Article: Saints v Swansea match thread | Southampton FC, Football

Like I said I think Targett will be ready next season.

 

We should play Targett in the cup games along with a load of other youth prospects. They'll play better than a bunch of fringe players who aren't used to playing with each other.

 

I agree.


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I think we were poor today. It was one of our worst performances this season. I'm delighted we won it, though.

Fox was rubbish. How many times did i caught myself thinking ' where the hell is Fox, he should be there, ffs'. Dyer could have done whatever he wanted on that side of the field- in fact, Fox was so bad MP had to introduce JWP instead of our striker Osvado to help Fox do his job. Some of you highlighted that change as MP tactical masterpiece, but i think it clearly suggest just how poor Fox was. It would have been much better if he didn't start the match at all.



And i apology for the rant, i don't hold anything against Danny. If he went on loan at Bolton, for instance, i would have probably watched a few games and hoped he and the club did well.
But he just isn't good enough for this level, he is a liability for us and i don't want to see him costing us valuable points, and that's it.

We were quite lucky to win today, we were not the better team. Swansea gave away some silly mistakes and they couldn't finish off their chances, we managed to score two goals and we got away with this match.

 

Let's face it, Dyer ran both Foxy and Davis ragged but when JWP came on he really shored things up very well by providing better cover for Fox than Steve did...he is a talented lad?

 

Probably not, Fox is sadly way out of his depth at this level and seems incapable of adopting Pochettino's tactics.
He spent most of the match like a lost school boy. He doesn't know whether to get tight to the winger or cover potential runners into the box and ends up doing neither. He ends up defaulting to this bizarre position he takes up at the top of the six yard box not stopping crosses or marking any attackers.

Having to bring on an 18 year old to protect him and giving up our own attacking threat says it all.

 

I completely agree, you summed it up nicely.


I think we should have signed Bridge. I watched him a couple of games for Brighton last season, he was very good. Has huge premiership experience and probably woudn't mind playing part-time.

 

[video=youtube;2y05Up9JwFk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y05Up9JwFk[/video]

[video=youtube;cndwN7AIFog]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cndwN7AIFog[/video]

The atmosphere was sick around the time of Rodriguez's goal, around 15 minutes of constant singing.

 

I don't know why fox played instead of putting on the left and chambers in at right. Fox is a liability and
Swansea knew that and attacked constantly. You may not get much offense from chambers but you get better at the back. I think we were real lucky they did not take more advantage.

 

Fox actually did some good stuff today. What I continually fail to understand is why nobody is able to help him positionally. I was convinced that Adkins must have told him to ignore marking and to help out in defending the cross so bad was his marking! It is ridiculous that Pochettino can't see what he is doing.

Why can none of these football brains help him?

 

This is what confounds me too, it's been happening for so long that it must surely be under instruction and not his own intuition, I understand that he can't press like Clyne or Shaw as he doesn't have the pace to cover behind, but he just gave Dyer so much room today. If every player was playing in the same kit you'd have thought Fox was trying to mark Lovren rather than Dyer.

 

Played alongside Jos for too long...

 

Haven't read any of the posts yet, but Fox didn't actually play that badly. Made one or two noticeable errors (misplaced passes mostly), but did little else wrong. The sarcastic cheering when he completed a pass, or booing when he did something wrong, was completely embarrassing. Support your own players.

 

Why would Pochettino or a player tell Fox to basically play as a 3rd cb and leave a huge gap on the left? I think it's more to do with his positioning then some one telling him where to be.

 

Well that's what you'd think, but if they are not telling him to do it, or are not telling him not to, then why is he still doing it? The only other explanations are that two consecutive managers and their coaching staff have not noticed that he gives his winger about 15 yards of space, or that they have noticed, and are telling him not to do it, but he is doing it anyway. If the latter was the case neither Nigel or Poche would have put up with it and he'd be long gone, they wouldn't just turn a blind eye to a huge flaw in his game that he refuses/is unable to correct.

 

It's an odd one isn't it? I very much agree with your (I think it was you Mikey) analogy of had all players been in the same strip, you'd think Fox was marking Lovren. Spot on, and something that every single Saints fan has picked up on - this tendency to drift toward the centre back. I think there probably is some coaching of ways in which he can try and compensate for limited pace, but I can only believe that he just has this magnetic pull toward the centre back during the game - kind of like a Dutch or Croatian comfort blanket. In which case it doesn't matter how many times Nigel or Mauricio has said "Danny, you were doing it again, STOP IT" - it's just an ingrained habit, or something.

I just can't think of any other explanation.

 

It's the simplest explanation but you'd think they'd only tolerate his inability to rectify it for so long before they started hounding him about it, unless they just really don't see it as a huge a problem as most of we fans do.

 

Fox isn't very fast or quick. Dyer is. Dyer can't finish, pass or cross though. What would you do when faced with an attacker whose only strength is speed? Give him room, let him come to you. As long as he doesn't get behind you, he's not much of a threat.

It would be nice if we had a backup LB without Fox's limitations, but we don't. Given what he had to work with and who he was facing, Fox really wasn't that bad.

 

I agree with you that fans shouldn't boo their own player, but then again I don't generally go along with booing of any kind. However, to say that Fox made one or two noticeable errors [misplaced passes mostly] is to sweep over his performance. I don't know if you noticed, but even on the short highlights of MOTD2, all of Swansea's output went through Dyer, and Fox couldn't get near him and didn't know where to place himself. Regularly, he was rescued, when out of position, and even Whispering Dave said on his co-commentary during the match, that Fox was often backed off when he needed to be tight and tight when he needed to be in a backed off position. Consequently, the game was played around him.

 

Well thank you for thoroughly stating the obvious at the beginning there!

It's clear that Fox needs to give himself some room to make up for his speed disadvantage, but there's a difference between standing off a player and literally being 10-15 yards away without a hope of getting anywhere near the player if the ball goes to them, Dyer isn't that quick. You say he isn't that much of a threat, but he did get behind us, he hit the post, created all of their best opportunities and generally tormented us in that 15-20 minute period at the end of the first half in particular. We got away unscathed this time but if it weren't for a bit of good luck and a bit of good keeping Dyer would have scored one and assisted a couple of others at least. Just because we got through it with a clean sheet and in the end mistakes just about didn't cost us doesn't mean we should fool ourselves and ignore them, I'm all for being positive and I don't think we were awful or robbed Swansea of points by any means, but we also need to be realistic and identify that they unlocked our defence several times and could easily have scored more than a couple.

 

Actually Mikey, Dyer IS that quick. He just doesn't rely on it like his former teammate Theo Walcott, for example. But, like you say, there's standing off, and then there's being 10-15 yards away, which is no use to anybody. Certainly not if you're going to try to nullify someone who wants to cross the ball, because he just crosses it over your head.