Sunderland pressed us, but it didn't stop us keeping the ball for about 5-10 mins - you can't pass the ball around when 5 of the 11 are camped out in and around our own box. 5 at the back worked against Spurs as they only really had Soldado - and no really tall players to battle for it in the air.
They might play the same way every week, most teams do. It doesn't mean it's easy to stop. Thinking of a plan to beat another team's system is a piece of piss. Making it actually work is much harder and depends on many things including the quality of the players you've got. This game was always going to be an uphill struggle, we knew that. Over-reacting now and saying it's a 'disgrace' and stuff is just embarrassing. I know it's not you that's saying that by the way Glennon.
When Cleverley rips us to shreds you might have a point. But not on a day when players who have been roundly championed on here excel against us. It's the mediocre big club players whose selection so many people resent, not the likes of Lambert and Lallana.
First few minutes we really did struggle to keep the ball against Sunderland when they were hassling us and not giving us any time. As the half went on we got a grip of things, started controlling the game and eventually scored. Football is nowhere near as simple as some of you are making out. People have this Football Manager view that anything can be achieved with the right tactics. Sometimes the opposition are just better than you. Sometimes teams aren't as good as you but give you problems on the day or at any given time during a game. The back 5 worked against Tottenham, not because of any particular tactical details but because the back 5 let nothing get past them. Today we have let it get past us regularly. When you're as small a club as us at this level you can't expect to just keep any team out through tactics. Eventually we were always going to get battered by someone.
Man C and Chelsea only beat us by 2 goals, are we seriously saying that these Saints are better than those 2?
**** me, everybody's a manager aren't they? Give it a rest. We've been undone by a superior team, it's arrogance to assume it's because we've been **** and not because Southampton have been class. We haven't been brilliant, but against a lesser side, we probably wouldn't be struggling like this. We were going to get beaten badly at some point; I think our league position has people assuming we should be beating teams like Southampton. Wrong...
Just a bad day at the office... We're missing Brady and Aluko though. Meyler, Boyd and Elmo look out of their class though.
We're too sluggish and predictable going forward and Sagbo can't hold the ball up. Bring on Quinn (and dare I say it) Graham for Sagbo and Boyd.
In my mind, it's not a difficult system to counter. You play the same high line and it restricts massively the amount of playing space - it's ugly - but effective. I'm not disappointed, more surprised at our lack of application. This will have been the first 45 mins since the first 45 mins on the first game away at Chelsea that we've looked a shambles. We are down to the bare bones of our squad. Maybe this has impacted on the plan?
The thing is PLT why the **** are we playing a left back at centre half and a right back at left back when they could play in their natural positions? Poor management. It does my head in when a manager refuses to change a team on the basis it won the week before (and very poorly against Sunderland) but when he keeps the personnel but changes everything round so people are out of position it's just ludicrous. It's horses for courses, unless your in a run of fine form and dominating/winning games consistently, play the best team for the day, not the best team for last week. That's my issue.
We're getting humped, lets get over it and come out and see what we can do 2nd half and if it doesn't happen, we move on. Davies may have screwed up, but how good has he been overall??? Outstanding. Wonder what changes we'll see....
