Match Day Thread Saints Vs Brighton – Sunday 14th March 12.00pm, BBC1

No complaints about the first half personally, except for a really badly defended corner. Why not put a man on each post ffs?

Second half they started brighter, and when they got the second goal there was only going to be one winner tbh, because we just can't break down well drilled sides that hold their shape.

Distinct lack of either urgency or aggression throughout that second half, but I'll be kind and put it down to tiredness.

When we play a high tempo, in your face style, we can give anyone a game, but you can't, with a squad as small as ours, play like that for 90 minutes twice a week. Dunno what the answer is there; not conceding sloppy goals would help.

Brighton are a good side btw.

We stumble on...



Although, on the other hand, **** football. Bollocks to everything

 

Still waiting on my blood pressure to come down!

Positives - There are no better games out there to recover than Bournemouth and West Brom who are just about the only two sides out there with form similar to ours, with an international break inbetween (something tells me not many of our ‘footballers’ will be getting called up).

Bottle those two and there really are no more excuses.

 

I have been saying for a few weeks that we haven’t been pressing in the same way as at the start of the season.
Most of our good attacking play comes from getting numbers around the ball and then making quick, short passes, not allowing teams to set up their defence.
We are still doing this, but for shorter periods and it’s in those periods when we aren’t pressing that we are looking bang average and making mistakes.
Earlier in the season I suggested that it was playing the Ralph way was what made us so good, but it needed most of our players to be playing at a minimum level of 7/10.
In recent weeks, partly due to tiredness but also,IMO, because of the natural inconsistency of some of our first choice players, we aren’t achieving that same level of performance and as a result we have been getting punished.

Having said that, both today’s goals were down to poor defending - again.

 

Lost interest after their second and decided to learn to play “Little Martha” by Duane Allman, which is in open E tuning.

Still had the game on in the background and saw enough to deduce that for whatever reason, the majority of the team have also lost interest, lost confidence, and generally lost their way. While Ralph isn’t necessarily to blame for that, he does have to take responsibility for turning things around.

We badly need a specialist defensive coach to sort things out as the current management setup is failing badly in this area. We have the right players in place but there is something wrong with the system. Zonal marking at set pieces may well be one problem, but it’s not the only issue.

Having said that, too many of our conceded goals come from errors in midfield or up front, usually misplaced passes, of which there are far too many, or trying to beat one man too many and losing the ball that way.

I still don’t think we’re in any danger but today’s performance does make you wonder where the 2 wins needed are coming from.

 

Home to Burnley before West Brom, definitely chances of something there.

 

Interesting the comments about Brighton being very organised. They are not a team that would lose 9-0 and we are. If anyone wants to complain about the way we play then maybe they can look at teams like Brighton and make a genuine complaint, even if there are still those who will not hear it. When we equalised I would never have bet on us to win. We simply don't sustain anything in the attacking or defensive sense. I don't want rid of Ralph, but increasingly that is because there is nothing better rather than I am in love with his coaching.

So many people predicting wins on this thread. Embarrassingly unrealistic.

 

It is. In all its parts.

 

I think that next week's game is massive now for the feelgood factor, conversely it with be a big body blow to lose to a team from a lower division and we do need a couple more wins to rest easy and the sooner we get them the better.

 

Bad time to have one of our 'worst games of the season'. We are at the stage of the season where those at the bottom are fighting and scrapping and picking up wins. We are not, we are in the habit of losing. Just as winning games becomes a habit, as does losing. And we don't seem to realise how close to the line we have dropped. We are sleepwalking at the moment. And while we have the benefit of the points we picked up in the first half of the season, our cushion has somewhat eroded. Even a draw today would have been okay. But another loss. A tired and uninspired loss, a loss when we are back to almost full strength, with no decisions or anything going against us as an excuse, is pretty damning of where we are right now. Bad, bad weekend for us. The only thing that has gone our way is Fulham losing. And while we do still have the games to pull ourselves out and to relative comfort, we don't look like winning at the moment so while it may be just two wins away, that looks a distant light right now.

 

Not the way Burnley played yesterday, they have suddenly become a good team,

 

The last thing I would want to play now is a Dyche team.

 

At the moment you’re correct about the one game a week schedule, but the Spurs game (that was due to be next weekend) will be rearranged, most likely to a mid-week game.

If we beat Bournemouth, which despite our form I would expect us to, then there will be another rearranged game (I think it would be the Palace one).

So that means four of our remaining games won’t have many days off building up to them, which is not ideal considering our results when playing twice a week.

 

Ralph isn't thick, he's not going to spend the international break watching Netflix. He's going to work with the team. He's got two weeks with them, minus the ones going on international duty (which won't be many thankfully). Ings will be back, so it will just be Romeu on the injury list. There's no reason why we can't finish the season strongly.

 

Burnley are tough and very physical. We will need to be right on our game, attack them instead of waiting for an opportunity and push them back. If we play as lazily as we did today, I fear they will bully the ball of us and get through the middle of our defence which looks so bloody porous at the moment it’s embarrassing

 

I don’t disagree, I was just pointing out that Burnley are playing out of their skins at the moment and won’t be a pushover.

 

We'll be fine if we play like we want it and start playing with a bit of urgency. We are at our best when we speed things up. Unplayable at times. Sadly recently we cant play.

 

Is that the Burnley that won away to Everton?

 

International break will change our fortunes IMO. Minus Bedders, Vesty and possibly JWP Ralph will have most of the first team squad to work with on the training ground. I believe in Ralph, therefore I believe 2 weeks of proper training with no games to worry about will help enormously.

 

TBF Everton are not really great ATM ....and only a few weeks back they lost at home to Fulham.