Yep, the defence again. We have to learn to see a game out. Arsenal away, Sours away in the Cup, Wolves at home - that’s three wins that got away, which come straight to mind without trying.
These two posts sum it up for me too. There's a different mind set away from home and maybe tactics too but I don't agree that the atmosphere at St Mary's is part of the reason for poor home results. That's not to say that the support at home is great but that's a seperate issue. Firstly we have never had a particularly loud following at St Mary's, it usually takes the team to lift the crowd rather than the other way round. I think at the start of a game the noise is good but as it progresses, the fans get nervous and go quiet. And with good reason because there has been some absolute dross served up this season and most people can see where the game is heading.
Defence or tactics? I have watched many games, this season, where we have been leading, looking comfortable and looking for another goal to kill the game off, then Ralph throws on Romeu, at the expense of Redmond or Ings and we seem to lose our way. Much like in the past, when we always seemed to take Tadic off, we lose a forward player who can hold the ball up and give us time to reorganise at the back, which invites our opponents onto us, leading to mishit clearances, panic and chances. Without having really top defenders, I can understand why we do this, but it doesn’t seem to work too often. I sometimes think our defenders need to make better decisions, when clearing crosses. The number of times when they are struggling to reach a cross and just head the ball into the danger area, just outside the D, frustrates me. Quite often a safer option would be to help the ball on, towards the touch line, away from the goal.
Trying to play the ball out of defence in Saturday`s conditions was asking for trouble - I don't understand why we persisted with it.
I think it's an interesting thing to analyse actually and it's not just limited to us. The vast majority of teams (us, Spurs, United, Chelsea, Burnley, Arsenal, Everton to name but a few) really enjoy playing counter-attacking football. All the teams listed do it in a different way...Spurs and Chelsea like to play quick, slick moves, we like to press high and attack from there while United like to sit deep and attack with their extreme pace. I think it's just the way teams like to play at the moment and it's harder to do it at home.