Southampton Banter

24 Apr 2024 10:06:07
Haven't posted in a good while but having heard martin in his post match I feel compelled to vent. To come out and say we played well and he doesn't know how it ended up 5 zip shows Nathan Jones levels of delusion. We were a shambles from min 1 to 90 and his total lack of any ability to change team or tactics is staggering. I understand you have a philosophy and want to stick to it, but so does arteta and he changed team and tactics to get a solid point away to city. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.Martins picture should be framed next to that definition. You try to stay positive as a saints fan (it's pre requisite from birth lol) but Jesus they make it hard sometimes!

24 Apr 2024 11:51:07
It was obvious to me, and many! That the team was set up wrong from the start. RM as usual changes nothing . Leicester were actually a pleasure to watch. I enjoy good football and Leicester were worthy of their win

23 Apr 2024 22:54:02
I think that I am right in thinking that against the top 3 teams this season we have gained exactly nil points couple this with cup defeats to firstly div 2 side Gillingham and then FA cup defeat to Liverpool reserves and it leads me to one conclusion , new management needed NOW

26 Apr 2024 10:31:31
What kind of manager is available and will join a championship team.

I mean Tuchel could turn us around as he is definitely a premier league manager not a championship one but why would he join us lol.

Any other managers?

23 Apr 2024 19:58:52
Tonight's game will show not wether we have the minerals. A win tonight doesn't give us automatic win in the slightest but a win tonight and against Leeds (both top away games) show we can do it when it matters.

Where it matters for us now is playoffs as that is where we're need to show that ruthlessness by if we can't do it tonight and against Leeds then we won't be able to do it in the pressure environment that is the playoffs.

All season that is been my main criticism of who we are at the moment. Not being able to kill games off. We let in nearly all shots on target at our goal and rely heavily on outscoring the opposition or hoping they forget to know how to shoot.

Ruthlessness and solidness is what we need tonight and against Leeds and then maybe (because let's be honest automatic is gone) we can carry that form into the playoffs.

23 Apr 2024 20:44:28
We are showing exactly why we are not EPL material .
Leicester attacking in numbers . attacking at speed .

Every single sniff of an attack, players flow up the pitch, players make themselves available .

Meanwhile saints. two meaningful attacks,
No support, slow, predictable . both worked back to our defence .
43 minutes and we have 74% possession . how and why and how?

23 Apr 2024 20:45:07
Ruthless . as ruthless as a 6 week old kitten!

23 Apr 2024 22:01:01
They were the opposite of everything you said they needed to be Lesleee.

Outclassed and outfought in every position on the pitch.

Unforgivable and completley embarrassing.

Play offs? Forget it.

They don’t deserve anything for that disgraceful performance.

They’ve let our club down and do not deserve our support.

23 Apr 2024 22:24:33
I've never seen a Southampton game where we had 0 shots on target. I swear even in the 9-0 games we at least had a few shots at the goal but this. Come on,

I guess I was too hopeful for Southampton to win the championship doing the miracle comeback but I think loads of people wanted it to happen. That put pressure on the team and a recurring event is a big game led to an abysmal performance by us.

So like millertime said, play-offs forget it, we probably should because those will be intense games, and if we are bottling now we will 100% bottle it in a knockout scenario. Watch us lose to Norwich.

The board has to sign players now, We are just losing everything in the team, Wilxcox is gone, our best players are gone, we need to find a striker that we can 100% rely on a new Ings you could say and we need a keeper that can consistently save. Baz is young I get that but he has made mistakes and we can't afford to make mistakes when we are trying to fight for promotion.

23 Apr 2024 22:29:38
Yea Miller time . Believe it or not that was me trying to be positive lol.

Even winning against Leeds Leicester we wouldn't have gained automatic as we've left it too late. My post was more about trying to find form to take into the envitable playoffs.

However the performance tonight is the true team we've been all season, somehow masked by luck, other teams performance ect. By that I mean games where it really matters, when its about playing actual football and getting the job done we can't. That's why in honesty we aren't going up this year. Too much pressure and too much of performing when it matters is where it will go wrong for us. Keeping the ball/possession has what has kept us out of danger most matches and to be fair you could argue that's a decent enough tactic (when the other team hasn't got the ball they can't score) .but we're too weak when teams do go at us and we're too timid at times to do what's needed when we do .too much tippy tappy .were not peps Barcelona Russell lol 😭😭

The teams we go against in the playoffs will go for our throats and we're just not able or ready for that.

