goodymatt

Brighton create a lot more chances than we do, they just can’t finish their dinner. If they had a goal scorer they would be top half comfortably. 25 shots last night, 5 on target. Palace did nothing all game. At half time they were 1-0 up with their only touch in Brighton’s box! Worrying when you lose games that way... For us to be below that Palace team is worrying too. They are so poor, especially without Zaha. Hoping we make tonight’s game in hand count and go back above them. Relegation shouldn’t really be a worry, but would be nice to put it to bed with a win against the league’s favourite team - ‘Dirty Leeds’.

Sky Sports gave Salisu a match rating of 5/10... think that’s pretty harsh! Couple of rusty moments but he looks a player to me. Think it won’t be long before he holds a starting place. I liked what I saw last night.

Our injury worries are looking better, only Theo and Diallo who would potentially be starters unavailable. Alongside long term injuries to Obafemi and Smallbone.

He must have been decent enough during his time in Spain to have a top moments video posted by La Liga last month. Looking forward to finally seeing him play (assuming he actually is starting tonight). Easy to focus on his mysterious absence from the team for half a season, but there was a reason why his signing was met with so much excitement. Here’s hoping he can stay fit going forward and start to show why he’s seen as our future.

This is definitely a case of be careful what you wish for. Although I do agree with those that cite negligence when something like this happens twice, it really is unacceptable. Charlie Austin loves to pipe up at times like these and although he’s a bitter bloke, he makes some valid points - we should have defended that game in a way where we never see such a scoreline again. However, this was different to Leicester - Refs and VAR made this game the record scoreline. Injuries and early red card made the prefect storm. Sounds an easy bias/excuse, but it’s 6-0 with 5 to play (we had also scored a fair goal). We are not seeing 9-0 without the Bednarek decisions. We cannot remove all blame though, we were absolutely shocking. Ultimately, are we likely to find another manager that can deliver the following: 1. 5th highest points PL total in a calendar year (2020). 2. Style of football we actually get behind and enjoy watching. 3. Strong relationship with the fans, Ralph’s emotionally there with us. See Sheffield United and Liverpool at home. 4. Manager with potential. I think we have seen Ralph improve and he has the potential to improve much further. He’s linked with big clubs for a reason. With all that in mind, we would be asking him to resign on the basis of just 2 games of football, when the entire time inbetween he’s been working miracles. I’m fully behind Ralph and hope this summer someone finally invests in us to move that glass ceiling a little higher. To sack Ralph for making this unwanted history would be short sighted and only impact us negatively going forward. Injuries are on their way back and we should see the Saints that have entertained and performed beyond our expectations since Project Restart return.

Another great read Glen 👍

Minamino is an exciting signing for me. He knows the style from Red Bull and has a lot to prove in the PL. Assuming this goes through as reported, I’m looking forward to seeing him play for us. Hoping he can show the form from his CL performances. Elyounoussi did look good against City in the CL too... On the other hand, how can a PL team have literally no cover for either FB position? I accept the view that Valery and Vokins aren’t good enough. However, that does not excuse the mistake to not find alternative cover for either position in the last two windows. Why sign Salisu if there is a greater need elsewhere. Admittedly Vest has found his space jam and the injuries are unfortunate, just a lot of risk here. We may find that our captain - one of our most influential players - spends too many games playing out of position and that could cost him his England place this summer.

Shame there is no option, but there wasn’t with KWP either?

This sounds stupid?

Looks like Romain Perraud signed a new contract to 2025 two days ago? https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2021/romain-perraud-signs-extension-until-2025-with-brest/

I’m still fuming this morning. Incredible combination of crazy decisions for one game: 1. Handball - he’s not been unlucky that it’s just bounced up off his thigh and hit his arm. It’s slightly touched his thigh and not impacted the ball direction. His hand is in a goalkeeper’s position and that’s as stonewall a penalty as you’ll see. If the rules say any touch means it’s not a pen, that opens up some weird situations and you’d hope they slightly amend the rule like they did with the recent City offside vs Villa. 2. Offside given to us on a backwards pass the phase before their goal. This stuff happens all the time. It’s a poor decision but we have plenty of time to defend the next action. Grealish created that goal so well. Would KWP have stopped it? 3. Romeu foul on keeper - does he really foul the keeper? I know the goalkeeper’s union is fairly consistent on these calls but like the Burnley goal disallowed vs Leeds, there isn’t a foul and the whistle shouldn’t be blown. Why isn’t that a goal? VAR should be looking as things like this more closely, as well as actually punishing diving. Both are just accepted currently. 4. Danny Ings equaliser - the ball is blurred in the freeze frame, surely that’s too late? The armband extends his shirt, are all short sleeves even the same length. They should change the rule to see what part of the body you actually score from. His sleeve gave Ings no advantage in scoring this particular goal anyway and we were denied a perfectly good goal. It’s hard not to come across as being bias when there are so many unjust moments in one game. This was a 6 pointer against a team we are directly competing with. We didn’t play to our best and certainly weren’t as clinical as we should be from the chances created. But with our injuries and players playing out of position, we created 20 shots against one of the best defences in the league. The referees cost us potentially 3 goals. We deserved the 3 points without question IMO. With our injuries and United up next, I can’t see how we don’t languish in mid to low-mid table until we can play a strong team. I fear this will be too late to have a late push for a special finish to this season. We are unlikely to see where we could have really finished and with Ings potentially going this summer, the chance may not come again for a while.

