Having driven the hundred miles home and had a lovely homemade beef stew, I am a little more chilled than when I stomped in. Without going into a lot of what has already been discussed already, I would like to say that I thought we were pretty good in the first half and was enjoying a very technically high match only spoiled by a poor referee. However the second half was a different cup of tea. Why did RK break up the best defence in the league to cover Snidders withdrawal? To me this was the single biggest reason we feel apart. Although Toby was pretty good in midfield it exposed once again poor old Yoshida again and the defence became a complete mess. If Reed was the only midfielder we have available then RK should have trusted him to come and do his job. At least our defence would have stayed strong and who knows, Reed could have surprised everyone. RK your substitutions are usual great but today you cocked up. Never mind, dust yourself down and bring on The Gunners!
It was a gamble that didn't pay off, but actually it could have worked. Toby looked good in midfield and beat Hart with a long shot that looked just over from where I was sitting. And Yoshida really didn't look that bad considering what he was up against.
Five Talking Points from The Guardian. I don't think I'd disagree with these - http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/nov/30/southampton-manchester-city-five-talking-points?CMP=twt_gu
I don't really think the substitutions were a problem, other than Morgan not being on the pitch. I can't recall Maya doing anything wrong; he may have, but I don't recall one. Toby is good in that role but it took us 15 minutes to realise that both he and Vic were sitting deep and we missed Morgan closing Toure down. We just have to accept sometimes that the opposition were much better than us. We are still 3rd and thankfully not many teams have outplayed us.
I'm more upset about losing to Spuds than today's game. We are better than them, not better than City.
Whilst it is disappointing to go down by 3 goals (and not score any!), the writing has been on the wall for a few matches, as others have already said. So far we have been better than the others even when below par and still got a result. Not today, when MC are in the mood, then any slackness, loss of concentration will be punished. However, RK's points, in the post match interview (BBC) tells me that he will get into one or players heads at the training sessions ahead of Wednesday and add a few reminders of some basic formation rules when playing top sides. He's been there and done it and I have total faith that his decisions are well thought through and take into account all circumstances that he and his coaches etc are aware of. Perhaps, painful as it is, the team needed this wake-up call. The test is not about today, it is about how the whole team responds against Arsenal and the rest.
I can't imagine what JWP was like in the stands watching the quality of our set-pieces all game, must have been agonising for him haha. Think Ron has had two big calls to make in the last two games with Cork/Long in the Villa game and then the half-time switch today. Can completely understand his logic for both of them but neither have them have worked. The one today was tougher for me, first of all he had to decide Reed or Alderweireld and then once he chose the latter he had to choose Gardos or Yoshida. In both circumstances he opted for experience and to be fair I can agree with that but critically I think once we went a goal down he had to get Reed on. He may have worried about him matching up size-wise with City's midfield but though Toby I thought filled in OK, it was always going to be almost impossible for us to score with Alderweireld and Wanyama playing CM. City fairly quickly went 4-5-1 once they scored and even once Mangala was off they had two banks of four which we were basically trying to break down with four attacking players, none of whom were playing particularly well. I can't understand him throwing everything at City to try and score whilst keeping 3 CBs and and out-and-out DM on the pitch, just meant the full-backs had to get even further forward despite being tracked well which left us even more bare at the back pace-wise against Aguero. Pelle and Tadic's form is getting slightly worrying, even if it's just physical or mental fatigue as we really don't have the luxury of resting either of them. We already know though that they have enough quality so no big deal, Pelle just seemed to massively overcomplicate thigns especially early, I lost count the amount of times he tried a backheel or a flick to a man behind him or through a couple of City players when there were easy passes to feet that would have given us a platform to attack. Actually very tempted to go back and watch and count but my curiosity does not overcome my desire to forget that the game ever happened. Tadic meanwhile just seemed to completely lose his first touch at times, Clichy was touch-tight a lot of the time and clearly put him off well, and he is still struggling on the right. I think he can still be very effective over there but if he spends the game on the touchline it's never going to happen, we need to get possession in the middle of the pitch in their third (which we have struggled to do of late) and then get the ball to him coming inside from which he can A) Shoot B) Slide players in behind the defence C) Reverse it to an overlapping Clyne or D) Simply keep possession by passing back into the middle. At the moment with him pinned to the touchline all he can do is A) Try and beat the player down the line and put himself onto his right foot B) Try and squeeze through a much tighter overlap to Clyne C) Play it back to Fonte D) Force a more difficult pass into the centre of the pitch or E) The most frequent option, cut onto his left and try and cross from imperfect angles to the far post from deep. Mane is worrying me more than either of them though, he definitely brings us something different and is a good player to have in the squad, but at the moment he has huge holes in his game which undermine him pretty badly, he can definitely improve though. I do think if Ron was going to task him with tracking back so far to cover Zabaleta that really he had no chances to break quickly on the counter then Long would have been a better choice with him having more nouse and work-rate - not that Sadio didn't do what was asked of him. Not concerned with the result really, this was always a bonus game, just unfortunate in the context of such a tough run where every point is even more vital, same with the Villa result, a perfectly good result in isolation but in the context of the games to come a win would have been huge. If our season is to be truly historic we will have to pick up a decent amount of points from the big teams, but we can still have poor results against the top teams and have a great season.
I initially thought that but then remembered how proud I was with that as a first performance. I expected to lose to Liverpool that day. I expected Saints to beat Spuds.
A lot to comment on there Mikey....Can't disagree with any of it. The thing that I have noticed from this and the Villa game is what comes across as our almost naive tactics. It would appear obvious that if you want to score more goals you put on more forward players which has effectively been Koeman's approach. But its clearly not as simple as that. If we were creating lots of chances then, maybe. But we aren't. I don't think we can afford Tadic, Mane and Long all of whom like to play forward of a traditional midfield. We need to get possession, keep it (but not by going sideways or backwards) and start creating. I really think that even a 'hit and hope' cross is better than we are doing at the moment. There were times yesterday when we literally had two lines spread across the pitch and nothing in-between. The forward players were crowding each other and were easily marked and there was no outlet from the back. This is not based solely on the Man City game but has been a worrying trend over the last few games.
LFF - agreed Look at the goals that have been scored from our midfield 3 of Cork/Snidders/Big Vic + the full backs. Additionally these guys set up chances for the forwards too To control a game and score goals in the Southampton Way (not route one) we need to control and dominate midfield and just playing two in the central rolls like at Villa we can't do it hence the front four are starved of quality service. For me RK has to get his team selection and tactics right and then I can start shouting at Tadic who has looked completely of the pace in the last two games
Only one thing depressed me more than Sundays result, is the picture on this years December page in the Official Calendar, I have covered it with a picture of my own!
Hypothetical question alert: Would you realise lose how we did yesterday (3-0 comfortable loss and a poor performance) or how Torino lost to Juventus (2-1 last second loss after having plenty of chances to win the game)
Every month seems to have been like that. I don't think its depressing though. I just look at Lovren, for example, and can no longer even relate to him as a Saints' player. If we'd won on Sunday, you would probably have looked at that picture with an 'up-yours' attitude.