23 Apr 2024 22:30:12
Ironicly, leslee we were the team that forgot how to shoot.

We can't work under pressure clearly
Play-Offs will have a lot of Pressure

So Imo we probably ain't going up.

And this probably will continue unless we have a mentality change or we sign some decent players that can score

The fact that we out of 3 teams have the worst conceding goals tally in the championship this season shows a lot

23 Apr 2024 22:35:18
Millertime .
it was obvious from the first 10 minutes that the formation/selection was wrong .
Did we tweek anything . no!

66% possession ZERO shots on target!
RM your days are numbered

23 Apr 2024 22:53:59
I've been saying for a long time Bazuna needed replacing. I don't like having a go at him because he is young and there is potential there but he needs time away from being No1 to work on ACTUALLY saving the ball.

We could easily have had an extra 10 points on the board if it wasn't for goals that went in, in games where we could have won or drawn of they hadn't .if Bazuna had actually saved it. I've watched games where the opposition shots on target/to goal ratios has pretty much been 100%. It's showing that we're keeping the ball forever but the actual things that matter like scoring or more importantly saving .we aren't doing.

23 Apr 2024 23:19:00
RM will never change his core method of playing. He’s tweaked some minor details twice or three times this season but has always eventually been found out. We’ll beat West Brom but not Ipswich or Norwich/ Hull. Our forward line was very poor tonight, kept going backwards!

23 Apr 2024 23:19:41
Oddly enough, I would swap Neil Warnock for RM having listened to his post match summing up.

“Martin needs to tell his players that the fans have spent their hard earned money going to watch that rubbish. So do the right thing and make it up to them by getting promotion. Put it to bed and take the players out for a Chinese tomorrow night for team bonding”.

That’s the sort of man management that’s needed. Not the blind excuses that RM still spews out - we were aggressive, pressing well, matching Leicester in the first half etc.

He is deluded. No tweaks as you say South Hants Rich - totally clueless.

Question - How many of our team would get into Leicester’s side?
Answer - tonight a nice round number. On a good day, possibly two.

20 Apr 2024 10:20:34
Plotted up at the Village Hotel in Cardiff looking forward to the first of our 'cup finals'.

I'm guessing his starting team will be:

Alex

KWP, Bednarek, THB, Manning

Brooks, Downes, Stuart Armstrong, Aribo

Adams, Adam Armstrong

It's hard not to go with that but I do feel Fraser will be needed at some point.

Any thoughts on this?

20 Apr 2024 14:36:10
Oh well - 10 out of 11 although it was fair predictable - Downes must be injured or suspended I guess?

20 Apr 2024 15:59:51
Should be 3-0 up, wasteful in front of goal as usual.

Need a second to settle the nerves

20 Apr 2024 16:39:50
I cannot understand how we are now drawing we have so many shots on target surely we can get one more goal?

One goal could keep us in the title fight potentially. If we draw we likely need to settle for play-offs because if we draw against Cardiff how will be beat the foxes and leeds

20 Apr 2024 16:50:26
Right now the 89th minute, I'm just feel a bit frustrated we deserved a win that game, I'm not saying Che Adams is terrible because he isn't but surely in the summer we need a new striker that consistently score. I'm not expert on football but that is our weakness in this game 20 shots 8 on target on the time I'm writing up.

20 Apr 2024 16:58:23
This is a joke. Last minute goal. Deserved the win but yep not even a point for us to gain. Yeah my delusion of maybe even winning the championship is gone. I don't even have that much hope we will go through the play-offs to the prem at this rate.

20 Apr 2024 17:17:07
Cardiff tweeked things .
RM just stares at the pitch .
It was starting to look so obvious we needed to make changes, but once again left too late .
proving why he has never been successful .
and playing kwp on the left . clown

20 Apr 2024 18:56:07
So, 43 games in, I’ve finally world it out. Our biggest problem (apart from RM) is that we haven’t got a finisher up front. Danny Ings would have scored 30 goals for us this season.

It’s hard to be too critical of Adam Armstrong but he misses chance after chance.

That’s why we never kill games off. Today however, we took missed chances to a whole new level - it’s like a disease which has spread through the team. Unbelievable.

20 Apr 2024 20:58:17
Your right, but who would RM sign what kind of a prolific striker will want to join Southampton in the championship.

Honestly, I think RM will be stubborn and say the team is fine and won't make any new signings.


