I've seen a lot of threads this season, some along the topic of 'Omg we're sooo bad, Adkins out blah blah', and some saying 'Everyone needs to get their heads up and the moaning idiots need to give it a rest'. I've kind of avoided all of them, and I'm sure there will be plenty of other threads like those popping up right now, but I feel it's time to make one of them myself, and you could probably place it in the second category. Let's look at the game we just played. We played one of the hardest away fixtures we will have all season, we were without our best player, we were playing a centre-back who has played 180 minutes in international games in the last week out of position in one of the most crucual positions on the pitch, and we were the better team for 75 or 80 minutes of the game. Some bad mistakes and some bad luck cost us, but let's be real, that game wasn't 4-1 West Ham. We were solid defensively for the vast majority of the game apart from two set pieces, Yoshida being dispossessed, and then a meaningless goal with the game already decided (a lovely finish from Modibo, though). We controlled the ball for vast majorities of the game but struggled to unlock the door, but no matter how good we are, good luck trying to break down 10 men behind the ball away from home. Even Arsenal struggled to do that against West Ham, and it was only a couple counter-attacks and the sheer quality of Cazorla that got them a victory. Adkins tactics were questionable and risky, but not without a base to them. The one thing I can't really support is Boruc coming into the side when Gazzaniga had done nothing really wrong, but I have to wonder if there are other reasons behind that because Gazza didn't even make the bench which I find confusing. But regardless, the main talking point is Lambert on the bench. That is classic tough away game strategy, we did it against Man City, play a conservative line-up, try and keep yourself in the game, then bring on your big guns and try and steal something, and City are much better than West Ham technically and it almost worked against them and almost worked today. Apart from a mad two minutes at the start of the second half, West Ham never threatened, when Lambert came on there was a spell where we right on top and looking like coming back into it before the penalty killed us. On paper, a 4-1 loss, it looks like we got destroyed, but in reality, we were all of about 20 seconds of better defensive concentration away from probably winning that game. Adkins tactics were risky but very, very nearly worked. If you can't understand why he did it, and you can't understand how close it was to working perfectly and making him look like a tactical genius, then I'm sorry but you really understand very little about football. And trust me, I hate sweeping generalisations like that, when someone says "Were you watching another game because if not you're and idiot." or "I was at the game and I saw this,this, and this, you must have been listening on the radio because you know nothing." Statements like that really grind on my nerves, but in this case, it's true, Adkins tactics were perfectly well-thought out and almost paid off big. That doesn't mean they were the right ones, but they weren't without reasoning, and really, hindsight is 20/20, we can sit here imagining what could have happened, Lambert starts and scores a hattrick in the first 30 etc., but all we're doing is imagining, and really when you look at our first half, would Lambert really have made a huge difference there? Probably not, but again, all you can do is imagine and guess. Our defence has issues, but they're not inept and they're not hopeless, our line-up was even more make-shift than usual and Yoshida, despite being better than against Fulham, struggled at both ends of the pitch. And Boruc in his first game cost us with his indecision for the first goal, and even could have done better for the second, but the first goal was what really let them into the game and gave them a momentum shift and confidence, but even after that 2nd goal we were the more dangerous team until the penalty. But they didn't run us ragged for 90 minutes, Carroll didn't dominate our CBs, it was completely the other way around and really he was lucky to earn the amount of fouls he did when a lot of the time he was the guilty party. Like I said before, we were 20 or 30 seconds of better defensive concentration away from an almost perfect 90 minutes against a dangerous team and a team that is set-up almost perfectly to hit us where it hurts. I'm not saying that's good enough, it's still a concern, and it still needs to be better, and the moments where we did turn-off were utter rubbish, but there's no need to write off our defence and our team as hopeless until we can bring in new blood based off of that performance. People need to stop taking things on face value and start thinking logically and evaluating things more. People just see Lamberts not starting and instantly it's the knee-jerk reaction of, "OH MY GOD LAMBERT'S NOT PLAYING ADKINS IS AN IDIOT.", people see we concede four "OH MY GOD OUR DEFENCE IS USELESS WE NEED TO GET RID OF THEM ALL THEY BELONG IN LEAGUE ONE", and we lose the game "ADKINS OUT RIGHT NOW!". We've got a lot of talent, we've got a lot of potential, things aren't going right at the moment but there's a long way to go and it's only up from here, injuries have killed us in our last two games, we've lost too much and conceded too many, but we've only been truly outplayed twice, against Arsenal and Everton both away from home and against two of the teams in the best form this season behind Chelsea. And at the end of the day, Southampton FC are back where we belong in the Premier League and in a good old scrap at the bottom of the table, and we've only lost that battle once under mitigating circumstances. Dry your eyes boys, chin up, and let's enjoy this moment because it's been a long fight to get to where we are and back to where we want to be! Might be a bit cliche and I usually don't don't sign off posts like it, but what the hell, I'm in a motivational mood so.... COYR!
Haha, very true mate, absolute lost cause and I thought the exact same thing when I wrote it, but left it anyway. If you post it here I'd happily edit it into the first post. We could make a collection of sensible thoughts from the more level-headed amongst us haha.
Thanks guys and welcome to SFC92, hope you stick around. I've not been here long, and it's not the perfect forum, there's a fair share of nonsense and a few muppets like in any cross-section of society, but at it's core a very good place to be as a Saints fan and if you look hard enough there's plenty of good posters and good people.
You are right gomarchingin, the defense isn't good enough. Will you pease pop over to my thread and join in that one with some ideas please?
Is the 'No', a response to the question in the title? Because if so I am amazed and shocked to my core that you, the voice of reason guiding us through the troubled waters of this forum, would not think logically. What's happened to you?
You belong in the times of the great Greek philosophers, not with us mere mortals, I'm sure you would be greeted with opened arms by Plato, Aristotle and Socrates, you'd fit right in with them perfectly, like Alan Carr in a prison showers, except with less convincted criminals and exactly the same amount of anal sex.
And the penny drops! Wasn't Gomarchitus the Roman god of ****wittery? You've sussed the resident pondlife.
About 62, would be a good total but not incredible for a team to get relegated with that goal total, Blackpool off the top of my head scored about 55 I believe and only conceded 70 odd. Regardless, if things carry on as they are, then QPR and Reading would score about 30 goals each this season and both finish on about 12 points. And Villa would also be in the ****. So under those criteria I'd happily give us a good shout of staying up if we keep going as we are!
