Following an earlier debate and the dismay of the quality of some of the performances so far this season, I was thinking back to the end of last season and I am wondering if there was a deeper rooted issue than has been perceived. Since early 2015, February-March time, I think Southampton's passing and build up play has been poor and a lack of creativity has meant that we have not scored too many goals in games. Yes, last season was great but we did drop off towards the end, as we were in the top four for much of the season. There are some anomalies to this, like the 6-1 drubbing of Aston Villa, however since a last gasp 1-0 away win at Loftus Road against Q.P.R on 7 February 2015 Southampton have only won 4 out of the last 17 Premier League games. This was even with Alderwiereld, Schneiderlin and Clyne. Now, I am not concerned about relegation, however I do think that we a lacking from a bit of confidence, perhaps because of the tail off last season. Perhaps we have overestimated the quality of our squad (I think there is more depth but perhaps our first 11 is poorer this year) How does Koeman improve us moving forward?
Missing Bertrand, Forster, Clasie, and Toby's replacement. Koeman doesn't seem to know his best XI just yet, but that will come with time.
Koeman can improve us by doing one simple thing. He shouldn't listen to any Saints fans moaning. He just needs to carry on doing it his way.
I just think people are putting too much emphasis on the poor start this season, whereas we struggled at the end of last season with Schneiderlin, Alderweireld and Clyne suggesting it may be a confidence issue rather than personnel.
Agreed. I think we can only start to judge where we are once we get the players in that we will prior to the end of the window, and once Clasie and Bertrand are back.
I agree. It's why Koeman went with a back five. It was to stop us conceding goals like we have in the past two games. Now all we need to do is find a balance between attacking/ defending. The first two games we were far too open. It will take time for it to happen, what with players that have come in needing to gell. Then add that to the players that have left, it won't be a simple thing to do. It's why I am giving this team 6 to 7 games until I judge them.
This was our sixth game of the season and I am getting a little concerned by the massive difference in performance between this and last season. I know we have lost a number of top players, I know we have loads of injuries (but we will always have injuries in the squad) but we seem to have lost our style and confidence. RK is going to have to earn his salary this season
We had problems last year scoring and we are using the same players this year, not really sure why it would be any different.
And Bertrand, and VVD...and let the rest gel together. This panic after so few games is bonkers to me.
Yeah, the concern is that we've failed to improve an attack that waned significantly over the course of last season. By my count, we've been blanked 9 times in 19 dating back to the start of February, scoring an average of exactly one goal per game (with nearly a third of those coming against Villa). The aesthetic contrast is even more stark; we've slowly been getting away from the pass-and-move stuff that had us in the top four, and now we're three games into looking oddly like a Sam Allardyce fever dream.
I think once JRod finds his feet again we will have very much improved that attack. Like all of it though, it'll take time.
I don't think that another player to get on the end of things is going to change matters, though, unless we're switching Jay in for Pelle and overhauling our style of play.
There are a lot of variables in play at the moment: 1. JRod is getting himself back to full match fitness; 2. Bertrand (lets not forget he was voted the best LB in the EPL last season) is still injured; 3. Clasie was seen as the CM lynchpin is injured (again); 4. New squad players bedding in and the originals finding confidence with their new team mates takes time; OddRiverOakWizards asks what does Ron need to do improve us moving forward - Ron needs time to work out the best formation to suit the current squad and get some of the key players back from injury - i.e. a solid base to build from. I would suggest that he was in a better position last year as he had a very solid back-four with Victor and Morgan in front of them - that was the building blocks for last season. So this will take a little time for it all to come together - no need to panic yet. Expectations for the season - I think most of us seem to agree that our expectations of final league position are that we will finish lower than last season - I don't think that most of us have too higher expectations.
I think this is a more eloquent representation of my concern. I am not concerned that we have imploded but I do wonder if the Premier League was so poor last season that we made the most of it and perhaps we are not quite as amazing as we hoped.
We had Bertrand last year, and the offense still wasn't that great. So far, we are basically using the same players as last year. And out of those, I'd say that Pelle, Tadic, Long, and Davis are known quantities who are not likely to improve much. Jay Rodriguez could provide a boost, but it's quite possible he has lost a step and will not be as good. And when we did have Rodriguez, we still had trouble scoring. Juanmi is a wildcard, but we haven't used him as yet so I don't know what to expect. He could be fantastic, he could flame out. That leaves JWP and Mane. Mane certainly has some upside, but it's worth noting that during the stretch of games last year when he was really hot, we still weren't scoring. I expect both him and JWP to improve, though I think JWP's improvement will be gradual and he really needs to work on his defense more than his offense. So there are some reasons to be optimistic, but at the same time I don't see why we should expect the attack to suddenly be good just because we have some injured defenders/defensive/midfield reinforcements coming in. If VVD is as good as Alderweireld and Clasie is as good as Schneiderlin, that would be awesome. But we still would have trouble scoring just like we did last year with Alderweireld and MS. That's not a moan, or panic. It's just my honest assessment of the team. The offense is not terrible; it's just kind of mediocre. And I don't see any reason to expect things will suddenly turn around when it's the same coach and largely the same players as last year.
