It was a no win situation. If they did not go on they would be criticised. It was them showing their appreciation to the fans. The empty stands will not have gone unnoticed by the board.
With everyone predicting a cricket score, I guess 1-2 is not that bad. But in reality that was a 0-9 performance by Saints. In the first half we only really used one half of the pitch. They pressed us in our own area but whenever their keeper got the ball we allowed them to walk it up to the half way line before we even considered closing them down. Tella and Diallo were very poor tonight. A slight rally in the second half but there looked at least 1 division between us in quality. This is not a bad squad. If we can hold Man City and beat Spurs away we should be able to replicate those performances week in week out. Ralph is a decent coach, but clearly something has gone wrong as the football since the Villa away game has been of a standard that got Hughes, Pellegrino and Puel the sack. The only highlight for me tonight was the MOTM (Saints) performance from Lyanco (OK apart from two dodgy moments in the second half). He will become a club legend I'm sure of it. Well done Redders too. That goal reminded me of the Danny Osvaldo effort against Citeh... ...he can hold his head up tonight. Funny, I think there is a world class player in there somewhere just waiting for someone to show some belief in him.
Meh. At least we didnt cave in and negate the Goal Difference at the top. I'm starting to care as little as some of the team do.
Strange performance from you guys. Last home game, nothing to play for would have thought just go for it. Even in last 15 just sort of waited until final 5 to put bit of pressure on and even then was just the odd cross that was dealt with. Got some decent players there to make a fist of things next year, Dno what your owner situation is like but bit of cash to get a striker (guess you’ll lose Broja back to Chelsea) as doesn’t seem like you replaced Ings? The back 4 all seem decent and solid midfielders in Romeu, jwp and Armstrong.
Fearful is how I'd describe it. Our best 11 is solid when they show up but our best 11 hasn't shown up for weeks.
We have been absolutely woeful for the last couple of months now, every game we look a different variation of slow, weak, clueless and/or abject. Today was probably one of our better recent performances (yes, really!). But the total lack of interest in even trying to level the game when there was nothing to lose was infuriating, I have a feeling Ralph went into damage limitation after having fans calling for his head openly against Brentford. The Adams for Broja sub felt very ‘that’ll do’. It looked like we thought it was better to lose 2-1 than to push for an equaliser and risk losing 3-1.
We sit in row BB and left on 90 minutes to deliberately avoid it. They were lucky there was anyone left at the end.
I think I am being generous with 1000 as I could see more people like me waiting on the steps to leave than actually paying any attention to them.
Another reason for leaving early was that I thought there might be some booing and despite thinking it would be deserved I didn't want to witness that.
Apart from the obvious "we were ****e", some other observations. Yes Redders was our best player but even he wasn't that special. Good for 10 minutes at the start and 10 minutes at the end and still our best player says something about the rest of them. The only other one who looks like he gives a **** is Lyanco and maybe KWP. I said to Mrs Game on the way home "did Elyounoussi get subbed because I can't remember seeing him in the 2nd half". She didn't think he did. He's no worse than the others but I honestly can't remember seeing him do anything in that game. I checked when we got home and he did indeed play the whole match. I've said before that a lot of our players lack the basic skills you would expect from a PL player. As an example a ball was played to Che, admittedly with a bit of pace on it but his attempt to control it sent the ball further away than the original pass. I like Che, he seems a nice guy but PL quality? I'm not so sure. Then there was a pass out of defence by Jack Stephens under no pressure that went directly to a Liverpool player. I couldn't even see who he was trying to pass to it was that wayward. I laughed out loud at the total incompetence of it but I think there was an element of hysteria involved too. Ralph may be getting the blame but it's the player's collective attitude that I find puzzling. The general reluctance to compete, to get forward and try to win the game until about the 85th minute. What was that about? The amount of 50-50 tackles we lose is phenomenal, there appears to be a lack of desire or drive to win the ball. Maybe they're scared of injury but the tackles were very half hearted. Everything we do is so slow even when we are losing. From the keeper releasing the ball, to throw ins and passing forwards. It's hard to watch. Martin Atkinson is a biased, poor referee. Not that it made any difference to the result. I believe this comment to be true but fully expect it will be removed by our new mod.
