HarvSFC

So, that’s the set-piece coach and now Shields leaving us already after joining in the summer. Doesn’t look too great from the outside looking in. Not liking the project? I guess we could have a bit more variety on our signings again now, after a summer of raiding Man City’s youth department. Expect Chelsea to add ABK and Lavia to their squad in the not so distant future.

There sure have been a lot of strikers over the years who scored for fun at youth level, but barely made it as a professional. Cedric Baseya the original, Jamie White, Ryan Seager, Olufela Olomola, Jonathan Afolabi. Probably missing someone obvious too. Not a striker, but I liked the look of Kayne McLaggon when he first broke through too, but he's spent most of his career at semi-pro level.

Bradley Wright-Phillips. Ian Wright's son, a striker, brother of Shaun Wright-Phillips, a £21m player at the time, scored on his debut off the bench in a 2-2 draw against Derby. Everything was written for him to be the main man, but he never really pushed on. Had a very good career in America, though. I had a lot of hopes that Idiakez would be the main man after he signed too, same squad.

Feels similar to Dortmund's collapse in Klopp's final season there.

Put him in the same boat as Gakpo and Moussa Dembele, who didn't want to come here. Semmens is on record as saying it doesn't matter where we finish in the league, when it does as the next bracket of players/managers do not want to be anywhere near a side constantly flirting with relegation.

A good lineup for West Ham at home, so if we do get taken apart today, we’ll likely go back to three at the back with Elyonoussi starting and Adams up top on his own next week.

And all those years ago you probably expected/hoped to never see Lancashire in a Saints shirt again!

I believe Crocker and Cooper will have worked together previously when part of the England setup, so he'd definitely be on our radar. I, myself am ooing and arring with him. Before this season, I wanted him, if Forest didn't get promoted. He got Forest promoted against the odds and did a very good job at Swansea also. The only glaring thing, is that Forest have conceded 8 more goals than us this season, and we need somebody who can shore up a defence up here. Sometimes the Premier League is one step too far for managers. Although, I'm also pretty sure he himself didn't want two new squads worth of players this summer, not signing any of those they had on loan. Last season he was influential in his one January window with Forest, signing players he knew from the England youth levels in Surridge, Panzo and Davis, while also bringing in the experience of Cook to get them over the line. This summer, from the outside it looks like someone from the top wanted to grab the headlines. You can probably attribute Williams, Henderson, Richards, Toffolo, O'Brien, Lingard and Gibbs-White to Cooper's influence from his Liverpool, England and Championship knowledge. But, I doubt he's looking at players like Aurier and thinking they're up for a Premier League relegation fight.

Six of Forest's 23 signings were full-backs. Was an uncoordinated and a scatter gun approach. Their owners are slightly more forgiving than Watford's when it comes to manager's, so expect Cooper to go next.

Pochettino took over midseason, four matches after we were sat 18th under Adkins following a loss to Sunderland and draws with Fulham and Stoke, which was probably when the decision to make the quick changeover was made. We then beat Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City under Pochettino that season, staying up comfortably in 14th. Had the same squad as Adkins, but got the players working harder. The players still played for Adkins, but Pochettino got them fitter with double training sessions and getting them to press the opposition. Hasenhuttl took over mid season, we were 18th with one win in 16. Again, we stayed up fairly comfortably, in 16th, winning 8 of those last 22, including wins against Arsenal and Tottenham. Had the same squad as Hughes, but got the players working harder and getting them to press the opposition. Noticing a pattern. Even Hughes got the players showing a bit more heart when he took over late on, although couldn't get much worse than Pellegrino. So, it isn't rocket science. We're not going to get a January transfer window like Newcastle did, which saw their sudden upturn alongside postponing fixtures to a later date. We need to employ someone who's going to get the squad working hard again and making up for the lesser talent with higher desire and work rate. The good times under Hasenhuttl have been very good and for many of us we've been clinging onto those hoping they'd come back. But, for over half a year now, we're still turning up second best. Everything that was good under Hasenhuttl has been scrapped. The press? Non-existent, even with five subs now. 4-2-2-2? Deviations of it, and a failed three at the back formation. Coaching players through games, during lockdown football all you could hear was Hasenhuttl? Stands on the side-lines now with his arms crossed. Something's changed, we're not the same side anymore and after changing the players, the coaches, even the owners, the only thing left is the manager and I'm getting tired of this football. I'd rather we still turned up for 45 minutes and lost than this current serving.

