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

I can see why you are where you are as you play well as a team...but there were some seriously wild shots from some of your players. What I congratulate you on is that you don't sit back and defend in numbers....if you had just done that, Saints would have overrun you. Leicester played positively throughout and didn't let their heads drop. We used to do that under Pochettino, but I hope you don't mind me saying so...we had a better team than you back then (most are elsewhere now). And we are still more skilled pound for pound, but Leicester came with a plan and stuck to it. A Saints win would have been scarcely deserved, but doesn't mean I didn't want it.

 

Their high press killed us. It worries me, as next weekend Klopp will try and do the same thing. Hopefully we can up the tempo and keep the ball a bit better next week!

 

... we are still growing as a team but do have an incredible spirit ... Mahrez is a mercurial talent and is so creative when he is on his game and when we are dominating possession ... Inler still can't get in the team and Ulloa and Kramaric didn't even make the bench today ... the strength in depth is the real difference this season ....I do understand your frustration at surrendering a 2-0 lead ... but it could have been worse if Vards had notched that one around the 75th minute mark ... we do love our 3-2 wins from 2-0 down ... I suspect that most Leicester fans, certainly me, just want to get to that 40 point mark first and foremost ... and getting a point today from 2-0 behind against a very good side almost feels like a win ,,, a great game for the neutral today ... great entertainment ...

 

Yes of course you are more skilled than us ( though that wasn't evident 2nd half when we murdered you) but remember this is only our 2nd season back in the Premier League so quite rightly you should be streets ahead of us in terms of squad development. Hopefully we continue to progress in a similar vain to Southampton, a club I've always liked since I first saw you in the early eighties down at filbert street on a waterlogged pitch.
Anyway good luck with the rest of your season folks. Cheers

 

Been thinking that. Hopefully with their European game on Thursday he won't have enough time to get his way sorted!

 

Forgot they had to play in that rubbish competition on Thursday. That's a big boost to our chances.

 

There are lots of things to take into consideration here, KD has had no game time recently, ring rusty and flapping like a good one, but a good save helped. Gazzas distribution is the best of our three GK's, his keeping isn't as good yet. When we went 2 up we weren't the team playing the best football. Just after the 2nd half started you could see Dusan was out of gas, Sadio was looking like a zombie at times, Pelle was getting cheesed off with constantly being clattered and not getting any decisions, Vic treading a tight rope on an unfair yellow and had taken a nasty knock, Clasie came on and did nothing, totally bamboozled by the pace of the game and completely out of his depth, a tired SD would probably have done better or Romeu to add a bit of bite perhaps?
Soares head injury caused a loss of ballance and disrupted the defence somewhat. Easy being a table top manager, a bit different in reality.

A lucky point for us in the end against a good, honest workmanlike team with a gem in Vardy to do the dirty on us. Well done Leicester, glad you didn't ruin my day completely.

 

I've had chances to do similar mate, but I admire you for doing it because I couldn't. I had 4 nights away this week and it's a killer.

 

"At fault" seems a little harsh. We were poor as a team, and the way Vardy looks now and with all the pace they have, it was a lot to ask from a CB. Would say the midfield/flanks let us down more than the CBs if I had to parcel out blame, but have already said I thought mostly that Leicester just played really well so am not too down on anyone.

I would agree he was good in the air, and that he was pulled out of position too much. But I just can't quite agree he bossed the box, because no one did. They got off a ton of shots and could easily have had two more. If VVD is constantly pulled out of the box to cover other players, well.. He can't boss the box if he isn't there.

I guess that is all I am saying. VVD scored a goal. He showed some good all skills to bail us out a few times. I was happy with his play overall. Just kind of hard to hail a defender as a hero when we were absolutely dominated the second half.

 

Come off it. Don't get me wrong Leicester are doing well but so were Saints at the beginning of their second season and our X1 got totally pillaged the following summer and also the summer after. If Leicester continue with the same trajectory do you honestly believe that you will hold onto your best performers ? Realistically as a similarly sized club to Southampton probably not and therein really lies the challenge of "squad development", which is to the replace players who have seemingly reached a "higher level" with new recruits who are still capable of moving the club forward. 'Squad Development' for clubs like ours who have reached the plateau that is upper mid table as Saints have learned is not as black and white as you propose and it is entirely possible to become a victim of your own success. I hope Leicester continue in the same vein as they have started the season as I see many parallels between yourselves and Southampton and I also think Ranieri is a very likable manager who has instilled a very commendable spirit within the team.

