdown here. I mean, we're averaging a point per match, which merits concern, and yet it's all reasoned discussion. Suggesting that Pellegrino should exit stage right isn't really an overreaction at this juncture, either.

 

Then add to that,the bottom of the table putting up an admirable fight, and it is all rather concerning.

 

We’ve won one game in ten. That’s terrible. I am normally optimistic, but I just don’t see anything that I can put in the “well, that’s improving” category. It’s not a ‘meltdown’, it’s just what I’m seeing right now. A meltdown is losing one game and flinging the toys out. This has been across the course of this season.

 

But...but...but I keep on reading that our second half of the season is the same as (a) our first half, and (b) everyone else.

 

And without wanting to sound defeatist in the slightest, the smart money has to be on that becoming one win in 12 games very shortly. That's almost one-third of the season!

 

And likely that we'll have gone well over two months (in the busiest period of the season) without a clean sheet, too. 1-1 has become the new 0-0...perfectly fine when playing Arsenal, significantly less so against Huddersfield.

 

Vin,

I genuinely don't think it's been that bad a meltdown on here, and it's certainly not just based on today for a fair amount of posters. Talk of Pulis etc. is barmy tho imo.

As I've said I didn't watch the game today so I'm going by others but it's good to hear someone think we did play better today and if there was improvement than that's great to hear.

But in the same breath we (again) failed to win the game which is becoming a theme and now we're at the halfway point we've seen enough to make a proper judgement. As someone said earlier we seem to put in good performances but not beat the top sides and mainly draw against the teams around us.

My main issue is we very rarely look like winning a game at present, and in fact of our 4 wins only Everton was comfortable and they were an utter shambles. We've also failed to beat a lot of poor teams and I myself haven't seen a big enough change to indicate he's going to turn it around.

Just (some) of my thoughts for what it's worth.

 

Our remaining eight home fixtures: Palace, Spurs, Brighton, Liverpool, Stoke, Chelsea, Bournemouth, City. While I like that it follows a neat pattern of "home six-pointer" alternating with "likely defeat", if we don't discover a sudden talent for winning away, those four matches against Palace/Brighton/Stoke/Bournemouth are season-deciders.

 

Yep. Pretty much with that summary.

Interesting how the positivity of Vin sees the Maya header that hit the post and the Charlie miss. I see the Schindler header that hit the bar and the glaring free header miss from the same player early first half.

We’re neither of us wrong. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

 

As is the case most of the time with these discussions tbh.

 

Went to the game today and we did OK. We weren't terrible but we are just not that enjoyable to watch. Should have won but are still too cautious.

The best thing was seeing us get bodies forward to support the striker.

The worst thing was seeing us slowly retreat with a 1-0 lead which we gave up much like the Brighton game.

Biggest worry was how quiet the players were; lack of communication. Would love to see two strikers as Austin is not very mobile (although that might not matter now).

 

While we also had charlies goalkeeper passback ,the Tadic interception and Redmond 1 on 1 with the keeper saves as well as a bunch of other times redmond had got behind their defence. Also some decent corners.

 

The thing as I saw it today wasn't that we were terrible, but I have to say that the bar has dropped so bloody low these days that I can understand why some might think we weren't that bad. But we truly were. Our defence was all over the place for the first 30 minutes and time and again we made errors and were caught out. Yoshida is feeling very out of sorts at the moment, he's back to his worst error prone form over the last 3. Losing RB and LB together is a huge blow to our prospects.

This was Hudds we were playing, not Liverpool, so to say that we could have won it and had chances is not some big whoop whoop for the team and MP2. We should have bloody won it. We've been in this league longer, we have a more established premier squad and we should be making them suffer and punishing them but we have fallen so far off our previous level that creating openings is now some measure of success. I mean no disrespect to any of the opposition in this league, there are no easy games but Hudds at home is as easy a game as we will see this season.

Performed exactly as well as we have all season, full of errors, lacking in bite and cutting edge, only kept afloat by the scoring streak of our striker. I saw no signs of improvement, just more of the same, the same form that has us as relegation candidates and will likely see us in the bottom 3 come new years.

 

With Austin crocked, I presume we can once again look forward to a forward line of Redmond, Davis, Tadic and Long. Pellegrino must be hugely relieved.

 

Agreed. Although I would say that the Huddersfield keeper was a big reason for that. Constantly fixed to his goal-line; it doesn't half help you as the attacking team, when the opposition keeper refuses to come out and catch or punch.