saintant

Theo does not have a football brain so I doubt he will ever improve beyond what we see from him for Arsenal and England. He is largely anonymous in most games and fails to take up good positions to receive the ball. With his pace he will always do the odd spectacular thing but you have to weigh that aginst the dross. He makes poor decisions about whether to run his full back or pass the ball. Time and again he ducks his responsibility by playing a nothing pass of five yards. His crossing is poor and he lacks the killer instinct to tease and torment his opponents. He does track back but really when you watch him he doesn't mark anyone or put in many tackles he tends to just stand in space. For large parts of games you will see him gently jogging forwards and back but not contributing a great deal. No way he deserved to be picked in the final 23 I'm afraid.

Hitting the woodwork is not classed as on target. Think Huddersfield now only need a win and two draws from their last three games even if we win all five of ours.

Millwall were shocking. How could they fail to get a single shot on target against a side who conceded 3 goals to ten man Walsall?

Huddersfield want it more. Millwall are just hoofing it. Nothing like their performance against Leeds. Jacket needs to read the riot act at half time because they've been shocking. Huddersfield are not great so if Millwall give it a real go second half they could get back into it but need to cut out the big boot stuff, get the ball down and play.

Great effort from all our players who could not have given more. The only thing you could accuse us of is wanting to win it a little too much as the match wore on and throwing caution to the wind. Inevitable that they would hit us on the counter with their pace after 75 minutes against a tiring and generally slow back four. Had we taken our chances we would have won because we'd not have needed to chase the game. All in all a very good performance but as others have said a totally unrealistic scoreline.

Leading scorers in the division away from home, long time since we were banging in goals on the road. Superb win today, well done the lads.

Partly Wotton but only because it allows Morgan to get forward. I find it staggering that it has taken this long to get Morgan playing in an advanced position where he can do damage with his undoubted quality. For a long time he has been completely wasted by being given too deep a role - can't understand why it has taken til now for professional coaches to realise the obvious.

Nah, don't create enough. All teams miss chances but if you make enough you'll get some goals. How many real chances have we had today?

And that in a nutshell is our problem - we do not trouble keepers. No width, no pace and no creativity.

But has their keeper made a save yet?

Excuses I don't want to hear. 1) Pardew hasn't been here long, 2) We had no pre-season, 3) The club nearly went out of existence, 4) The ref done it, 5) We were unlucky, 6) We've got better players coming in. Quite simply none of the above can possibly justify zero victories in 6 fixtures in this lowly league. Now we can't even beat a side down to ten men for most of the game. Forget the ten points deduction, even without that we would be sitting proudly second to bottom of the table just ahead of Tranmere on goal difference. Unacceptable!

Have always thought Lallana is in the mould of Peter Beardsley. He is not quick but can take his man on with trickery, has a good eye for a pass and with practice I think his shooting will improve. In my book he should only ever be used just off the front man as a lnk between midfield and attack. He is not a midfielder or a wide man and I don't believe we are getting the best out of him by not playing him in a role he is suited to. A good player being wasted.

Nowhere near good enough. Even without the minus 10 we'd still be 3rd from bottom! Absolute rubbish. Needed to hit the ground running but we've done the opposite. Pardew has been here long enough to have influenced things but we seem to be going backwards if that is possible.

Alan Pardew has just a week to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse and I don't envy him his task. I hope he has earmarked at least four players who will be brought in immediately because if not we could be heading for another season of struggle. The fact that we start 10 points behind means that it is imperative we hit the gound running and get off to a strong start. If not we will be falling further behind the rest and that heaps more pressure on the team to produce results. To those who believe Pardew does not need to be in a hurry I would have agreed had we not been hit with the ten point penalty. That is a lot to make up especially if you do not start well. The current squad would struggle to keep its head above water even without the minus ten. Signings this week please Alan.

An earlier poster stated he was appalled and asked if this was the reward for loyaly. No, it was actually the reward for being incompetent.