He could have an opportunity to play one of the 10s for us when our first choice fullbacks are fit. I think both positions in our system suit this player well. Hopefully we can assure him enough to choose us over WBA. He wants to stay in Southgate’s plans but I don’t see how playing for WBA would do that?!

My first game at The Dell was Saints 2-1 Newcastle (Premier League, February 1999) James Beattie, Jason Dodd pen and a late consolation from Hamann.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKgIzFcMBPg/?igshid=1tcjms240pl03 Can we take anything from KWP being front and centre of the Southampton FC Matchday Instagram post? Normally injured players don’t feature in these but it is a late injury...

Fraser Forster was coming off his line much quicker than he used to last night. There were a few short back passes and sweeper keeper moments. It was good to see he’s improved that side of his game, as Ralph had mentioned in recent interviews. I really am liking the look of Diallo, he’s a classy player. Lots of potential there, will be interesting to watch him improve with us.

He doesn’t sign, he leaves this summer. He signs with a low release clause (only way he signs?), he leaves this summer. You could argue keeping him for the extra season and letting him go for nothing in 2022 would lose us a transfer fee but maintain our premier league status? In isolation though, I don’t see the club wanting to lose our best asset for nothing. In summary, he leaves this summer. Sigh.

We weren’t at our best last night but we played with a much changed side and the number of academy players forced to play were higher than we would have ideally liked. That said, I thought we won fairly comfortably and didn’t ever have to get out of second gear, which was welcome to avoid any further injuries and get the job done with the minimal effort needed. Good opportunity to see some academy players we hadn’t seen previously in the first team too. I have to echo the thoughts of others on Shane Long. I’m sure he is still capable of performing at a higher level than we witnessed last night... He looked ineffective against league one opposition, which just isn’t good enough.

Examples of Bednarek and Stephens both giving the ball away trying to play those progressive passes. Think people need to understand/accept this is how Ralph asks them to play. We are missing Vestergaard who is clearly the best at doing this of all our defenders. As many have mentioned, overall this risky approach has brought an excellent return for us this season, but we are going to make mistakes at times. I do wonder why we religiously stick to this is the dying moments of games though. We are 1 nil down and just need to go full Sean Dyche and get the ball into the box. Instead we carry on doing what we do, taking those risks in the 94th minute. We saw the same patient approach in the last period of the Arsenal away game and the crossbar came to our rescue. I would like to see us go more direct to try and salvage the point or get that winner against a team that has parked the bus with 10 men. We were in that game until the very end, with half our match day squad unavailable for selection. Hard to be overly critical of Saints at the moment.

No Ingsy, no party.

Depends if Carol looks like Shakira...

Hope it’s not too long before we get to see him play. Reports were so positive in the summer and I want to see what all the hype was about. We’ve had to wait a while to see the scorpion play, I’m sure it will be worth the wait 🤞

Gray would be a decent signing, especially for nothing. He’s very fast and has a good shot from distance too. Has been hot and cold for Leicester but that may be due to being in and out of the team in recent seasons. I do remember us being interested historically. Eze would have been perfect, another we were linked with but either failed to sign or decided not to pursue. If we do sign Gray we would be overly stocked in that department unless Theo is then seen as a forward.

Did Ralph say anything about Che Adams being available or not? He was rumoured to be a doubt as well as McCarthy?

Accident or not, Dawson endangered an opponent and that has to be a red card. He basically kicks Che’s head like a football with a decent amount of force. Che is fortunate to not be in a similar situation to Jiminez and I’m sure he was affected by it for the rest of the time he was on the pitch. Surprised how quickly he got up really.