Match Day Thread Southampton v Leicester City Friday night football 25.10.2019 8pm

The beauty of the timing of the Bleak and Awful threads is that I never have to do another a week later...

 

Southampton FC - breaking records since 1885.

Fastest Premier League hatrick.
Fastest Premier League goal.
Heaviest Premier League home defeat.
First Premier League VAR sending off.

Feels crappy today and I'm normally a pretty positive person but not much you can say after that! Very very bad day at the office. Going down to 10 men so early on, clearly didn't help but just gotta do better than that really. Leicester are a good side but we have played much greater sides over the years and never performed like that before.

Not really sure what's going on behind the scenes but clearly Ralph showed last season that he is a cut above some of the dross we have had and could get if he left.

He worked wonders when he first arrived so I'm not sure what's changed. Obvs losing his number 2 is 1 thing, now he's got more to do, why not appoint a proper number 2?

Djenepo is class and we have missed him, jury is out on the other signings really apart from Ings who has goals in him.

We need to see wholesale changes, the players who didn't play today deserve a chance to show what they can do, surely can't get any worse.

I would start with McCarthy in goal and then pick as few of the players who were involved today as you can. That will be tricky with our defence.

The only positive I can come up with is that I would take a 9-0 loss to balance with the fastest hatrick and fastest goal, imagine only losing by a couple of goals today and not having those good records, how boring that would be.

 

McCarthy; Ramsay, Klarer, Stephens, Danso, Vokins; Slattery Armstrong; Boufal Long Adams

Going forward, please!!

 

It was so bad that I almost enjoyed it in a grim way. The fans were brilliant the second half-“we’re coming for you, Manchester City, we’re coming for you”.
Gallows humour. I was there when we beat Sunderland 8-0. Now I have seen a different side. Mind you, I seem to remember a dark evening playing Arsenal in the cup that wasn’t much fun, either.
Romsey, mate, it totally puts the whole football thing into perspective. Hope all is ok.

 

Been going since I was 12-13 & that equates to nearly 50 years. ST since christ knows when. Very, very rarely leave before game finishes (& certainly don’t moan at game) but today did something I didn’t think possible. My son gave up at 3-0 for bar. I did same at 4-0 & we both left at HT. Criminal! The last few years abysmal business decisions have crucified this club. Shell shocked. Don’t know what to say. Just got to Bitterne to see last 20mins. Laughable. Crying shame. Yes, shameful. So many people culpable. Don’t really need to list. If you haven’t got the balls to accept some responsibility then from my little insignificantly little box as a simple supporter, you can FO.

 

Thank god our next two games are away then...

 

We'll only concede 15 this time ...

 

Gao selling isn't going to fix anything either. It seems unlikely some rich owner is going to arrive with bags of cash to throw around.

 

this this this


The rot is deep and has been for a while. Pep couldn’t make this club work.

 

oh. Just said same!

 

Why not mate, can't do any worse can they, even against Man City and it will give them some experience for when we rely on them in the Championship!

 

Just watched the highlights.

I now blame the wind and the rain in the absence of any boogie

 

I think I must be mad. Late flight. ****ty rainy trip home, in at just before midnight and I watched the bloody highlights

Is there a doctor in the house?

 

Nah, blame it on the boogie

 

My first priority isn't spending money on the playing staff. It's having a proper, multi-level (ie., not just some guy) structure of people whose job it is to make football things happen, and some vision as to the sort of football things they would like to bring about, an aim that is so incredibly basic that it's staggering that we haven't had such for a good five years now. The problem wasn't Les, or Krueger, or Wilson, as individuals, or any of the individuals currently at the club (who are they? No idea) it was that we lacked any sort of accountability or structure or vision.

We need a chairman who will say "this is what we want to do, this is how we intend to achieve it, and these are the resources available."
We need a DOF who can translate that into personnel decisions, including the coach.
We need buy-in from everyone else at the club.
And we need an owner who actually gives a **** if any of these things happen.

Right now, I'm fairly sure that our chief off-the-pitch decision-maker is a cardboard cutout of Les Ferdinand with a speaker playing the shipping report on a loop.

 

Not only did the players not turn up, but where the feck was that VAR, when we needed it...

 

I have suddenly developed a keen interest in Rugby Union. Come on the posh blokes tomorrow. **** Soccerball, it's overrated.

 

First off, it’s been obvious for a while now that Ralph is not the man he was last season, nor the manager. And he is absolutely not doing enough as manager right now and has absolutely been making bad decisions left, right and centre. But I have no faith that we could get in a ‘better’ manager, nor do I believe that Ralph is the main problem. We have no structure behind the scenes that is going to fix this with a managerial change. The players are just as poor as they have been for the last few years of relegation battle. However, this manager kept this same poor side up last season with the form of a top 10 team. And although our defence is just as poor, we have technically got an improved squad from last season. Now it’s up to Ralph to decide if he can and is willing to go back to the man he was when he came in. Happy, confident, positive...the players need that from him. It may be too late for that, but it feels like whatever we do right now is just a stop gap to try and keep us up...for another year of the same. That’s the most depressing thing for me. There is no sign that we are doing anything other than treading water.

 

Or maybe the recurring rumours of Bertrand being unhappy for years are destabilising the team and undermining the manager with gaffer after gaffer...

 

I've just got home from a work night out which was the result of me saying 'let's go down the pub after work on Friday, find somewhere showing the Saints game and have a few beers'.

Worst idea ever as my work colleagues - one of whom is a Pompey fan - lived every moment of my hell.

An absolute disgrace and every single person associated with that performance and defeat should hang their heads in shame. Unforgivable.