Match Day Thread Southampton v Sunderland Saturday 5 March 15:00

I think a lot of the dullness perception has come because we've had to essentially rebuild from defence up. We're harder to score against currently but it hasn't necessarily enhanced our attacking play. We've moreover got a bunch of attacking players hideously out of form. When Mane is up and on form and ripping defences apart with his pace and trickery, when Tadic finds his mojo and slots clever balls about the place, even when 'interesting' Steve Davis makes driving runs from midfield, Long terrifies with pace and arial ability, when Pelle's flicks and tricks work - well we're not a bad team to watch at all.

The problem being, that mojo hasn't been about for a while (and a lot of that revolves around Mane's form) which has coincided with a greater reliance on a solid defensive platform. So no, it ain't great, but you can see why.....and as has been noted, we're still 9th in the table.

 

No. I don't accept our inability to hold on to players as an excuse. We knew who was going, but we didn't buy the quality to replace them. That is a participatory factor in our increasing dullness, it doesn't validate it.

 

I'm not 100% sure what you're looking for?

I agree that it's not been great and you watch Leicester and the main difference is energy.
You watch their team get in the faces of their opponents and almost suffocate them.

Other than the skills of Mahrez their football is not unmissable.
I've watched some of their games recently because of the potential story unfolding, but it's the athleticism and fight which impresses me most as opposed to the style of football.

So my question for you is, what element(s) do you think Saints are missing? What would make you want to buy a season ticket next season?

 

You can argue about whether Vardy is "exciting," I suppose but we don't have anyone remotely on his level. And definitely not on par with Mahrez in terms of quality or excitement.

I wouldn't argue that Leicester has great team unity, battles, etc. But they are also quite talented. We're just not as good as they are. Has nothing to do with fight or spirit or whatnot.

 

Any comments on my other points Spaced?

I have to say that I am amazed that you would suggest I suffer from defeatism.

Football is a different sport these days. I'm going to give you just three examples, but there are many others:

Chelsea - one of the dominating teams in the UK in recent histories. Considered by many to be dull and grind out results.

Barcelona - impossible to really say they haven't been the best team over a ten year period, yet time after time I read and listen to people telling me they have been boring with their tika taka football. Possession football.

Watford - I have a 67 year old friend who tells me that the old Watford way of getting the ball into the opponents box as quickly as you can (we may call hoof ball) is not dull.

What would you choose? Possession football that can be dull, grinding football that can be dull or long ball football that can be dull? Therefore, I reiterate that maybe my realism is about understanding 'modern' football rather than me being defeatist. The game he changed.

Final question for you.

Would you be happier if we played a style of football you liked and got relegated?

 

Spaced Saint, you only answered part of my post and now missed the key part of Laces post. You asked a great question and said you weren't happy with the style of play yet now block out the scenarios presented. Let's go back to Laces key point Players form.

Did you think last season was exciting?
Was watching Mane/Tadic/Pelle destroying teams exciting? I think it was. This season those players have been out of form for a large chunk of it. Even amongst that and during our long poor run, we were still pinning teams back and creating lots of chances. We were not taking them and therefore losing or drawing games.

Did you see the first half of the Villa game? That was exciting and some great creative play against a team who parked the bus. The bit missing was the ball in the net. They scored and then for large parts of the second half we lost a bit of mojo. In other games, such as Tottenham we started really well, didn't take our chances and then after twenty minutes they got in too and were better than us. Spurs certainly weren't exciting that day.

What I am trying to say is that the Southampton way is a bit of a myth and recently was good PR from the club. In my memory, under nearly all our managers we have had some periods of football that didn't resemble the Southampton way. It's about results and if we were genuinely chasing 4th or 5th the excitement would be there from the expectation if not the perceived style.


Before I get accused (not by you) of hounding here, I am just trying to complete the parts missed in this discussion. It's a good discussion.

 

We've played it long, we've played the pressing game, with played it defensively hoping to get a goal with a quick break, we've played it wide with wingers, and we have played it tippy tappy. The one thing we do that frustrates me is 68% of our passes are backwards and it takes us about ten passes to get anywhere near the opposition penalty area and our players are not that great at picking out a pass. Tadic must have been pissed of last week with the number of times he got himself into perfect positions for a pass only for the ball to go backwards. At times it was if all the team had sent him to Coventry.

