Match Day Thread Southampton v Leicester City Saturday 17th October 2015 KO 3pm

Disappointed today, but not worried as this is not a season indicator. We got away with a draw in a difficult game, because we can score and we did. Onwards and upwards.

 

All tickets sold yet only 30,966 throught the turnstiles, who are the missing seats for?

 

I'm blaming Yoshida for nothing. I'm blaming Koeman. His subs cost us the match. Koeman threw away two points on his own in my opinion. He brought Yoshida on at full back and just as bad for me is that he subbed off Davis and Tadic. It's Yoshida's fault he's being rammed out of position where he is simply no where near good enough to play at this level. He is a solid centre back though. At least I know Yoshida is trying his best, I can't really knock a player trying his best and playing out of position.

Koeman needs to wake up. It took him an eternity to realise Tadic is five times more effective on the left than the right. How long is it going to take before he stops playing Yoshida at full back once and for all?

 

Just got home,haven't read all posts but your last line I would have agreed with you before today,never thought I would say this about a goalie but I think his legs have gone.
That was the worst kick out of the hands I can remember and unfortunately he found a blue shirt on most of his goalkicks.its time ol fella,it's time.

 

I too blame Koeman. It didn't matter that our front 3 were gash- CB's got 2 goals. To play a lone CDM against a free scoring Leicester with crumbley kelv in goal is suicide.

We all know how important it is for CB's to develop a relationship, well its the same for holding midfielders. 1st season in prem = cork + Morgan. 2nd 3rd season = Morgan + wanyama, almost every game.

Why he doesn't play romeu and wanyama I do not know. We don't need both JWP and Davis at the same time. On this front I was especially irritated classie came on rather than romeu. If ever there was a time to protect the defence surely 2-0 up at home it it?

 

You could make a case for Martina, I guess. But I really didn't see where Yoshida did much wrong. It wasn't like they were just shredding us down his side. Or at least no more than they were beating us all over the pitch.

Romeu instead of Clasie is a better criticism. Not sure it would have made the difference, but we definitely lost the midfield battle. Perhaps Koeman did not think Romeu was fast enough, and that Clasie is a better pass interceptor/tackler off the dribble.

I think with Rodriguez it was partly him needing playing time and Koeman not letting the situation dictate his long term plans. It made sense tactically, too. Rodriguez is faster so if we counter, I think probably a better header, also better defender. But then again, Romeu might have been a better sub.

Koeman doesn't seem big on possession. It felt like our answer was to look to score on counter attacks rather than to try and slow the game down. Maybe that was not the right strategy. I dunno, it is easy to second guess.

My gut feeling is Koeman played this one wrong, but when I disagree with his moves he has proven me wrong more often than not, so I'm cutting him some slack.

 

Koeman got taught a lesson. He was disrespectful to Leicester and naive thinking the game was sewn up at 2-0. Not very clever gainst a quality attacking side that never gives up ever, he paid for it.

If you're going to play Yoshida at full back then for christ's sake Koeman play Romeu and Wanyama as DM's and keep Davis on.

 

Agreed. What is it they say, "there are no easy games in the PL". With that in mind I feel we should always play with 2 CDM's.

 

Koeman got it wrong. Yes we couldn't deal with Leicester but we more than showed we could trouble them on the attack. Yet in the second half he makes 2 defensive changes and we barely make a break. We were clearly told to be more defensive and I don't get why. If we actually tried in the second half we easily could have got in behind. Instead we sat back which easily allowed them to pressure us as much as they wanted.

 

Thing is, we did - that second goal was the definition of stupidly throwing it away. If Leicester had scored any of their other chances, then maybe not. But they scored from a shocking piece of distribution from Kelvin, direct to a dangerous position around the edge of the final third, which required one or two quick touches to pit Vardy through one-on-one. That goal was purely down to Kelvin's distribution. Put it anywhere past the halfway line and we would have won that game. Give it back to Schmeichel, put it out of touch - wherever else he put it, we'd have won that.

On balance, the draw is a good result. We were lucky with that point in the end. But really, as long as we have players like SKD playing, we're unlikely to have success in those games. Unavoidable - yes. Better than Gazziniga - probably yes. Kelvin can be great for 90 minutes, but always has a mistake like that in him. This is a game of margins. See also: Yoshida against Man U.

Like them both, but it's the truth. Unfortunately, both were necessities tonight.

 

Not sure we are giving Leicester enough credit. They are a very good team.