I made a tongue-in-cheek comment last night about Minamino not being good enough for Saints, but quality for Liverpool. I see Redmond in the same way. If he went to a top side, with quality players around him, and a better coach, he might just transform into one of the better attackers in the division. I'd like to see him played through the middle more often as a proper number 10, instead of a wide '10'. He has quick feet, can shoot from 20 yards, and he can pick a pass too. Once again last night all our attacking play went down the flanks. Almost every time Liverpool attacked they were looking to get through the middle. Neither Diallo nor JWP are able to pick a pass through the middle. The way we set up currently means there is a very weak link between the central midfielders and the strikers, which means we are predictable to defend against, since we repeatedly look to the wide men to create anything. Elyounoussi has the occasional good moment, a flick or a shimmy, but he doesn't really have the tools to do damage at this level. A supporting three of (new signing) - Redmond - Stuie, behind Adams (or preferably new signing), could be our best option moving forward.
Oh well. We didn’t win but we all know that really it’s the taking part that matter . Hello And yes , we did take part
That was not the substanceof my comment. I referred to results since the Villa thrashing where we have taken 5 pts, including 3 pts in very fortunate circumstances over Arsenal. But l think you know what l meant in anycase. Extrapolate the last 10 or 11 games with the points over a whole season, we would have closer to 15 pts. That is our current level of performance.
Be careful what you wish for. I watch a fair bit of Championship football, generally speaking its nearly equal to Premierships footie in terms of skill but ,I think, much more passionate with managers and players showing bucket loads of determination and commitment something our lot, with one or two honourable exception, lack. Saints present gutless team would do well to hover around the middle of the championship table.
Not sure that the players can be criticised about the performance last night. Ony one player earned his corn for me and that was Redmond. I said previously that I thought the club would ditch Ralph in the summer and I feel that last night underscored why it is time for him to move on. We could have had a real go at the team Liverpool put out yet Ralph selected a defensive team with players out of position. Not sure why Perraud was not used and why we only had one forward working alone up front, even after we made a substitute. The substitutions came to late and because the system which was not working did not get changed, they had no impact. I do not agree with the comments that this is somehow the fault of the players. The style of football we elected to play last night had nothing to do with the swashbuckling, pressing style which had initially earned Ralph the admiration of the fans. It seems like Ralph is trying new things and these naive alternatives seem bound to fail. These players were capable of putting in excellent performances previously yet too many of them seemed baffled with how they were being asked to play. The empty stadium after the final whistle will speak volumes and I just think Ralph will be binned after the Leicester match. There is no way that I can see the new owners sticking with him and things need to be refreshed as they are not working at the moment.
I think it might be worthwhile pointing out that Redmnd was playing out of position. I agree about Elyyounoussi who has been very poor recently. However, I would have to say that JWP was little better last night. Don't even ask me about Diallo! KWP was decent but the rest of the defending did not look assured. Perraid should have been playing last night and Redmond pushed forward. Not sure why there is a love in Lycano as i just see him as pretty average to be honest. I am not surprised that the players might have looked puzzled. It was baffling from a techical point of view and hard to see what Ralph was trying to acheive by leaving one man up from at home and then attempting to build up from the back. For what it is worth, the Liverpool team last night did not look to be of the same class as the likes of Chelsea, Man City and Spurs who I think have been far better in this season's performances at St Mary's. We should have been more progressive and taken Liverpool on. I get the defensive frailty issue but it is less of a problem when you are playing your football in the opposition's half.
Quite a bit of critism about Milner on this thread but we could use someone like him in the "good for the changing room" role with the occasional committed utility performance in preference to the light-weights we have here.
