Match Day Thread Southampton V Liverpool - League Cup - 2nd December 2015 ko 19:45

No it was yours. Your support was missed and the players couldn't believe that you'd go away for such an important game, so they didn't turn up either

 

Over reacting Saints fans? Whatever next. Apparently the FA Cup has stopped too.

It was a nightmare. It has been three defeats in a row. End of the season it is not. Winning

Saturday will be quite important to stop the run of bad results and with Jose back alongside VvD and whatever selection Ron picks in midfield (I actually think Villa is just the game for Jordy, but happy if he selects A N Other) and we'll hopefully see normal service resumed

 

Worried about the Villa game now ......

 

Got to hope Villa don't score at any point (unless we're about 7 up) as our confidence is very, very fragile at the moment. You could see last night why RK doesn't trust Cedric just yet. He was bloody awful, which makes the choice of Martina as the backup buy ever odder.

 

That's it. Ron out, sack the board, get rid of the owner and sell the club to some Russian oligarch who can put £200 million in and get Messi and Ronaldo.
The only way forward, in my opinion.

 

What I would like to see is us being more direct with the ball on the floor, either running at people or playing it in the wide channel on the floor. Tadic looked like he was going to rip their RB a new one last night and then suddenly stopped taking him on. Mane was put through down the right channel and then decided to slow up and pull the ball back when he has the pace to keep going all the way. We don't attack with enough pace often enough.

I am a big fan of possession, yet when the opportunity is there, we need to go at pace down the wings and even with Mane down the middle when he has drifted in there.

I also noticed that when we kicked off, we played it back to the CM, who played it back to the CB and we were then being closed down quickly back towards our goal. If Villa do that, we should put the ball up near their corner flag and press them high up the pitch. I do think we need to press better as a team. There have been times recently when Pelle is pressing on his own, or Davis has pressed and Pelle hasn't, or Tadic hasn't backed up the press. Add that and we'll be fine.

The other area we need to change is to stop playing the floating high ball to Pelle. We do it far too often. If we need to play long during a game (which at times is needed), then make sure we turn their defenders. A diagonal ball in the area behind the full backs is what is needed, not a straight ball or diagonal ball in towards the two lumps at CB. Basics that.

 

Can Matt Targett play right back (serious question )? Or do we have any other youngster ready to step upIin that position? It's worked before.

 

As they say, funny old game. Whilst it was 1-2 I was still feeling confident we could stage a stirring second-half comeback; we actually weren't playing badly at that point. Their first goal was either brilliant from Sturridge or rank bad defending, I can't make up my mind. The second goal well, you can argue all night about who should have been doing what but basically it was just a superb goal. The timing of the pass and the run made it virtually unstoppable.

The second half was a different matter. I think Ron went to the weird defensive set-up too early but, whatever, at least he tried something.

The biggest thing to come out of the game for me was just how much we missed Fonte. More specifically, Fonte's ability to organise everything. Van Dijk was wondering off all over the place.

WP should have taken the free-kick at 1-3 by the way.

 

Mugabi looks a good RB. I've only seen him in U21 football, so sometimes difficult to judge if he is ready. I also remember Stephens playing RB a few years back.

 

Just my opinion, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again. Look at it this way I could have meant a lot of us might be dead when they win it again.

 

We (at the quiet end) have been saying for a while that we should be pressing more as a team, so I agree with you whole-heartedly. If we could harness some of the pressing game we had under Poch with the better strike power we have with Mane, Pelle, etc, then we could get better results, I'm sure.
Easy on paper I know, but too often we seem to dawdle and dither. Reading about last night's game (can't get the "highlights" to play over here) it seems that Pool just ripped us with through balls and pressed us back.
We can do that, we've certainly got the pace.

 

Agree with that Lff, apart from the comment about the second goal. It wasn't a superb goal. A fairly straight forward ball over the top, where one of the most lethal strikers in the league was left unmarked by either a ball watching CB or a slow to recover RB (take your pick) and even then then Sturridge just got to it and half scuffed his connection which somehow got through the keeper.

A very poor goal to concede. Nothing Superb about it really.

 

Right decided not to post last night so here goes....

Was a bizarre game, we came out blocks brilliantly and looked well up for it but just seemed that once they equalised that our heads dropped which was a shame really. I hope Caulker doesn't have to play again this season and I'm pretty sure we won't be taking him on permanently. The 3rd goal just before half time killed the game for us really, and watching the first 10 minutes of the second half I was thinking how utterly predictable it was that we were dominating without scoring and soon would be caught....

I still can't believe how badly we collapsed last night, worst performance under Ron? Moving forward and for me we need to get back to being strong defensively, that was our big strength last year and we don't create many chances. If you're not creating chances and you're leaking goals then you will generally speaking lose more games than you win. Fingers crosses Jose back at weekend.

Positives? Was good to meet Vin & Chilco (albeit briefly!) in the pub before the game Others? Naaa that's about it.

Oh and one more thing, are there still those who think we are on the same level as Spurs & Liverpool?

 

Oh sorry the other disappointment for me was that it was obvious that Tadic had the beating of that young full back so early on in the game and when he picked up a yellow I was thinking right here we go, send everything down that side as we were getting joy there, we didn't seem to take advanttage of that imo.

 

We press individually. Liverpool (and Poch teams) press in 2s or 3s.

 

Sorry I didn't make it, JWP

 

No worries there will always be other games

 

Will there? I thought the season had ended last night

 

It was all my fault.

 

I've just remembered the one positive from the 2n

The one positive from the second half; Northam, take a bow.

Actually arrived home with OWTS ringing in my ears.

That aside, everything is **** flavoured this morning. Still, it's only football. As Bill Shankly probably wouldn't say.