 

I don't mean rebuild in the sense of players, I mean rebuild in the sense of style.

 

Look mate I have been coming on here for years suffering abuse, ageism and prejudice. I have been mocked and insulted and had the piss taken out of me on a regular basis. I have just read that certain posters want to bump me off or even think I have been but do I get all hurt and upset? No. Do I whinge and complain? No. Do I insult people? No. I just continue to post in a quiet, confident, positive, intelligent, sensitive, informed, constructive and polite way and anyone who doesn't like it can get stuffed.

 

What we need is more of the last few minutes against Sunderland. The goal was very nice and brought back memories of what we can be like....and note Tadic was involved. Koeman himself remarked about the difference between the first 85 mins and the last 5 mins....I would hope he can work out why.....as long as why doesn't involve letting the opposition score and having a player sent off.

 

I'd say it has everything to do with fight and spirit.

 

Leicester are a good team with a couple of stars...which was how we got promoted and have done so well in recent seasons. Mustn't underestimate the confidence they gain from winning....it can be a habit. There was a point where we knew that we would win if we scored and we didn't panic when we let in a goal because we knew we could score. We have just lost that a bit. #understatement

 

That's it Godders. There's a bunch of guys sat behind me who are constantly moaning at the "backwards/sideways" style of our play, "get it forward!" is the call I seem to hear constantly. But if none of the players are moving into decent positions or are covered (as Tadic was 90% of the time) there's no point in hoofing it up, is there? I would be disappointed if we went back to route 1 ................ Would be nice to have players pinging 60 yard passes to players (though I've seen Clasie and Romeu do it - so there's the future?) ..................

 

Davis was the guy who kept finding space last Saturday, only for no one to see it. Tbf though, you can see who's available lot better from row ff of the Chapel than you can from the edge of the centre circle with the ball at your feet.

 

After the match, I mentioned that we are playing in too regimented a style. Won't overly knock it, because it has helped us defensively, but it doesn't help when we go forward.

As I see it, every player knows their job, and where they need to be within the team framework, but so do our opponents, which makes it easy to negate us, when we go forward.
The last few minutes of the Sunderland game, we threw caution to the wind, with VVD staying forward, which asked questions of Sunderland's defence because they suddenly had another big man in the attacking mix.
And, because we had thrown caution to the wind, we reverted to playing "instinctive" football, in contrast to the over coached, cautious approach we had used for the previous 85 minutes.
We have, IMO, become far too predictable and easy to close down.
You can almost see the opponents' brains working overtime, when VVD makes one of his forays into their half, because all of a sudden one of their midfielders needs to step out of formation to close him down, which, in theory, should open up a space to be exploited.
Equally there are times when the overlapping wing backs are marked out of it, because they always hug the line. I know they are in the team to do that, but once in a while it would be good if one of them stepped inside, creating a similar situation to the VVD thing, (where a defending midfielder needs to step out of his team's formation to follow him),or to create space for themselves to receive the ball.
It would be good, occasionally, to see a cross coming in, with the likes of Cedric or Targett/Bertrand coming in at the back post, just to create doubt amongst the other team's defence, or potentially Nick a goal as a result of not being picked up.

I don't think it's a coincidence that many of our better performances come against teams that try to outplay us, rather than against those that try to negate us.

 

Don't underestimate the importance of your last line. Think about it and ask why that is? Ask why teams do that and ask if we do that to other teams too.

The performance Sunderland put in on Saturday nearly mirrored ours at Old Trafford. The only difference being we didn't concede a last minute equaliser and we allowed United far less chances than Sunderland did us. I raise this because the very reason we look better against teams that try to outplay us (usually better teams than us) is the very reason we don't look so good against teams that don't. We reverse our role.

Most teams start by assessing how to stop the opposition and then build from that. There are very few teams who think the other way round.

 

We also pass it too much between centre backs and one of our central midfielders trying to find space.

 

Is that not preferable to giving it away cheaply?

 

It's not a case of one or the other though. When we are playing well we seem instinctive, when we are playing poorly we seem to faff around with the ball.

 

Not picking on you here WJ, but this view drives me nuts. If there is one thing I feel at the ground, it's that our fans vocally put pressure on the CBs when they do that. There is nothing wrong with the CBs keeping possession until space opens up. I'd rather they did that than pump it aimlessly forward or give it to the keeper to pump it aimlessly forward.