Very decent first half against a very poor Rotherham side, but the first 30 mins. of the second half very as poor as I have seen for many seasons. Why were obsessed with playing 50 man moves then playing it back to the keeper is totally beyond me. I really hate this predictable style of play, it's not working now and it certainly won't work in the Premier league, but I guess we won't have to worry about that?
Seriously though. We need some sort of dunce cap for the next person who predicts an easy win for Saints.
Yeah can’t see us winning many games comfortably this season, this style just doesn’t scream “smash teams” Roughly a quarter of the way through the season and I think we will finish where we are now or thereabouts
I think we’ll still get playoffs, and we are capable of winning that. Far more exciting than automatic anyhow
Still 35 games to go. That's practically an entire Premier League season's worth. We will get stronger, with Stewart coming in, plus we have a bigger squad when all the injuries start affecting other teams. Even if we continue to stutter along like this, we'll probably creep into the top 6. I can see us going on a nice 6-7 game winning streak at some point though that will practically cement our place in the playoffs.
Its the 2 week wait now that gets me! Oh well I do think we are getting better generally speaking and alcaraz new contract was good too. When's that striker from Sunderland gonna be ready?
Enjoyed watching us play on that first half for the first time in ages. Bit unlucky, not sure the subs helped, but this highlights why we are not automatic promotion contenders. We really need that extra striker too.
He was very good first half. Second half we basically passed it around at the back and down the sides without creating anything. I know we're all pissed off but there's no point slagging individuals off today. I agree with Downes. Booing is pathetic. Our fans really need to stop sulking and get behind the team.
Oh come off it. You're blaming Che every time any of our players miss? That's a stretch. He assisted the goal by the way.
Disagree 100% He sets us up to play possession based football, very pedestrian & back foot. It relies on us not to make any control / passing mistakes & we know from this whole season to date that’s what we do. It’s on RM.
I just don't think he's looked as committed in the past couple of games as he did at the start of the season. I was one of the biggest advocate for keeping him, but he hasn't shown he's deserved that backing & support since the window closed.
So. Don’t think I’ve seen such a vast difference between a first and second half. Rotherham manager figured us out, made tactical changes and they were very effective. We were still the better team throughout though in my mind, but typical of Saints not to take chances and be punished. Unlike the run before I didn’t really see it as down to RM today, our players appear to lack initiative at times and really should be able to resolve some of the issues up front themselves. Once it was level we had too many players standing static, not trying to lose markers, not going to assist each other and offer an outlet. 7 points from the three games we have had isn’t actually a bad return, it’s just that today is the game that should have been a banker, no disrespect to Rotherham. It’s the 4 games before Leeds that cause today to really be a worse result. I can get our players frustrations re booing, but imo Downes should wind his neck in for now as the players haven’t delivered and being 11 points off of automatic 11 games in is not good enough, they need to earn the goodwill back first. The biggest issue is that automatic promotion already looks very unlikely which isn’t good enough with this squad, I feel like we are balancing out now though and should be ok for the play-offs, not sure we have enough to win them though. On another note the situation in the Itchen/Chapel corner before half time is a reminder that this isn’t so important. Onwards and upwards I hope.
I think another day that is 3 or 4 to us. I think we get too comfortable when we are controlling games, and without the 2 goal cushion, we are always vulnerable of course. Definitely too pedestrian 2nd half, though we had started to improve I think before their goal. Very frustrating, but I’m not sure it is such a huge set back. He’s going nowhere let’s face it.!
