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Well, take away the anomaly that was the Leicester game and let’s say it was 0-2, then that’s 23 in 13, which isn't good, I’ll admit, but not desperate. I know it’s no good saying “if only”, but, if you think of the points we’ve thrown away in the last few minutes or in injury time, we’d be a lot better off if we could have defended those .....


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.
 
Saturday was a good example - Saints find it difficult to break down opposition that get behind the ball - away, we play on the counter more, and our press is more effective, because the opposition come out and play at home.

We are much better without the ball - playing against the ball, as Ralph calls it; we set up to press the opposition, force the mistake, and capitalise quickly, but many visitors to SMS are happy to stay in their own half and let us have the ball, and when that happens we sometimes lack the guile to break them down. We are always vulnerable ourselves to the quick break because, let's face it, opur defence maybe getting better but we lack the real quality at the back, that you need to deal with threats when outnumbered in our own half.

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.
 
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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.

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.
 
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.
 
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.

Both teams sitting back and waiting would make for a very boring match.