Yes I see what Nige is doing , he wants to stop the goals coming in so he makes a sound defensive outfit so far so good , now he wants the strikers to take their chances again all good , so our Nige promptly drops our top goalscorer , plays a negative formation and our sound struture of defence concedes 4 goals , did he go to the tactical school of ****e , I dont care whether he is learning the building trade , plumbing or premiership that was gash .
Actually, apart from the foul language and vitriol against the best manager we have had in over 30 years, if not ever, I agree with you. Except that but for more defensive lapses which Nigel couldn't really be blamed for we would have beaten Man City using exactly that strategy.
Possibly, but what did they achieve? Nigel Adkins took us from 22nd in League 1 to the Premier League in 18 months. Only Ted Bates achieved anything like that. Lawrie Mac won us the FA Cup, promotion, and nearly the First Division title, he is the only manager in my lifetime to better what Nigel has done. And before you call me, in your pathetically repetitive way, a "happy clapper", I am not uncritical of Adkins, I just think that he deserves Cortese's complete backing to achieve the next phase of the rehabilitation of Southampton Football Club. If we get relegated this season, with Nigel still in charge, I would still back him to bring us straight back up again. But relegation won't happen, just you wait and see, and Nigel Adkins won't get sacked either.
Great call, Lamballana. If all else fails let's fall back on blind optimism. It's what we've always done in the past!!
As I mentioned at the end of my second essay, I'm sorry to those unwilling or unable to dedicate the time to read my long posts, but I care about what I'm saying, don't want to make half arsed half thought-out statements without explaining my thoughts thoroughly. I see people like Gomarchgin who make ridiculous over-the-top general statements without properly explaining or backing up my point of view and it annoys me and makes it very hard for me to understand their point of view, thus I try and make sure when I make statements, especially controversial or hard to understand ones, such as believing that Nigel has improved tactically in our last two games, the second of which we lost 4-1, that I make sure I give what I believe to be extensive and well-reasoned arguments. Is it entirely necessary or needed? No. If you don't want to read through it all, fine, but by the same token, is there any need for you to make a dismissive and fairly rude statement, instead of just seeing my long posts, deciding you don't want to read them, and moving on? Also, no. There's no doubt that the bottom line of that game was unacceptable and very frustrating, just like the bottom line of our season has been. We've conceded a lot of goals, and like you say, the only statistics that count are that we have four points and are 18th in the league, but those are not the only statistics that matter. If you only looked at the bottom line, then we might as well be relegated already, and Arsenal just got beaten by Norwich in a dreadful performance so the bottom line there is that Norwich just beat a top four team, and Arsenal were dreadful, but we don't all of a sudden think Norwich and Arsenal are going to swap places in the table. The bottom line is important but it's not all that matters, it's not so important that you must ignore or else and only focus on it, you can't take life on face value, there are always underlying and extenuating circumstances which must be considered. To use the bottom line in it's true financial sense, Tesco posted the first loss in two decades in their last six month report, that's the bottom line, they number in their profits margin is a negative, does that mean they are going to go under? No, because when you look closer they are still a collosus. I do often find myself needing an editor, because I've usually taken so long and gotten so tired of typing out my nonsense that when I scroll up and think "How much have I just ****ing written?!", I can't be bothered to try and condense the whole thing into something more concise. Anyway, I digress, my argument is very much along those lines but you've slightly simplified it which of course I understand otherwise we'd be here all day, but yes, I believe we were good enough for large periods of that game and showed enough that makes be believe we were very close to winning, and that we approached it in a very good manner from a tactical point of view. But my margins are different, I think we controlled the game for all but 10 minutes, but you can not control portions of a game without those portions being crap. I think we were only crap for a combined total of no more than 20 seconds. And whilst you don't want to be crap for any of a game, but you are going to be, that's just football, very, very rarely do you have a team where you can look at every moment of an entire 90 minute+ game and say, "Wow, they never did ANYTHING wrong." Some of our crap moments were indeed very... crap, but also just come down to **** luck. The only truly poor moment was the first goal, because Boruc simply should have claimed that, on his debut or not, doesn't matter, he was brought into the team to bring experience and any keeper worth their salt should be claiming that. But two of our goals came from Yoshida being out of position, and the penalty which really killed us when we looked set to come back, the free-kick was dubious and on another