I keep saying we need four points from our next two games, but I think if we don’t get a draw and a win from Newcastle and West Ham then we will be down. It could be a long wait until 31st March.
The Run In, Relegation Edition
- Thread starter Schad
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Judgement day is nearly here, another couple of must win games, and still the players are giving interviews about playing in Europe whilst we cannot buy a win.
Pantomime season has finished everywhere except at Southampton FC
Pantomime season has finished everywhere except at Southampton FC
So you are wrong if you talk positively and about your hopes for Europe and you are wrong and lack ambition if you call us a small club (which we are relative to some). You can't please all the people all the time. .
In our present situation, I am happy for the manager and players to talk positively in the media about the future as long as they appreciate our real situation in private (which I am sure they do). The team have to believe....how does public shirt rending and despair help at all....other than make some fans feel justified in their own misery.
We know things are very tight and we could face relegation, but in that situation the only thing to do is embrace the fight (as we have done many times in the years I have supported Southampton) and live with the consequences. Life is not ending.
In our present situation, I am happy for the manager and players to talk positively in the media about the future as long as they appreciate our real situation in private (which I am sure they do). The team have to believe....how does public shirt rending and despair help at all....other than make some fans feel justified in their own misery.
We know things are very tight and we could face relegation, but in that situation the only thing to do is embrace the fight (as we have done many times in the years I have supported Southampton) and live with the consequences. Life is not ending.
In our present situation, I am happy for the manager and players to talk positively in the media
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Screw talk, action required.
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Screw talk, action required.
garysfc
Well-Known Member
Agree with you Fran but I think a lot of the "frustration" on here stems from our on the field performances matching the "positive media talk" & not the supposed dressing room "roll your sleeve up" grit.
The not-lose plan relies on having an on-fire striker who converts chances and changes draws to wins....something we are sadly lacking. Austin's injury has probably cost us those few valuable points. We'd be fine if the old system of 2 points for a win was still in play....but it's not. I think we are an experiment in progress for the manager and I'd rather not be. Pellegrino seems to think that just not losing will keep us safe....he may be right in the long painful limp to the line, but, like all fans, I'd settle for a couple of wins to settle it earlier than that. Draws are better than a loss and are keeping us bobbing along, but games are running out and that old 3 points for a win is becoming even more important.
My main point of the previous post was that I'm not going to get wound up about what Saints players and staff say....anything will wind up one group of fans at least.
My main point of the previous post was that I'm not going to get wound up about what Saints players and staff say....anything will wind up one group of fans at least.
I’m wound up about it because not one single person from the club appears to realise the situation we are in. There is no fight, no team spirit, nothing to suggest we can dig in and get ourselves out of this mess.
I hope Chazza is back this week, as he is literally our only chance now, with the moron failing to change tactics and try gabbiadini off Carrillo. He is the only one that has the character to inspire the team imo.
Apologies, but I’m just venting at our demise. I cannot stand watching us anymore. Useless decision after useless decision.
I hope Chazza is back this week, as he is literally our only chance now, with the moron failing to change tactics and try gabbiadini off Carrillo. He is the only one that has the character to inspire the team imo.
Apologies, but I’m just venting at our demise. I cannot stand watching us anymore. Useless decision after useless decision.
There's plenty of fight, and plenty of team spirit, what games have you been watching? You can't really fault the players for effort or lack of character.
What we lack is not these things, it's a bit of quality and the ability to finish.
Yep. My minimum target for this month was five points. Six or seven points was the target, but five the basement minimum. It would at least see us undefeated (and therefore in turn, deny three separate rivals the win), and move to averaging more than one point per game. But we'd still almost certainly be within just one result of dropping back into the relegation zone again. A missed opportunity, rather than a disaster. But less than five this month is bordering on a disaster, absolutely if three or worse.
So with one on the board, it's four (or six) to get.
I wouldn't say it's the same fight, we used to have when we had a less talented team, apart from LeTiss! That's when we fought against relegation on the front foot! Not this bullshit cautious approach!!!!
