All, I have just spent the last few hours reading posts on this forum - going back a couple of days (I was bored!) The general theme here is that we are not quite firing on all cylinders and that we are under performing. As it happens I agree - we haven't quite 'clicked'. However, if we under perform and are 4th in the league, I can't wait until we click. No7
Totally agree. Seasons past we would have not ticked and lost games now we are winning. Some-one ius going to get a sound thrashing soon and it might as well be United
The nice thing is we are still under the radar. I was listening to a Swans fan at work boasting about a top 6 finish this year and as the general chat evolved to a 'premier league' chat, no one even mentioned us, good or bad. We need to click, so that when we get noticed we are firing on all cylinders and will be stronger
Is it me or has pretty much the whole league been underperforming though? In fact I'd say only Tottenham, Arsenal and maaaaybe Everton are playing to the standards you'd expect them to, and Cardiff and Hull have been surprisingly decent. Other than that I think this has been a very open start to the season and there could be some surprises come the end.
Too many managerial changes to the top clubs at once. Man U, Man C & Chelsea have all had to adapt to new managers? Spurs & Arsenal haven't?
I think we have definitely been under performing although it will be interesting to see how the best teams cope with us now that we are serious threat for them. I don't think we over performed against chelsea, city, liverpool. That said they didn't have good games against us. Its hard to determine to what extent our pressure forces mistakes, against liverpool they were so sloppy even without actual pressure. Whether this is due to perceived pressure and a lack of tactical preparation on their behalf is very hard to say but I would expect the better teams to deal with us better and us to deal with the lesser teams quite a lot better.
We clearly have an improving squad that shows every sign they can go on getting better together; but that's true of a lot of clubs in this league. One thing that's been evident since we got back to this division is how fine the margins can be between success and failure. For some time, last season and this, it's felt like we needed a bit of luck, a bounce here or a decision there to go our way. In the last two games that's happened imo. Now we need to capitalise and build on a growing sense of belief that we are a good enough to take points off anyone. The other side of that coin is that anyone else can still take points off of us, so there's no room for complacency.
It really is quite amazing. We have played six halves of PL football at home so far this season, and I honestly believe that we've only turned up for two of them (the seconds halves vs West Ham and Palace). I don't think our front line is generally clicking enough, I don't think we're generally passing the ball quick enough, and without any real width I don't think Shaw is generally offering us enough from an offensive aspect. Oh, and we've failed to beat three of the current bottom five - scoring a total of just one goal against them. And yet we're 4th. It's been ten years since I was this impressed with us from a defensive point of view. Yes they have many bigger tests to face yet, but right now they are been great for us. If we can broadly maintain this goals against record for the rest of the season, then a top eight finish should certainly be within our grasp if we can just sort it out at the other end of the pitch. But that's more than just putting the ball into the back of the net more.
4 clean sheets from 6 games. That is why we're 4th in the Premier League. And only 2 goals conceded. I still shake my head in disbelief having written that, this is Southampton we are discussing here! So, the defence is working, and that includes Wanyama, before anyone mentions him. If and when our attacking players click, and I am confident they will, we really will be a force to reckon with.
Indeed he did. How have we managed to do this and be in 4th place. There's not one clear reason, although you'd have to say that the defence shutting up shop would have a lot to do with it, especially as the attack isn't firing cleanly yet. Another reason is the fixture list. It has been kinder, there is no doubt. Easily more so than it was last season, for example, but everything looks a little easier when a team is riding higher. Everything becomes a doable task, and Liverpool away was illustrative of that. They may not have been at 100%, but neither were we, yet we ground out the result by other means. The final reason I can point at is that everyone seems to be tripping up a bit this season, so far. Saints have been amongst the more consistent teams, but I wonder whether 11 points from a possible 18 would get you 4th spot in many other seasons. Perhaps worth looking back on. Nevertheless, a team can only compete in the league they're in, so I'm delighted so far. Misfiring or not. Can't wait for this attack to fulfil its potential.
I don't think there's that much improvement for our defence to do. Both goals conceded were minor mistakes but not huge errors like last season. Wanyama will improve as the season goes on. We just need more options off the bench; I don't think all 3 of Osvaldo, Lambert and Rodriguez should start and I think any of those three can make an impact off the bench. We're very strong in depth at CM, I just think that for us to play to our potential we need Ramirez to come good, Lambert to start to find his form again and to buy a decent winger in January.
I do not believe the team has to click, most of the team have been together for at least a year. The new guys have to form partnerships with thier playing partner. Jose and Lovren seemed to have gel from day one, I think Yoshie is better than Jose but this partnership works. Morgan and Wanyama seem to be understanding each other better, allowing Morgan forward more often as he has confidence that Wanyama can deal with most things, both need to work on thier passing. The main problem is upfront and only game time will put the 3 front guys on the same wavelength as Osvaldo. If we can score 2 goals a game then our back 5 are good enough to ensure a high win rate. Top teams generally score more than 1 a game
The defence has been good but we've also had a relatively easy start and been quite lucky as well. Sunderland and Palace are both awful and if anything not beating Sunderland was a bit disappointing while West Ham and Liverpool both had players missing. We're doing well but sterner tests lie ahead.
Don't think we are under or over performing. We are performing just right! Overall, 11 points is about what I was expecting. The defense has been a bit better than I anticipated and the offense maybe a little worse but that just means we are getting 0-0 and 1-1 draws where I might have figured 1-1 or 2-2. And besides, odd things happen in small sample sizes. There will come a time this season where the offense is firing on all cylinders and the defense seems a bit shaky, I'm sure. Given that this is only the second year in Premier League, we have a young squad, and we have ratcheted up the talent and expectations considerably I think there was bound to be an adjustment period. I am reasonably optimistic we will improve as the season goes on, but that doesn't mean we are underperforming right now. Just that we're not as good as we will be in the future (I hope). It seems like opposing coaches and pundits are saying we look like a legitimate top half team, and I'm satisfied with that for now. Did anyone expect us to be higher than fifth at this point in the season?
This is what really interests me. I've been 'negative', in that I've often focused more on the flaws than the things going well, but that's largely because what we have right now seems like a couple moves -- transfers, or tactical changes, or developments within the squad -- from being really rather great. We do two things extremely well that leave us with a rather high floor: we defend, and we maintain possession. As a third entry, against teams that are also possession-focused, we can ramp up the pressure and cause them all manner of trouble. The combination of those things ought to get us enough points for a fairly comfortable existence, so long as those factors persist (even if it doesn't always make for the swashbuckling excitement of the Adkins era). But they also mean that I cannot help but get a bit greedy. Nothing about what we do well is a limiting factor for the things that haven't been going terribly well, namely our generation of chances and somewhat unambitious progress up the pitch; we're not posting clean sheets by getting ten men behind the ball at all times. I don't expect the good to go away, and if we can figure out how to get more periods of play like the fifteen minutes after half against Palace, and fewer similar to the West Ham/Sunderland matches, we could crash the party a little...not in the sense that we're going to be qualifying for Champions League, but we could have an Evertonesque life of nipping at the heels of the big six (and occasionally overtaking one or two who might wobble).
