Offence wins games, defence wins championships. I believe it was an American Football 'coach' quote but it applies to nearly every team sport where you have to score more points/goals than your opponents. If you often keep clean sheets you only have to score one goal and if you let in the occasional goal you only have to get 1 or 2 to get something out of the game. If you concede 2 or more regularly, you have to score at least 3 to get the win. It's pretty obvious.
He was tripped when he had a scoring opportunity just like his goal in the first half, the last man nonsense has nothing to do with it.
I was in line with your keeper for the third goal and he had 4 or 5 players between him and the ball mainly your defenders so he was very unsighted, its a bit harsh to blame him.
I think you will win the play offs as you are the best footballing side we have seen at Portman Road this season, you just have to find a way to keep the quality going for 90 minutes or more, that usually means good subs.
Trouble is being the best footballing side or 'we should have won the game' (Martin's whinging) doesn't get you any points or any wins. So when the pressures is on and this team has to close out a tight game in a play-off second leg, or the final, the way the are currently playing they just aren't going to do it. I feel a long spell in the Championship awaits, but for me that is no bad thing, the Premiership maybe the Holy Grail for many clubs and supporters but for clubs like Ipswich and Southampton it very quickly turns into a slog and tedious run of defeats to the 'greatest teams in the world' where if you get a draw you are instantly described as 'plucky'. I'm conflicted, Southampton should really play at the top level as that is probably best for the club, but as a competition it is dire.
Nothing to do with putting his hand on him it was because he clipped his right ankle when he was through on goal, and you saw what Davis can do to you for the first goal of the match, straight red all day long.
Yeah more piss poor game management from us. He was a walking red card from about 10 mins in as he couldn’t deal with Downes or S Armstrong at all. But yeah we let him off the hook, like we always do
When we play our strongest team we don't have subs that can impact the game like you do How did you manage that coming from League 1? When we control the gane against lesser teams, we can tire them and finish them off later When its more open as it was against you, some of our players tire and we fade Our style of play is risky with players getting tired and the opposition bringing on energy & quality, as you demonstrated But boy has this season been more enjoyable than last! I can handle another season in the Championship We'd have to have one hell of a summer to have a cahnce of surviving in the PL with the way our squad is at present
You're right we have previously, but not at the moment and not v a good team Some things have changed ... We were on a long unbeaten run and everyone was contributing Ryan & Aribo were super-subs but now start more Brooks was a super sub but has lost form Edozie isn't getting enough time to regain form Mara needs us to be creating chances Rothwell is most recent, but more of a one-off than a trend
On Jack Stephens. He didn't play in any of the Huddersfield, Bristol City or Hull games, but it was after both those games that Saints fans were crying out saying that 'we've been worked out', 'teams know how to play against us', and the like. So Russ tried to do something about it. Since then we've had a mix of results, which would suggest that the Stephens-thing isn't working that well. Okay fine. But to suddenly change the narrative and say that our loss of form is because of shoehorning Stephens into the side is nonsense. Saints fans have incredibly short memories. We were playing badly for at least three or four games before the shoehorning began.
Saints fans, probably naturally, are on a bit of a downer atm after realising that we won't make the autos but I always take a step back and look at the bigger picture and we were very good last night against a team and manager that deserves great credit for what they have achieved this season. We lost the game by trying to get the win which was the correct thing to do as a draw wasn't any good to us but now we have a chance in the run in to try and rediscover the great form of the unbeaten run and go into the play-offs with momentum and confidence. Russell needs to find his best team and stick with the continuity in the same way during those 25 matches and use the bench wisely again. We have had some fantastic performances this season and have reached a level beyond which I thought we would attain by this time and it's all about trying to go into the play-offs at that same level now, if we can then I give us a good chance of winning them because we can beat anybody imo. Good luck btw, I hope you can win the league now.
I agree, Stephens isn’t the problem and I only felt there was 1/2 games he was shoe horned in and that was prior to this run. My main gripe, especially with yesterday, we looked to take the foot off the pedal when we had Ipswich on the ropes. I don’t know if it was Ipswich changes, but I feel there was a certain change in our play of not over doing it and getting caught on the break. So instead we lost our identity and became passive. Reminded me of the Plymouth game, battering them then caught in two minds of what to do and we just become a bit of a mess. Luckily with Plymouth we scraped a victory, yesterday we didn’t get such luck
It's such a ridiculously small margin between jubilation and despair. If we had scored a late winner (we had enough chances) then we'd be calling it the game of the season. As it is, we're all calling for Martin's head and criticising the players. It was an excellent end-to-end game of football, in which I feel we were slightly the better team, undone by a red card.
All our chances came at 2-1 in the second half. We got into some promising positions but didn't do anything with them. I thought both Brooks and Edozie were awful when they came on.
We had quite a few chances at 2-1, but I don’t blame Brooks or Edozie. They came on for a team on the back foot and who were panicking. If they had come on whilst we were 2-1 up and on the front foot we’d probably have seen something else from them
I hope Ipswich are in the playoffs and don’t win the league. Will be much easier to beat than Leeds or Leicester imo
Leeds yes. Not so sure about Leicester anymore. The pressure they are now under to go up is now immense.
