Match Day Thread Gillingham v Southampton, EFL Cup 1st Round, 8th August, 19:45

To prioritise the league and rightly so.

 

Ooh he actually said openly some of these players need to be moved on!!

 

Always a good idea to tune in to the inner soul, prevents unnecessary optimism etc. Critical for all Saints fans.

 

I mean all those players are good enough to beat Gillingham but not like this.

Plus Bree was class last year - need to give him a chance!

 

Disagree totally and stupid selection by the manager. I hope he learns quickly. Expectation is high. He did not need to throw that game away. Makes life harder for him if he does nor win on Staurday (after completely resting his first team). If we had spanked Gillingham 4=0 tonight with 7 first teamers and then slipped up Saturday, it would be a blip. If we do not Saturday after 'resting his starting 11', pressure will build. I don't necessarily agree with this, but that will be the over riding reaction. I don't think tonight has been good from Russ, but was so easy to predict from his naive/stupid team selection.

 

Prioritise the league.

 

Bree really upset with himself which at least means he cares.

 

Jeez. We had to throw a game away for him to realise that.......

 

I really don't understand the issue with playing a weakened team tonight. We've got 46 league games to play in total. There's no hiding it's a crap result, but I really don't care we're out. Martin needed to find out who has got a future here and who hasn't.

 

Look, our ultimate capability as a team is to do a Poch/Koeman era Saints. Otherwise known these days as "A Brighton".

That's the totality of our position. We aren't going to do better than that, bar a mental Leicester situation. Which won't happen.

So, with that in mind, today is utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme. Of course we want to win every game, but this might actually be a blessing, as now Russell knows for sure which players can and can't compete to take us back to that hallowed "top ten with a crack at the odd European adventure" land.

We're much, much, much better off concentrating on the how and why of that, than reaching the fourth round of the Caribou Cup and being knocked out by the first competent PL side we face. Sorry, but that's the reality.

I'm loving being in the Championship right now, because it's nice being in the unusual position of at least expecting to compete for a win in every game. There's quarter of a billion games every season in the Championship, so to do that, we need to prioritise. And reaching the fourth round of the Caribou is not a priority. Getting ourselves in a position to go back up and then solidify ourselves as a good PL team is.

I'd rather stay in the Championship than be a 'teetering near relegation' side forever in the PL. But that's not what the owners or manager are after. We're after that mid-noughties Saints, current Brighton position. And at that stage we go for competitions like this too.

It's not for now.

 

So what has 90 minutes told him tonight that he should have known in the last six weeks and historic research. That is such a crappie cop out for getting his selection wrong. And please don't start me again on how we as fans devalue the cups

 

That's literally what preseason is for though

 

It's also what the EFL Cup is for for us.

 

I very much disagree. But each to their own.

 

Russel going all in. Love it

 

I despair. We can possibly have an outside chance to progress in two competitions a year, and you are happy one has gone against a **** team even before the August Bank Holiday

 

Was out all evening what did I mis…. Oh.

Set piece defending is still a problem I take it.

 

I think to really know which players will fight for the team you probably need to see it in the flesh. In a way it’s good he’s not making decisions based on previous results under a different manager.