 

For me, though, Ron ultimately needs to shoulder the blame for this one. Three substitutions which significantly weakened the team. Yoshida wasn't tactical, but bringing Clasie on that early was bad. I was fully expecting Romeu to soak up the pressure. Is he a yellow away from missing next game or something? Clasie has never played in the Premiership before, let alone recovering from an injury - that was insane putting him on that early, glad as I was to see him. Perhaps we'll be glad of it if he's fit and does well as a result next game? Jay constantly giving the ball back to Leicester, even from short distances and no pressure. Leicester on the contrary significantly strengthened their team from their double substitution.

 

Good team, yes, but struggled to hit a barn door most of that game, despite about a million free kicks from 25 yards out. Took Kelvin giving it back to them to actually finally finish us off, despite their absolute dominance throughout the second half. He may as well have put a bow on it. We would have weathered that otherwise.

Am happy with a draw overall, but not the way we gave it away. I'd much prefer to be talking about how we rode our luck, fell apart in the second half, but got lucky and won, despite being second best. That would be the truth of the game if it stopped dead on 90 minutes.

 

If we were Leicester and on MOTM the focus was on Koeman's subs and how Saints supposedly took their foot off the gas, there would be so many complaints on here about how no one ever gives Saints their due.

They were just really, really good y'all. And if we are honest they were superior in open play in the first half as well. It always looked like they were going to get some goals.

Yes, we pull have done better but I honestly think we are making too big a deal out of the second half Nd subs. D what it. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.

 

Thank you for that. Not often that we're appreciated as the football team that we are.

How many sides go to Southampton and have 18 shots on goal in one half? You're an excellent team and this result is a marker for how far we've come.


I'd like to see us fighting for a top 8 spot with yourself but I think that's a step too far. We'll be between 10th and 14th I think.


Best of luck lads, bar the obvious game

 

They were unfortunately. They created far more dangerous chances from open play. We looked dangerous on set plays and at brief moments when we shot forward but not enough but even despite that going in at half time I was sure we'd command and comfortably win.

Yet as soon as the subs came on I was thinking we were just gifting them the opportunity to come at us. There is never any one thing you can point to but there are big things and small things and the subs were a big changing point. Had Romeu and Rodriguez come on we could have seen an entirely different game. As soon as I saw Yoshida me and the fans around were baffled. And after 10 minutes when we clearly made no intent to leave our half I turned and said to the person I was with " we're getting 3 or they're getting 2". There was no way this match was ending 2-1.

 

I think Yoshida had to come on because Soares could not continue. Or at least that seems logical because as soon as I saw where he was hurt I thought they would pull him immediately because his eye and face were going to swell up badly.

So it was him or Martina.

I was also okay with pulling Davis as it was obvious we were going to need fresh legs. But yeah, there's a strong case to be made it should have been Romeu to come on.

 

Poor old Koeman - We beat Chelsea and every single player on our team gets heralded as a demi-god, with little or no mention of the boss. We draw at home against one of this season's form teams, and suddenly we're ****e again and it's all Koeman's fault. There are some posters on here that are really embarassing.

Well done to Leicester. Great performance, and it's nice to see a club so similar to us doing well and upsetting the usual order of things. Would be nice if we can both reach 50 points this season.

And I have to say kudos to Hodgson. When he first picked Vardy for the England squad I thought he was off his rocker. But I was wrong. Fine player.

To all the Leicester lads on here, thanks for your comments and good luck for the rest of the season!!

 

As I said earlier, Leicester deserve a lot of credit....Ranieri set them up to stop our usual game. They were also helped by the loss of Stek....his kicks would have given us another outlet. SKD has always been let down by his kicking and age and lack of match play wasn't going to improve that. Wanyama was skating on thin ice and Cedric got a nasty injury. However, we can score and that got us a point. No team wins every game and few teams will stop us playing as Leicester did. I hate watching games where we are on the back foot as much as anyone, but the world has not ended....that kind of over thinking is for the Chelseas of this world.

 

I actually feel that Vardy is at his level with us and is somewhat of a one club man (like Grant Holt at Norwich and to some extent Lambert with you guys) and I don't think he'd perform at a bigger club. You can see evidence of this in his appearances for England and someone like Man U would be the same. He's not a young player and he's have to play out wide probably even if he got in the team. He is a big fish in our pond and we play the right system for him as we play with pace on the counter. I really think he'd struggle anywhere bigger tbh unless it was a team like Palace who play as we do but I'd wouldn't say that's a step up in the same way the top 5 or so would be. Please don't go to Liverpool Jamie!!!