Didn't intend to 'wind you up' Chilco; just don't understand all the negativity and how that then permeates into our ground, when fans (loose descrition
) moan/boo/jeers at the earliest opportunity.II'm no more a board spokesman than you are. But having followed Saints for years; experiencing the delights of places as far a field as Bristol City, Wolverhampton, Blackburn Rivers (seated in their 'Kop End'!) I have seen the dire, the struggle and the occasional victories. So really find the constant griping regarding team / board / players to be rather COUNTER PRODUCTIVE... particularly at St. Marys.
I suspect that the board plan is to batten down the hatches, scrape as many points as they can and maintain their currnt status (outside the bottom three) then conduct a full review of things as & when the team is statistically safe... or, god forbid, cut adrift.
Well yeah, we were mostly **** without Letiss. We'd have been buried without him.
The current side has a bit more quality all the way through, but no superstars unless there is one hiding inside Boufal, as @fatletiss seems to believe, or unless Nathan Redmond really is about to metamorphosise into Thierry Henry. Or unless Tadic really is the player I always thought he could be, and someone just needs to remove the kryptonite that fell down the back of his locker.
If I wasn't on my phone, I'd post a pic of a handful of straws.
Fair enough, but as I said to you a while back, discussion of Saints matters on this forum, which includes praise and celebration when things are going well, and criticism and yes, negativity when things are going badly, are the reason the forum exists. If any of the board read comments on this forum, which is unlikely, they will find that most of the criticism is constructive rather than just blind carping and griping. Having said that, I suspect that few of even the most negative and critical fans on here actually engage in booing and jeering at matches. I hate the negative atmosphere at St. Mary’s as much as you do, but as I keep saying, it isn’t the reason for the poor performances we have seen this season, but rather the result of them. I do agree with you it doesn’t help, but I’m at a loss as to how to banish it, unless the team actually start trying harder.Didn't intend to 'wind you up' Chilco; just don't understand all the negativity and how that then permeates into our ground, when fans (loose descrition
II'm no more a board spokesman than you are. But having followed Saints for years; experiencing the delights of places as far a field as Bristol City, Wolverhampton, Blackburn Rivers (seated in their 'Kop End'!) I have seen the dire, the struggle and the occasional victories. So really find the constant griping regarding team / board / players to be rather COUNTER PRODUCTIVE... particularly at St. Marys.
I suspect that the board plan is to batten down the hatches, scrape as many points as they can and maintain their currnt status (outside the bottom three) then conduct a full review of things as & when the team is statistically safe... or, god forbid, cut adrift.
I am certain of one thing, survival this season won’t happen if the plan is to batten down the hatches, in terms of more of the cautious, timid tactics we have seen in most games this season. The time of playing for draws is long past, what we need urgently is to win some games, preferably by playing some attacking football like we saw in the last 25 minutes on Saturday. We have 9 games left to gain at least 9 or 10 points, preferably more. The likelihood is that we will lose at least 3 of those games (Arsenal, Leicester, and Man City), so we have to win at least 2 or 3 of the others and pick up draws in 2 or 3 more. Time has run out for caution!
Ok I get you. But my point is, I don't see the fight in this team. It's like they have been brainwashed into thinking, that we are too good to go down, and don't have to fight to stay up!
we are in so much trouble!
Some of the records we have set this season have got relegation written all over them!
This team reminds me of the 2004/2005 one!
That said we are still in the famous FA Cup which might create some kind of residual magic and an escape from the drop - you never know.
Newcastle away is looking very tough today and their manager has the experience
Some of the records we have set this season have got relegation written all over them!
This team reminds me of the 2004/2005 one!
That said we are still in the famous FA Cup which might create some kind of residual magic and an escape from the drop - you never know.
Newcastle away is looking very tough today and their manager has the experience
If you think Newcastle is difficult just pray we don't need 3 points on the last day - against Man Citeh.
Well thanks to that rather nice Utd comeback, it's still the case that up to three of us could steal a march this weekend whilst Stoke and Palace are taking on City and Chelsea.
