Match Day Thread Southampton Vs Brighton 04/12/21 15:00

Johnstone is in his last year of contract and walks in June so very getable if we try and he would be my no1 choice

 

Was no one watching the opposition goalie yesterday? F*ck me chaps, he was atrocious. Kicked the ball straight to Saints players about half a dozen times including the goal. In fact just watch any game and you will see keepers doing daft things. Getting a new keeper is just going to be a huge let down for some of you; because he will make just as many errors as Macca (which still only number about 2 or 3 for the whole season so far).

 

mate, we hired poch in 2013, best part of a decade ago. There’s every chance that we would have to live thru 12 more managers like puel, mp2 and Hughes and never find another poch.

it’s ok to have a dream but don’t kid yourself that it’s anything more than one in a million.

 

He won't be soon.

 

Not if we get a good keeper in like Henderson or Johnstone. There are good keepers out there within our budget.

 

And Poch had the benefit of financial backing and an ambitious Chairman plus a top talent scout in Paul Mitchell, don't know what happened with Osvaldo though, I think Cortese wanted him!

 

Danny Osvaldo was worth every penny, for dumping Vincent Company on his arse and scoring that goal.

 

I've been thinking about Trossard's injury and its effect on the game.

Let's switch things around. We are at the Amex, one goal down and about 6 mins left. A player goes down. A lengthy delay. Play restarts and a board showing a lifeline of 10 mins remaining now.

As Saints fans what do we think? Well, being a cheery chap I think "Come on Saints, we can do this". I bet players think the same as they are positive souls.

What would Brighton fans think? "Oh ****, there are still 10 mins left". What do the players think? "Oh ****, we best not lose this"

They are professionals I know, but the psychological aspect cannot be ignored. Ten mins is an eternity.

Other notes from the game:

We were neither brilliant nor crap.

That goal. Bit of a **** show. Stupid foul, stupid clearance and even more stupid professionalism from senior players. Can't put that down to Ralph. All he can do is motivate and coach. Once they cross the white line it is down to the players. He admitted against Liverpool he got it wrong - but notice, the players followed his orders. We create a shed load of chances (that is down to Ralph's tactics BTW), but Ralph isn't there to finish them off. That is down to Adams, Broja and all.

The only criticism is why not bring on Diallo for the last 10? Well we have the answer in Ralph saying he didn't want to be in the same position as Brighton with 10 men potentially - and lets face it if you have 11 professional Premier League players on the pitch they should have the nous to see things out.

The difference between our first half and second IMO wasn't a lot. I also think there is a reason for that. The last few games we have been awesome in the first half so the opposing team has had to change things up. We then have to react to the changes. Yesterday IMO Brighton stayed roughly the same (until the subs) so did we if you get what I mean, so there was no radical change. Before the Ralph hater says ah but that is his job, I agree. Remember Villa? Smith changed it and Ralph reacted and all was good in the world. Ralph won't get it right all the time, but maybe some of the time. If he did, he'd be off. We are a mid table club with a mid table squad with a IMO upper mid table manager doing the best he can. I also get the impression this isn't a just a job for him but also his passion (rather like us).

I will say it for the 1000th time.


Be careful what you wish for.

 

Re their goal, I'd love to know what JPW was thinking there. Why sprint back to assist macca? Years ago (swing ceiling lamp) it was common for indirect free kicks to be awarded in the penalty area, never seems to happen now, but in those days the defending team would line up on the goal line and the attacking team would also pack the goal making it very difficult to (indirectly) score. I've often wondered if this would be an effective tactic against close range free kicks. In one respect JWP recognised maccas lack of mobility but he completely negated the "line" by trying to assist the keeper by himself. OK the keeper had limited mobility but should've been protected by the whole team....remember Bert Trautman!

 

This. I was thinking about Diallo but at the same time, I can see why he didn't make that sub. More chance of killing the game off with a second goal if we didn't make that change. TBH, I was thinking there was more chance of a 2nd goal for us than an equaliser when the 10 mins went up. So I'm not pinning this one on Ralph.

