To this day I'm still convinced that someone had a word with the Espanyol players at HT. Our first ever game at our new stadium, a pre-season friendly, and we're being killed. Wasn't it 1-4 at HT? "Looks guys, please go easy on us in ther second half. This is meant to our day, for our fans days, after all. Thanks.". I'll also remember a guy a few rows down from me in the Chapel stand wearing a Sombrero and playing maracca's. At the time I thought he was an Espanyol fan, who'd got a ticket for the wrong end. It was only years later that I learnt he was a Spanish Saints fan, who came across to watch us 2 - 3 times per season.
We should also have got more against ManU, Everton and Wigan. However, Mauricio is still going on about the Newcastle game...must grate with him. Schneiderlin also said that the manager told them after reviewing the tapes that the players did well...obviously doesn't want to undermine their confidence.
Interesting how mark "the dinosaur" lawrenson and piers "twat" Morgan both have us losing to qpr. I don't know whether to laugh or be incredulous
Excellent news, which I found hard to believe. Also noticed that there is a picture of Ryan Giggs with a 58 on his shirt. Is this his retirement age?
It's one thing knowing what to do in theory, but to actually be able to get that across to the players is another thing. We are only just setting out on this new path so we will be improving every game, whereas the opposition will be coming at it relatively inexperienced, no matter how much tactical analysis they have done with a DVD, a pen, and a whiteboard. The beauty of it, is that if teams aren't fired up and ready to go all guns blazing from the off, then certain games could be decided very early on. Newcastle had both the right personnel and the right attitude on Saturday, and we still gave them a bloody good game. Sooner or later we're going to come up against a dispirited, low-work-ethic, type bunch of players, and completely destroy them. Of this I'm convinced. But anyway, remember, early days with this tactic. I'm watching you
Nice article...I hope Poche has a decent plan B and learns from the Newcastle game. Newcastle are one of the most athletic and powerful sides in the league and I was concerned beforehand that there natural game would mean our pressing game would be ineffective. Watching the game it didn't take long to see Newcastle whip those diagonal balls at our defence and because our midfield had pushed forward they were able to claim a lot of the 2nd balls and get possession in useful areas. We did spend a lot of the 1st half under pressure, but the biggest failure for me was not saints without the ball, but saints with the ball. After going a goal up we failed to keep hold of the ball for long spells. This article mentions Poche likes possession football and saints have been decent exponents of this in recent years. Credit to Newcastle who worked hard to close us down, but I think it was a bad day at the office for us with the ball.
No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our more pressing system is good to watch and will cause problems to a lot of teams, but you won't win every game no matter what system you use. We dominated against Everton, but could have lost to one lucky goal from them. Finishing is where the improvement needs to be and we have the players for that...I keep hoping for that thrashing that we keep promising the opposition...let's hope today's the day.
The style that we've adopted is exactly the same as Jurgen Klopp's Dortmund and the results speak for themselves. Despite the many positives of this style, like fran says, you have to have the right players. There is so much running with this style, it's run, run, run all the time for 90 mins - so squad fitness has to be very high. You also have a huge risk of counter attacks from the opposition, so you have to put a huge amount of trust in your defensive capabilities.
Perhaps you'll be better off supporting whichever team Nigel goes to next, as it seems pretty clear you don't particularly enjoy supporting Southampton.
This is true but I hope it give a bit of perspective to the whole affair. People have just been presuming Poch is in another league to Nige and it was definitly the correct decision. The fact is it will be very hard to tell even by the end of the season as Managers need to be judged on a long time scale. However if we do go down the decision would almost certainly have to go down as incorrect although that doesn't neccersarrily mean Poch is any worse than Nige.