Even getting shout outs in Championship matches now - The last team Watford scored two away goals against.

The Aribo goal papered over what was a near dire performance up until then. As said earlier in the week, we're just too passive and make it far too easy for the opposition. Whether it be defending and just standing off the opposition, no press and give them the freedom of the pitch to pick a pass and as for our attacking... Too much sideways, backwards shite and allowing them to set up their defensive unit, which we don't have the quality to then break down. We used to be quick, force teams into mistakes and capitalise on them, but now it's like turning up and watching the same Southampton that we watched under Pellegrino and Hughes. We responded to the two 9-0s far better than the Aston Villa 4-0 last season, which has brought a complete change of everything and seemingly killed off this team/management. If we aren't playing well and losing, then the manager's got to go for me and this has been the case since February. As with England in the week, today we played a lot better when we went 2-1 down. But, nobody wants to see that. I want to see us playing like that at 0-0, when there's a better chance of getting the three points and taking the game to the opposition. The only way this play is taking us is downwards. Always say this as well, but the team is just too nice when it comes to gamesmanship. Rarely do I leave St. Mary's thinking the referees been quite favourable to us that afternoon. Pickford was running the game for the last 30 minutes, used every trick in the time wasting book, didn't get booked for it. Everton players kicked the ball away every time we were given something, didn't receive any bookings for it. The subs delayed the game as much as possible, the ref wasn't interested. The ref was weak as piss. Bring back the drinks breaks if it was actually working for us. We should've at least had a player go down and delay their free-kick right after the Aribo goal to take the sting out of the game, but we didn't. Once again showing our amateurishness with the points lost from winning positions stat. As for Maitland-Niles. Always been a very average central midfielder, ran a game against us for West Brom once, but still got relegated and never been given an extended run as a central midfielder since. He's a Premier League right-back, who doesn't want to play right-back and usually our best player (not today) is our right-back. Was a weird signing. We missed a player like Romeu massively.

Good eleven, come on you Saints!

Their opening seven fixtures have been quite favourable, other than Chelsea and Liverpool - Forest, Brentford, Leeds, Villa and a currently terrible West Ham.

I'm not buying the start good players on the bench because there's five subs now excuse. Use the best players from the start, be proactive , take the lead and hope Elyounoussi can help us see it out, as he's incapable of giving us a lead. I'd rather have the likes of Aribo start the game at 0-0, rather than coming on when we're chasing the game every week. Watching a lot of football also, and every other team is starting with their best eleven. I thought the reason we went for five subs was so that we could maintain a high press for longer than just 45 minutes with players rotating throughout the match. We've seemingly dropped the press and developed some overly passive, keeping it safe crap that I don't want to see any of on Saturday.

Is this what happens when you look to attack?

Bring Luke Shaw back?

Similar to when we were linked to the young Arsenal striker Balogun, who decided to sign a new contract at Arsenal, went on loan to Middlesbrough and did poorly, scoring just 3 in 20. Although, he is scoring for fun in France this season with 5 in 6.

Gregory Vignal is a Liverpool legend.

Managers are weird.

The rewriting of history of the Fonte situation always baffles me. He left Crystal Palace in the Championship for us in League One for more money and he left us for West Ham, for more money. Although, he, like everyone else probably thought he was United bound. Jorge Mendes wasn’t always Fonte’s agent, he switched agents at Southampton, during Koeman’s final season. A player doesn’t switch to Mendes to stay at Southampton for the remainder of their career. He wanted out, there isn’t any ifs or buts about it.

West Ham's new signings don't look up to much.

Well, they definitely should’ve replaced Schmeichel.

Brighton are now in transition. They've lost a lot of key figures this year, starting with Ashworth to Newcastle, Bissouma to Spurs and Cucurella to Chelsea. While, Maupay seemed to be inconsistent, he was still better than Welbeck, who's been their main striker this season and he's never hit more than 9 goals in a league season, last time he even hit that number was 2014. The only consistency they had this season was Potter, and now he's gone along with the entire coaching team there. It's going to be a very big job to take on now, especially following their good start, expectations will be pretty high for the new man.

I just want to go to football, essentially. 😕