Match Day Thread Southampton FC v Hapoel Be'er Sheva, Europa League, Thursday 8th December, KO 8.05pm

Tom, you can disagree with his tactics with respect, but name calling onlu reflects badly on you. I Hope with maturity you will recognise that. p.s. I want him sacked tonight through his team set up, but he is afellow humanand he deserves respect and if you cannot see that, it is a sad reflection on your character

 

Prediction: we sign a striker in January, Fonte buggers off to United and VD is convinced to stay until next season. Yoshi turns out to be a fantastic centre back and not a single bad backpass is ever heard from. We bundle out of the Micky Mouse cup, focus on the league and qualify for Europe qualification via 7Th place. We lose to some Eastern European team no one has heard of and VD bitterly buggers off to Everton. Fonte retires playing 12 games for United, of which 1 was a European match and 4 were 85th minute substitutes.


The cycle renews again the following season.

 

Just got back from watching down the club and to say I'm disappointed would be an understatement.
Puel has alot to answer for after tonights performance. Our attacking play is so obvious that any decent team can nullify it at will. Defensively we're solid but again any time we're under pressure we look like we'll concede.
Pains me to say it but we've fallen a long way since last season, not just in a formation sense but also individual performances.

 

I respect him as a human - he sounds like a nice bloke. I don't respect him as a manager however and will call him a twat if he manages like one.

 

Euro stats:

Shots: 87
On target: 27
Goals: 6

 

Why??

I thought he was good after 10 games, but our game plan is soooo negative, it I'd tappy tappy over the back line. We are not losing due to incisive strikers, we are losing because we do not have progressive play. And I can see that spirallying down and then our stars being sold( because why would you want to play in that dour team). I do not know what the answer in, but we need some passion

 

A campaign that started with so much promise....

 

Call him a poor manager, that makes the point

 

Just because I like to be ridiculed I will say "Adkins would've had us well up for this game."

 

Give him time. He hasnt been perfect but he needs to adjust. our squad isn't exactly top quality which isn't Puel fault. Long and Rodriguez may aswell not have been playing and Austin can only do so much. That isn't Puel's fault, with the right investment he may work wonders. Time till tell.

 

I wouldn't call him a poor manager just yet. I will call him a manager that hasn't got the tools he needs. The board need to share the blame.

 

But we still wouldn't have scored more then one.

 

While this is true I still believe there are other managers who would be able to make our team play better than Puel is at the moment.
Edit: I'm not saying Puel needs sacking at all, just that I'm underwhelmed in his approach to many games this season.

 

We would have scored more but definitely conceded and if we lost would've gone out fighting for it.

 

Beefy that was really not my point. I took exception to Tom calling him a twat, I do not like that. We may not like the way he manages the club, but he still reserves our respect, hence my comment. I don't, think he is a poor manager just the wrong manager for our club
At the moment , I think we need a real hung ho manager , win a few, lose a few, but give the young players some real confidence to attack

 

We're not a million miles away from the relegation zone. We could find ourselves in a very tricky situation if we're not careful.

 

While I would say that Redmond is a bit petulant and raw in his play. The abuse he was getting in the Northam/Kingsland tonight was disgusting. The guy is only 22 ffs! His decision making in the final third was rash but he was the only player capable/willing to take on a player, which he's exactly in the team for to stretch the opposition. He's a diamond in the rough and a lot of fans are going to look stupid for slagging him off so much imo.

On a separate note, the xenophobic abuse directed at Puel in the stadium need to stop.

 

Some of you may call me batshit crazy here but this is a genuine suggestion. We have three games in a week before Xmas gives us a 10 day break.
Won't happen in a million years but I would genuinely like to see
Forster
Cedric Fonte Yoshida Bertrand
Romeu
JWP Hojbjerg
Boufal
Long Van Dijk

This is assuming Austin is injured for a while. Seriously what's to lose. Virgil drives the ball forward, would hold it up and would have the urgency. Give it a go!

 

Hope that was the minority. No place for it anywhere.

 

That is surely a sure fire tactic to convince Van Dijk to leave in January.