You are a billionaire taking over a new business. The current manager paid to extract himself from a contact and was a very cheap option at the time of his original appointment. He has proved himself less than competent up to now. You are starting the season with a ten point defecit so need to hit the ground running. Are people serious when they say that Wotte should be given a chance? Think about it. Markus Liebherr is obviously successful so I cannot believe he will hand the most important job at the football club to someone who has never exactly acheived anything. It's not about sentiment and giving someone a chance. It's about a hard headed business decision and bringing in the very best man you can afford. If that's Wotte then we are in trouble. Forget continuity, we need a manager with a bit of nous who can inspire the players and fans and that is what will put bums on seats and get revenue flowing back into this great club. Let's set the bar high not settle for the same old same old. We need a rapid rise back to the Premier League and I'm afraid Wotte is not the guy to generate that intensity and passion. He was a makeshift during exteremely hard times. Someone new please or we are showing a complete lack of ambition.

I think you miss the point Georgiesaint. I am not saying that Lowe should not have worked within a reasonable budget. My point is that his wage cap meant that, as you stated yourself, we ended up with a bloated squad of mediocre/not good enough players. That was his huge mistake in my opinion.

History will show that Lowe budgeted for failure and that's what he got. His total lack of understanding of the mechanics of running a football club both as a business and in terms of building a squad to maintain Premiership status has been exposed for all to see. Lowe could not fathom the simple fact that to survive in the Premiership you must have a sprinkling of stars on high wages. Whether you get those players on loan or pick them up from abroad or on Bosmans you must have them. His strategy was to have a wage cap that meant our best players were driven away and the ones brought in were not good enough. Pretty soon he presided over the building of an ever expanding squad of mediocre/poor players that no manager could get a decent team out of. The wage bill for that large squad was probably as much or more than it would have been had he had the nous to sign some quality players. We found ourselves desperately trying to improve the team to get out of a self perpetuating mess. Add to that the revolving door managerial farce which partly resulted from his failure to authorise buying of decent player and the wheels for the demise of our fantastic club had been set in motion. The outcome was inevitable. From that point it was a sharp and slippery slope to where we now find ourselves. Budget for the lower leagues and that is inevitably where you'll end up. Reach up instead of down and you're planning for life on a park bench. The sad thing is, it aint rocket science. Sorry, couldn't come up with three things he did right no matter how hard I tried. Nothing could compensate for the place he left our beloved club.

It's simple really. Play Jan's funny formation away from home where it has had some success but not at home where it has had zero success. At home we must play 442 because opposition teams come to defend and hit us on the counter and the current formation does not work against that. Keep playing Jan's way at home and it'll be a continued succession of draws, defeats and the odd victory. 442 is the way to score goals and win matches at St Marys.

The harsh rality is this is all just a rip off. Southampton FC are charging first team prices to people to watch what is virtually a youth or 'A' team. Most of these players you could expect to watch for nothing and they are charging full price.

Back four was shocking...completely clueless. I lost count of the times they stood arm raised appealing for an offside decision that didn't come. Without a figure like Claus to marshall them they have no idea. You need one defender with some nous and the others take their lead from him to keep a good line and catch forwards offside - we were completely bedraggled hence their attackers could get down either flank or through the middle with ease. We must play with more than one forward as we looked far more dangerous when we introduced some support fro Robertson.

Have to disagree with those putting Cork forward as a centre back. Today he missed headers, fell over, stood off players and generally allowed Blackstock to bully hima and give him the run around. He is not physical enough to handle the type of forwards he will come up against. Whether that is bacause of his young age I am not sure but for now he is not ready to play CB so I would play him as a full back if anywhere. Wotton looks a better bet at centre half than Cork as at least he can handle himself and stand up to strong forwards.

Cork is not a centre back - too light weight and not good in the air. He was a real weak link at the back for us today and Surman wasn't far behind him. We have a good footballing side but until we sort out the defence which looks so fragile and weak in terms of pshysical strength and nous we will always gift goals to the opposition. No matter how well you play going forward if you are giving away gift goals and presenting your opponents with chances galore you will not win many games. We made Blackstock look world class even though he was playing up fron on his own and that says it all. There is so much talent in this side going forward but somehow we must develop a sold foundation at the back. Thought Lalana was superb today and deserved to score what was a superbly worked goal.