Match Day Thread Southampton vs Portugal, 12pm Sunday, 14th February (Amazon Prime)

We’ve got it and I said we should have it. No excuse for not giving us a penalty. VAR is pointless if it can’t correct **** like that.

Have a look at that one of ours. He is looking straight at it. VAR had to see that.

The officials are mostly kids that couldn’t get in the school team and never played the game. They know the rules and that’s it. You need more than knowing the rules. It’s like giving an 18 year old an F1 drive because he knows how to pass his driving test. No idea how to control a car though.

 

So what’s your solution Tom? If the on field referees are as incompetent as Dean, Mason, and Scott, and, let’s be honest, we got Moss on a good day on Thursday, what is the answer? Don’t say VAR, because it’s the same ****ers at Stockley Park.

 

Point is I can accept a ref getting something wrong in real time seeing it once. For someone to watch that handball repeatedly and decide it's not a pen compared to the other one is just unacceptable. When it doesn't do what people like you claimed it would then people will rightly call it out.

It's a cancer on the game.

 

We are so fragile. When other teams have things go against them they get fired up, we just collapse. Love JWP but he’s no Roy Kean. Moussa only weakens the team when he plays. Tella should be the go to sub.

 

We can moan about the ref all we want... it doesn't change the fact saints were ****e in that second half! And they wouldn't have scored if we kept playing for another hour.

 

****ing hell, loads of halfwits on the Saints Facebook page saying it’s time for Ralph to go.

If there’s one thing that 2020/21 has taught me, is that people in general are spectacularly stupid.

 

I was surprised he started after Ralph’s comments about needing to protect him. Think that’s why he was subbed

 

Depends how we lose them, Billy. If it’s like Villa, well no, I don’t think that’s on him. He does need to somehow work on the mentality after we have a knock. But right now, if we didn’t have bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.

 

And dont get me started on Moussa, seriously I so badly want him to play well, but I just dont see what he has got. Maybe I'm in a bad mood, but I've been thinking this for ages.

 

One word for the lock-down diary today. Bugger

 

He was playing RWB and did a good job tbh.

 

Shearer talking sense.

 

I get that, but it cant all be luck and refs/var. I'm also not saying we should get trigger happy just now, but if this doesn't change within 5 or so games, I can see a larger issue.

 

I'm not basing just on today, I'm talking over the season. For me I just dont get it.

 

Then maybe a more sensible decision would have been to give him 45 and then Minamino 45, rather than lose the two players who were causing them a bit of hassle when you’re chasing the game with almost a third left.

 

Whilst it is annoying that Tom would defend the ref even if he had nodded in the Wolves equaliser than award the penalty... his point about not blaming this entirely on the officials is actually right.

Yes it was never a penalty but that doesn't just mean we should ignore the 2nd half performance. We were on the back foot from kick-off. Also, it is not acceptable to just let your head drop for the rest of the game after a (admittedly awful) decision goes against you.

Rightly so we should be fuming at the officiating after that and it has 100% cost us a point (3 against Villa) - but we should still acknowledge that our 2nd half performance was not good enough.

 

The issue here for me is not VAR or ref related. Right decision because the law is now ridiculous. He wasn’t looking, didn’t move his hand towards the ball and its the natural position for his arm to be as he turned

We were dreadful 2nd half. Where did Stu go? We always stand or fall as a team. Everyone played well 1st and then stopped 2nd

 

Poor second half. The lack of urgency when we need to chase games is a worry. Great goal from Ings but that’s little consolation.

 

I turned it off, what did he say?

 

No it can’t all be about that directly, but it’s certainly effecting our confidence. We have a FFS to our play at the moment when these things happen, and that part Ralph needs to work on.

We were poor in the second half too, and didn’t react well to the swap of wings, and yes, we need that looked at. But in reality, without idiotic decisions we beat Villa, we draw this game. Then everything looks different, and we retain confidence that we’re so sorely lacking.