day we wouldn't have had it given against us, on another day the ref might have spotted Fonte being fouled by Reid which lead to him so desperate trying to recover and ending up handballing it. On another day the very fine margins which lost us the game may have disappeared and those 20 seconds of crap either wouldn't have happened or wouldn't have been punished, and we'd have won 2-0 and people would be crowing over how comfortable it was and how well we dealt with Big Bad West Ham and the most expensive English striker in history, but the pendulum swung against us on a day in which the odds were already stacked against us, those margins didn't go our way, and instead it ends up a comfortable West Ham romp against hapless Southampton. If that was the last game, and there were no other days and it was the end of the line for us, then so be it, we're screwed, no reason to take any positives, but there are other days, there will be other days and despite the scoreline and the bottom line of what happened yesterday, a similar level of performance I believe could be easily enough to get us many points in this league. That is why I have come away from a 4-1 loss not frustrated and angry and our team being beaten by such a comprehensive scoreline, not fuming about the embarassment, not dooming us to relegation, but with a smile on my face and the belief that improvements are being made and that we have a team and a manger that is showing that they can come together and that they are good enough to belong in the top-flight. And not scoring is a problem but not a huge concern of mine, the ball can't hit the net every time it leaves your striker's feet, no matter how good they are, when you look at teams we've outscored like Liverpool and Newcastle, and the players we have, who wouldn't welcome the likes of Suarez (on ability, not attitude), Cisse, Ba, Gerrard, Ben Arfa etc. into our team? Not manny people with their heads screwed on, and yet those players have not outscored our lads. Wigan was a bad game, you could make the same arguments of bad luck and whatnot, but not to any reasonable degree, that was just a poor game, it happens. Fulham we were wasteful but again, it happens, that game was another where the margins were thin. United well, we weren't on top for long enough, although I mostly credit that not to lack of attacking quality and more to that attacking quality being removed from the pitch and then the rest of the team being forced back onto the edge of their own box, but that we have learned from. And yesterday? Well as I have said far too many times across too many threads, our inability to score in the first half was not down to a lack of quality or finishing, it was down to our desire to be responsible and careful in a very difficult fixture, and West Ham's set-up of just dropping 10 men behind the ball whenever we had possession. When we started to try and open West Ham up we did, and were looking like there was no way we weren't coming back into the game and levelling the scores, before the penalty killed us. For those reasons, despite the fact at times we have needed to put more away and haven't been able to, I only take a mild concern in our occasional lack of lethal edge and don't count it currently as anything worth that much worry. Undoubtedly, I've said before somewhere or other that what we really need above all else is a clean sheet or to string a couple of positive results together. Everything can change in a heartbeat even in the unrelenting test that is the Premier League. That is why particuarly with the list of the next 6 fixtures we have I believe we can get results and all of a sudden we're a winning team and all those little insufficiences and weakness,start to get smaller and smaller and mean less and less, not that it will last all season and we'll finish in the top 6, but a couple of good games and we can completely change the mentality surrounding us right now.
The thread heading is Let's calm down and think logically, shall we? My answer to that is that we are Saints supporters, logic isn't in our nature.
The prime target now is 17th place, more reachable than top six this season, we will have to wait until next season for that.
I don't want Adkins sacked no matter what happens. But my money is firmly on us getting relegated this season.
Well sometimes , logic would dictate rational debate but football never really has that or if it does it's masked as it inspires such passion , well in the most anyway , I think sometimes some of the people on here are dour limp grey people .
There is a fair chance we could be alright solely because others are worse , thats distressing itself as we have had that for years before but I do think Adkins will get the push to possibly mask others mistakes .
Not at all, I completely understand people being negative given our situation, we're in the relegation places, we've only won one game and are coming off a 4-1 loss. There's plenty of reasons to be unhappy about our season so far, but at the same time, we're not the worst team in the history of the Premier League, we're not terrible and there are still reasons to be optimistic. When you choose to blindly ignore sanity, spouting drivel and dismissing people who try and make perfectly reasoned and well thought out arguments with one-line nonsensical statements backed not by thought and rationality but purely gerneralization, impulsiveness and uncontextual daftness, THAT is when you get hammered. And we are well aware that it wont stop you.