But I would love to know your opinions and suggestions strikers heck even any player that could improve the squad

21 Apr 2024 01:07:30
When the pressure is on Martin crumbles.Perhaps he has learned from the Cardiff Manager (alllbeit a little too late) to consider including a couple of academy youngsters in the squad who. can provide that added freshness — but unfortunately he appears to have lacked the bottle!

21 Apr 2024 02:54:10
We have got a top quality goal scorer but he has been injured all season, apparently he may make the playoffs. Adams has been extremely wasteful in front of goal all season, he rarely converts one on one chances and he alone has missed 12 really easy chances that I can remember. A decision has to be made about starting Mara Edozie and Sulemana or selling them and going back to the drawing board.

15 Apr 2024 01:52:17
Today is the game that matters. There's no time for this pointless possession. We need to win this to have a chance to go into the automatic promotion spots.

The fact that we vs Leeds and Leicester aswell if we beat them we could get 2nd and dare I say 1st if Ipswich bottle it.

I'm dreaming rn but I agree we probably will finish 4th in the end but still there is hope a late 2nd place or even title charge could happen

16 Apr 2024 21:54:45
Bizarre .
we finally didn’t mess around with it at the back …
Che on fire . I think I’m his only fan!
Great performance .

16 Apr 2024 23:02:26
Well that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons.

The enforced GK change might not be such a bad thing - Baz has been out of touch recently and guilty of reckless messing around with the ball. Wish him well in recovery and hopefully his confidence will return.

Let’s buckle up and enjoy the ride!

11 Apr 2024 16:49:57
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new player profile about, Alexander Isak

10 Apr 2024 07:05:20
5 thoughts on the promotion dilemma.

1. As a Saint I want that euphoric Wembley win. As a Football fan, the top 3 deserve promotion more.

2. I fear promotion could mean get beaten most weeks next year but we also have a better chance of keeping THB and KWP so should have more hope than the year after.

3. Another year away could develop our young players and help us master more styles of play. Then again that depends if we stick or twist with the current approach.

4. The prospect of beating Pompey in the playoffs next year could be historic but the loss of finances and players could hurt us.

5. I do not have that same feeling of "a side on the up" as the Adkins and Lambert years. We need the vision and play to inspire that, whatever league we are in.

Which do you feel is best for the club? Promotion now or another rebuild year?

10 Apr 2024 09:55:16
Good question :
My answer is entirely dependant on whether we get rid of RM
Another year in the championship with him at the helm, will achieve nothing.
I fully support your comments about ‘developing our youngsters and ‘support more styles of play’ .
Then is never going to happen under RM.
He doesn’t even change our style of play within a game let alone a season. He’s also never really given the very promising youngsters a chance.

Stay in the championship / new manger .
Would need to be someone who wants free flowing, fast attacking football. A manager who wants to win a game from the first to the 90th minute.

Promoted / new manger
I think we have the squad to stay in the EPL, just.
I don’t think we have ever seen the best of our players as they have not been allowed to play naturally.
I would love to see RM unleash the team, let them play fast and direct football. There are some very good football players at Saints… but imagine being a lin attacker/winger and watching the pirates patsy football going on, meanwhile they are making runs, taking up good positions and never getting the ball.

So I’m not really sure we can fully judge the current squad while they are playing under RM rules of engagement …

10 Apr 2024 13:34:57
I think you have hit the nail on the head there @south_hants_rich

We have young exciting talents like Alcaraz and Sulemana but we have not played to their attacking strengths, nor have we had an aerial threat or air of unpredictably about us.

At the start of the season, I predicted 4th and that looks like where we will be. I think RM is probably a good man manager and I am grateful for that unbeaten run but his strategy does lack flexibility.

Our style needs to be adapted to our team strengths and the opposition, not based purely on the Board and Manager's philosophy.

Some very interesting games and decisions ahead.

11 Apr 2024 12:48:16
I understand the reasons for staying put but I would far prefer to go up - every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

As I previously said, we lack that winning mentality. That generates self belief which in turn gives players confidence to look to beat players, pass forward and take risks.

11 Apr 2024 21:28:56
Yes, the more I think both scenarios through the more I hope for promotion.

Being a Saints Fan is not good for the blood pressure but it is always fun to be fighting for something whether promotion or relegation, rather than languishing in mid table.

I think our ultra possession style may be damaging that winning mentality. Psychologically, if you are always playing safe rather than pressing forward that must take away that killer instinct and confidence. The fans get nervous or bored too, which feeds into it.