Zonal marking is dogshit imo. Pick one man, he’s yours, keep it simple. And always have someone on each post at corners
Zonal marking requires defenders with intelligence and good positional awareness... herein lies the problem; are centre backs are poor.
I still don’t think it’s miles better than the Puel season up to March. Puel had the defence tighter and the attack sporadically good.
Agreed, bit of rewriting history going on there I think, it was only towards the end we were really poor. You know, when everyone had their flip flops on.
A lot of people were against Puel from the start. Thinking we could attract a big name as we were in the prestigious Europa League. As soon as we didn’t start off smashing teams and playing a more conservative style people turned on him
Surely you'd think our ex-striker (and a good one and all) would be loving playing against us marking zonal at corners - it favours the attackers imo. How the **** are we still doing it, when we keep conceding the same type of goals. Don't they say the first sign of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again, and expect different results?
Agree partly mate, but think it was a stretch saying to March. Other than the cup, we were dead boring from Xmas if my memory serves...
4 away to Watford. 4 away to Sunderland. 2 x 1-0 wins v Liverpool. It wasn’t perfect by a long way, but nowhere near as bad as has been made out. I just find it strange that a bloke who managed a Euro campaign, an 8th place finish (incredible considering how “****” we were and all Those 0-0 Draws) and a cup final, gets battered when Hughes seems to be allowed massive leeway and now stability is important.?? Makes no sense to me.
Puel was being compared to Koeman and Poch; Hughes is being compared to MP2. Should have kept Puel for at least another season, but we didn't and discovered it was actually possible to be relegated again....something that some had forgotten.
I’m not sure those comparisons exist Fran. Koeman had issues for about two months and people were divided. I don’t think Puelbwas compared to him, his football just wasn’t entertaining for me. Perhaps the second season would have developed. Not sure people are really comparing Hughes to MP2, just some people saying he is better, that’s hardly a comparison more likely an observation that is obvious. I think the Puel bit of people saying he wasn’t as bad as made out is a little bit hindsight for me, as if MP2 or Hughes had got us playing amazing, I doubt he’d still be mentioned here.
A team that was difficult to beat. Anyone since done that to us? As I said yesterday, I’ll compare Hughes to Puel around Christmas.
Oh come on Billy. There were loads of rucks on here about Puel. For and against. I will stand now and say that my comments on him now are not hindsight. I said the same at the time.
I don't think you can learn much about Hughes' ability as a coach from the performance on Saturday. I thought that the score would be something similar to the eventual outcome. Unfortunately, at this point in time, Liverpool are the best team in the country and without Ings, it was an impossible task. There is an element of morality in Hughes' appointment, I think. After last season, he deserved a crack at the job on a longer term basis. I would have to say that I thought we would have hit the ground running this season and saw Southampton as the most perfect fit for Hughes - somewhere where expectations would not be high enough for serious pressure but where we would have had a broad remit to keep the fans entertained with the football. To be honest, the home games I have seen have been better from an attacking perspective and more enjoyable to watch. Where we have declined is with the defending. I feel we look was vulnerable at the moment. Since Koeman left, there has been so much disruption both with managers and playing staff that a period of stability is required. I would concede that Hughes is not a long term solution but I am hoping he will stop the rot. I would be opposed to fans calling for his head yet I think we need to be established in the mid-table by Christmas otherwise I am not convinced that we can avert a disaster the second time around. From an attacking perspective we are stronger but the defence has not look commanding for a while now. Too many squad players and no real automatic choices in the central defence.
Saints are habitually slow starters. You cannot really criticise Hughes until around November / December. Personally, I think this is a weak EPL this season. I cannot see either Cardiff or Huddersfield escape the relegation places for the duration of the campaign and it is just a matter of who goes down with them. There are plenty of sides capable of sliding down there and would have thought we are good enough to finish above the likes of Fulham, Wolves, Brighton, etc. The key will be how Hughes manages to iron out the mistakes and especially those being made by the defence. At the moment, I am seeing some positives. Redmond , on current form, is looking like a potential player of the season in the making, Lemina and PEH have put in some good performances and Ings looks like the missing piece on the jigsaw. What I have seen of Armstrong looks impressive. Hughes seems more knowledgeable than Pellegrino and the football is more entertaining than under Puel albeit the absence of Van Dijk means we concede more goals. I think Puel had two strengths one of which was brining on the youngsters. The other was putting in a "negative" performance to grab valuable points. Where I would disagree with the likes of LFT and Fran on this is that I don't think Puel would be able to achieve this with are current defensive line up. I think we should stick with Hughes unless it goes massively pear-shaped before Christmas. We should use his experience to address the things that have been wrong with the club such as the failure of the academy to produce anyone of note. We won't move on with Hughes but now is not the time to be taking risks with someone unknown from the continent.
Ian, What you say has a lot of validity to it. However and I know it’s old ground, but This is what you’ve just said.. “Saints are habitually slow starters. You cannot really criticise Hughes until around November / December” If only you’d applied the same to Puel. This comes back to what I said earlier, in that I don’t understand why so many fans will allow Hughes this courtesy but they didn’t want to extend the same to Puel. Baffling. And he had a Europa League campaign to cope with too. Anyway, I’ll wait til around Christmas.
I think the reason we want to give him time is that Puel followed Koeman, Hughes is following Puel & Pellegrino. FWIW I agree with you 100%, Puel did well and given another season, we probably wouldn't be in the mess we got into. EDIT: Just seen @fran-MLs little camera said it first...better than me
