saintant

Not at all happy to be proved right. Always want Saints to succeed but I'm afraid in Puel we have found a manager who is not nearly good enough for the cut and thrust of the Premier League. Mass rotation might work in weak French leagues but it is not the way forward here.

Gallagher scores again.

Second that! Out of his depth I'm afraid.

Puel out of his depth and needs to return to France where he is better suited.

Long scores 3 goals in 5 games and is dropped by Puel - go figure!

I hope Puel found that experience "interesting" because I doubt many of those who went did.

Very unprofessional for a club of our stature to treat the oldest and most prestigious Cup competition with such total disdain, not to mention the management have shown utter disregard and contempt to those who paid good money, gave up their time and had to endure that. This has been an embarrassing night for Southampton FC and one I hope we never repeat. We need to learn from this.

To be fair I don't agree with Puel's decision to play such a weak side. However, once he selected the eleven starters I think there's no point getting hacked off at the result and manner of the performance. If this had been anything remotely resembling our first team then I could understand the angst but that side was always going to get hammered. As I said I don't agree with it and think we should have had a go tonight because the league is a kind of limbo for us as we won't get relegated and equally won't finish much above mid table.

Heroes one and all from the first minute to the last. Restricted Liverpool to few chances and created some great openings ourselves. The goal was the icing on the cake and what a fantastic run and pass from Josh Simms. Big shout out to Jack Stephens but mom must go to Romeu who was incredible. Congratulations Claude, you got it spot on tonight.

Would have gone for Bertrand at centre back and McQueen at left back as Liverpool are not exactly potent in the air - they'll damage us on the ground. However, good luck to the team and especially Stephens - hope he does well. Let's not just sit back as an away goal could be crucial. COYR!

I think we'll need to score so hopefully Puel will set us up to do our fair share of attacking when we get the chance. The worst thing we can do is to sit behind the ball and invite them on to us because that will be a suicidal approach. Give them plenty to worry about as defensively they really aren't that great as proved by Swansea, Bournemouth and others - you have to have a go at them because they have major mistakes in their back line and goalkeeper (whichever one they pick)

Better tempo and far fewer sideways/backwards passes with no purpose. The wing combos of Tadic/Bertrand and Redmond/Cedric worked well - these are vital but as we know Puel likes to rotate so they don't get many consecutive games. Jrod led the line very well and got through loads of work and the midfield made more driving runs though could still do with more and PEH needs to put some hours in practising his shooting. Goes without saying that JWP had his best game of the season and as others have said we should now be expecting that level of performance every time he pulls on the shirt. My worry is that he only seems to do it against poor opposition and Leicester were certainly dire. Romeu excellent as always and Yoshi was very solid - the only downside was VVD injury. Please Claud, stick to the nucleus of this side and play them consistently with the addition of Davis when fit and we might see a few more good performances, wins and goals.

What he said - and don't tell me the style of play has nothing to do with Puel.

So who takes training, who picks the team and who decides on the tactics? If not Puel then why are we paying him a small fortune for doing nothing? Maybe it's you who is naive and deluded.

Things you'll never hear in the same sentence..."Claude Puel" and "exciting football"

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz x fifty billion. Puel, the man who is slowly boring the life out of Southampton Football Club and is leading us to lose our reputation for playing good football.

Puel will make sure St Marys is packed for every game. He sets the team up to play such free flowing exciting football. Even the pundits are starting to laugh and take the p1ss out of the absolute dross we play under him. When will it stop!

Puel is a genius, what a master tactician.

Usual backward thinking just like the passing. Should have started with a strong side, gone at them hard from the first whistle and put the tie to bed early. Now it looks like being a long slog and might go to penalties. If we then go out it will be extremely unsatisfactory not to say unprofessional. I despair of Puel's lack of tactics and nous.

Is that the shortest midfield in history? JWP and Clasie never works.

Play a strong side and give a few the chance to score some goals. Get the job done early then take off three and tell the rest to coast - easy! Puel won't do that though as we all know.

Glad to hear we are keeping the same style as the first team at throughout the club at every level. Just a shame it isn't the previous model which at least worked.

Should maybe try rugby where you really do have to pass backwards to go forward.

This thread is indicative of the rapid demise of our club and the fans expectations. We have gone from calculating how many points we need to finish in the top six to the current situation where we are looking at where we might scrape enough points together to avoid finishing in the wrong half of the table. I don't believe relegation is a concern but it is disappointing that we now seem like a 'normal' Saints side again where everything is a struggle and we don't appear to know where the next win is coming from. Four league losses in a row and the lack of goals coupled with the largely poor quality of our football does that I guess.

Completely agree with this. Puel came and tried to fix something that wasn't broken. Why Les Reed went for this appointment when it was against everything the club had previously claimed it was striving to achieve ie continuity of a system at every level is a mystery to me. Whatever was behind his reasoning it clearly hasn't worked. We are disjointed, negative and not a cohesive unit where everyone knows his job and as has been pointed out numerous times the constant excessive rotation helps nobody bar our opponents. Add to that the apparent dip in team spirit and it is no surprise we struggle to win matches.