What? Bertrand wasn't covering for Clasie, he ran to the middle of the pitch and lost the ball which is why there was a huge down that side. Then he also stumbled like twice trying to get back.
I think the old Matt Le Tiss Saints are back - except we haven't got a Matt Le Tiss, so we could be in for a very 'difficult' season...and in my opinion this is not knee-jerk or bed-wetting. We are not very good and haven't really been all season.
I'm not necessarily blaming them - the reason our defensive system has worked so well in the past is because we've had pretty much the best midfield protection in the league. We don't have that this season and I really think it's Koeman's fault for playing an unfit player.
No chance on either goal. If he'd kept either out it would have been an incredibly effort. Defence has no excuse. Saying they switched off thinking it was offside is schoolboy stuff.
Exactly. Clasie has become people's "go-to" person to blame. He's done nothing wrong today in reality and looked pretty decent.
Encouraging? We've put in plenty of effort but with zero end quality and defensively a shambles I'd hardly call it encouraging
Encouraging in the sense that up until the goal we were playing pretty cohesively. It'll be baby steps to build confidence back up, but we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with sloppy mistakes.
For the second goal Bertrand was pushing forward and was brought down, losing the ball. That's why the Saints players were appealing, and that's why he wasn't covering.
I don't really think you can compare now to what would have happened if Poch had stayed. I reckon at least a few of the players who left may have considered staying if Poch had (though some would definitely have still gone) - it was Poch going (after Cortese) that made them think lack of ambition etc. We didn't appoint a new manager immediately, so they didn't look at who we'd appoint to see what type of ambition we still had. And frankly if players weren't pushing to leave we wouldn't need to buy "low cost copies of lost players". But the top clubs in this country are so revered that everybody who plays remotely well sees getting bought by them as being really, really important, so it's a catch 22 that whenever our players play well big clubs come looking for them and they go as those clubs are where everybody is supposed to aspire to play for. And since we've looked really good the last few seasons we've fell prey to it a lot. Will be very interesting to see what happens with Vardy at the end of this season, for instance.
We were down a player on defense because Bertrand was way out of position. The remaining defenders did their jobs. They were forced to give Walker some extra room to make up for their disadvantage in numbers. Their position was fine, except that for some reason Soares just stood there and let his man run right by him to the far post.
Is this now officially a meltdown? Keystone Kop defending not helped by the midfield constantly giving the ball away. This is a side in complete disarray shot of all confidence and desperately lacking in leadership. We have brought in sub-standard replacements for our better players that have left and not added any depth to our squad. The management must take some blame for sanctioning these deals and spend some money in January. If we carry on as such it's quite obvious we will be in a relegation battle. RK time to earn your reputation as a good manager and sort this shower of ****e out!
I don't see that. And if he's not 100% match fit, how is he meant to get to that point without playing?
Players were going before Poch went, that is a fact. Some moves had already been completed apart from final signature. It was nothing about the lack of ambition and all about more money and a easier route to Europe.
