My two horrific results / play was against hull and Sparta. We were embarrassingly bad!
How many more 'bad' performances do we have to put up this season? We are developing a common theme of being toothless, predictable, boring and slow under Puel IMO. Even the 'good' games above we should have scored or won by more. How are we so painfully inconsistent and what on earth does Redmond do to warrant a starting place most games?
Bad
Watford (H)
United (A)
Sunderland (H)
Swansea (H)
West Ham (A) (first half)
Hapoel beer (A)
Inter (A)
Chelsea (H)
Inter (H) (first half)
Hull (A)
Liverpool (H)
Sparta (A)
Palace (A)
Good
Sparta (H)
Burnley (H)
West Ham (A) (second half)
Inter (H) (second half)
Everton (H)
Arsenal (A) (league cup)
City (A)
How many more 'bad' performances do we have to put up this season? We are developing a common theme of being toothless, predictable, boring and slow under Puel IMO. Even the 'good' games above we should have scored or won by more. How are we so painfully inconsistent and what on earth does Redmond do to warrant a starting place most games?
Inter away a bad performance?.......we totally controlled the match
You're being very harsh, Saints away at inter was one of our finest performances in ages. We were also great away at United, and the hull performance we weren't that bad. Only God knows how we didn't win that game.
Puel wasn't to blame today, we lost the midfield battle. The players on the pitch are capable of way more than they showed today.
People have to remember how Europa league ruins most clubs seasons. The fact that we are ticking along as we are means that Puel is doing well, IMO.
We do? We have ONE forward who can score a goal. One. That is not a great squad. Forwards are kinda important. Kinda.
He is? Redmond? Ward-Prowse?
We control lots of matches. Goals win games not control.
Today was embarrassing. Boring pass, pass, pass and no-one prepared to do anything.
This has been a fault for a long time where we are so focused on keeping the ball that we don't score enough and then when we have a mini run of scoring goals everybody gets together again and thinks it has been solved.
The real problem we have had (under Koeman as well) is getting the ball to the strikers. We aren't going to score goals by being scared to lose possession.
I'm also at a loss to see why people love Hojbjerg.
We have been hearing for a couple of years just how many chances we have in games so there is no problem but I always find it very hard to reconcile my memory of the game to the chances stat. Sometimes we read that we had 30 chances in a game yet I can only remember a couple.
We aren't going to get relegated (at least I think not) but we are never going to challenge the top end if we put up our own invisible force field in a semi circle around the opposition's penalty area and continually just keep passing around it to the other side and then back to the other side and the Fonte is the one saying "TAKE A F'ING SHOT."
We absolutely dominated that match. I suppose the stats will say we did too, but for all that domination, Palace were direct and not scared to shoot or get in positions to score were we prefer to have 1 striker in the box, never give him the ball and instead keep passing between midfielders and full backs 30 yards out.
We were really poor getting the ball to the striker under Koeman as well???? Blimey Imps. Not sure where to take that. Despite poor patches during the season, Long, Pelle and Mane scored lots and missed lots. Something went right in getting them he ball.
We control lots of matches. Goals win games not control.
Today was embarrassing. Boring pass, pass, pass and no-one prepared to do anything.
This has been a fault for a long time where we are so focused on keeping the ball that we don't score enough and then when we have a mini run of scoring goals everybody gets together again and thinks it has been solved.
The real problem we have had (under Koeman as well) is getting the ball to the strikers. We aren't going to score goals by being scared to lose possession.
I'm also at a loss to see why people love Hojbjerg.
We have been hearing for a couple of years just how many chances we have in games so there is no problem but I always find it very hard to reconcile my memory of the game to the chances stat. Sometimes we read that we had 30 chances in a game yet I can only remember a couple.
We aren't going to get relegated (at least I think not) but we are never going to challenge the top end if we put up our own invisible force field in a semi circle around the opposition's penalty area and continually just keep passing around it to the other side and then back to the other side and then Fonte is the one saying "TAKE A F'ING SHOT."
We absolutely dominated that match. I suppose the stats will say we did too, but for all that domination, Palace were direct and not scared to shoot or get in positions to score where we prefer to have 1 striker in the box, never give him the ball and instead keep passing between midfielders and full backs 30 yards out.
We were really poor getting the ball to the striker under Koeman as well???? Blimey Imps. Not sure where to take that. Despite poor patches during the season, Long, Pelle and Mane scored lots and missed lots. Something went right in getting them he ball.
Come on Imps, I assume that you watched the match at the San Siro...In no way can that be described as a BAD performance, which was my point.
I honestly think that Saints fans are getting spoilt, all of my life I have dreamed of the day when we would play in such places as Milan and to actually play as well as we did too.
This is the worst Saints display since the cup debacle at Sheffield United a couple of years ago, poor defensively tepid in midfield, toothless up top and lacking commitment from the start. Palace were there for the taking, just like Hull were, but we just didn't control the game like we do at SMS. It's easy to blame Fraser, but nobody comes away with any credit IMO.
Here are my comments after the game on the match thread, hardly "happy clapping"
I'm not sure that the matches against Utd, Chelsea or Liverpool can be put down as bad. There's a difference between playing badly, and coming up against better players. You almost need a third category.
And anyway, reason to be cheerful everyone: back-to-back home games up next!