 

Its a long time since I felt so deflated at full time. I was in the Chapel end (for the first time) so couldn`t see exactly what was going on - but when Macca didn`t take the goal kick, something was clearly wrong with him - that wouldn`t have been lost on Brighton, and gave them encouragement that all was not lost. As would the knowledge that we consistently concede the lead.

 

I am pretty sure Henderson is not in our budget

At least 20m fee (likely more given the Ramsdale fee) and 100k a week

Johnstone is being linked with Spurs. If that is true at all then you can cross his name off as well

 

Such a lot of sense in this post I want to give it a special mention TIO

My emotional reaction to the end of the game was very different ... but that’s emotions for you and in the cold light of the next day you have to move on

We dominated for 45mins and as Ralph says we can’t expect to do that for 90

He has to find a way to improve us psychologically to manage each of these times better i.e. to have the cool head and score when we play well (as in Broja for his goal) and make less mistakes when we play less well. That is a tough job

The mistakes we made to set them up for their goal starting with the crazy clearance straight to them from JWP, that started the move, just wouldn’t have happened if we were 2 up

 

When you get to the final ten minutes of a game, and you're 1-0 up against ten men, you don't need to go searching for a second goal. A well-drilled team should be able to see the game out through the usual methods (passing round the back etc). You should only need to get a second goal when you go 1-0 up early on in the game.

The way we crumble in this situation is baffling. There was one moment when a high ball was coming down from their keeper's clearance to the halfway line. All Salisu needed to do was head it as hard as he could back into their third of the pitch. Instead he kind of pathetically let it bounce off his head down to the side, lost possession, and Brighton went on the attack. Then you've got Elyou losing possession and giving away a free-kick. JWP not clearing it when he should. Why are we so f*cking casual? What is wrong with just belting it into row Z?

 

Me too, really pissed off. Another A1 hangover.

 

There is a fundamental flaw in our game plan it seems to me. After we scored yesterday and on previous occasions it seems our players slow the tempo of their game right down and actually start wasting time at goal kicks and throw ins etc. This takes the urgency and pace out of their game and they start to lose the intensity of the press. They also start losing concentration and give the ball away far too often, this happened far too many times yesterday. If this is a part of the game plan and is to conserve energy it is not working. We have been crediting other manages with tactical changes that we can't cope with but the problem is of our own making. If this is not our game plan but the players have decided to play to hang on to the lead, to hold what they have because of a lack of confidence then that needs sorting. As it stands our results are probably harming our players confidence and turning some of the fans against the players and Ralph.

As it stands we can't keep dropping crucial points or we will be in the ****.

 

Mate,I was at the game,trust me it's no holiday there at the moment.
Straight after the game is no time to be looking for scapegoats.
l do a 5hr round journey each game so you know where I'd like to put your happy clapping comment.
Anyway I'm sure we're both calmer today,up the ****ing Saints.

 

Just to add, the only reason their goal wasn’t offside was because JWP was on the goal line to cover for the injured keeper

So our Captain knew our keeper was injured and didn’t do anything about it

Ralph says “ We win or we learn”, but I’m not sure any learning is helping here, we know what’s going wrong

I think “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” might be more useful. It seems to me that these moments keep making us weaker and being stronger is the only thing we need to ‘learn’

 

I question how Ralph and the coaching staff didn’t notice something was up with McCarthy, but it was very unprofessional from our players, particularly our goalkeeper and captain.

At least it kind of makes sense now what happened, I was absolutely baffled with the way we handled the last 5 mins at the time.

Just noticed that Hasenhuttl having a crack at McCarthy is somehow a top news story on the BBC, not just in sports?!

 

We said “Why is Lyanco taking tho goal kick, is Macca injured?” Then when he popped it straight to KWP I decided it was tactical