 

Was Clasie that bad, for real? I'll have to look for it when I watch it again. I remember I thought he made one nice pass, and JWP made one awful one. Then the rest of the half is just a big blur of being overrun, near goals, desperation fouls, players falling down, and seemingly getting beat to every 50/50.

I felt he was more anonymous than bad, in part because we were so on the back foot he couldn't really do his thing. Agree though that he may not have been the right man for this particular job and Romeu might have been the correct call.

 

Can't have Clasie judged on this game....trying to get used to the EPL when mistakes are happening all round you would phase most players.

 

Ranieri mentioned this week it would be hard to hold onto Vardy if enough money is offered....annoying but realistic. The secret is finding Vardy's replacement (IF he goes, not saying he is).

 

Haven't posted for a while so bare with me. I didn't attend today's game but from what I have read and head on the radio it was a very under-performing game from the team.

A few points:

• Kelvin Davis is our second best keeper, easily, experienced and commands his area. Although I can't work out why Koeman wanted to play Gazzaniga instead at the back end of last season...?
• Cedric is our best RB. He is our only senior RB. Yoshida isn't a full back, his versatility is excellent but he is not wuick enough, Having been to several U21 games I would love to see Bevis Mugabi be drafted into the squad. He has been excellent. Granted he wasn't obviously in the squad but I think he should be strongly considered.
• The only reason in my opinion Clasie came on today was because Koeman wanted to give him his PL debut. Poor decision, in all honesty the signing of Clasie is disappointing. We replaced Schniederlin (6''4', solid, CDM) with Clasie (5''7', weak, unproven, CAM) - a position we do not need cover for! Steven Davis is one of the most underrated players in our team. If Steven Davis had to be substituted because of injury then bring on Romeu! He has some experience and is a holding midfielder.
• Looking at Leicester's bench, I would've been wary that he'd bring on some pace in the second half.

Very disappointing result.

 

As someone above mentioned.

We would have taken a draw at Chelsea and a win against Leicester (4 points). We've got the same number of points in those two games.

Unfortunately it is the manner in which we couldn't hold on.

It's a story that happened several times last season, and it comes back to us not taking our chances.

 

There is a lot of merit in what you say ... I do however take quite a bit of comfort from our ownership ... the Chairman is quietly ambitious and has stated he wants us to be challenging for top 5 within a few years and that it will cost somewhere close to a £200 million 'investment' if that is to be possible ... easy said of course ... but we won't do that by selling our best players ... his personal fortune is rapidly growing due to King Powers' dominance in the south east asia duty free sector so I'm happy to 'believe' the spiel for now ... but only time will tell ....

 

I dunno, man. I was awfully impressed with how well we did in our second season and I was very impressed with Leicester today, too. Credit where credit is due.

Although as you say, the trick is staying good once the player poaching happens. I have enough scadenfreude to where a certain part of me would enjoy for them lose half their squad too. But that is such BS to happen to anyone and PL is set up so stupid, that I will root for Leicester to do well. PL needs more teams like them, and us, Swanswea, maybe even new-look West Ham.

 

It's hardly an unreasonable argument, particularly given that many here have argued (and not at all without merit) that the funds from said pillaging have been instrumental to getting us to a higher level. And while Leicester brought some very good talent up with them from the Championship, it's almost universally agreed that we had an uncommonly talented core group upon our reentry into the Prem. So, yeah, it's perfectly understandable that their squad development is behind ours, and also entirely rational to believe that the gap will close, particularly if they keep playing this well.

This. One of the great developments in recent years is that teams are not only getting promoted and doing well, but doing so while playing high-quality football.

If the door to the top tier gets broken down, it won't be by one team...it'll happen because several good upstarts conspire to narrow the distance enough that they can take aim at the top places.

 

... all true ... but (IMHO) it will only be if Vards (or any other player) has his head turned by a 'bigger' club ... not because our owners start to think of selling to balance the books ... if that happens fair enough ... but nobody will be going on the cheap .. that's a cert... we even got £4 million for Dave Nugent

 

You may be lucky....we may have saturated the market with overpriced players.