NewYorkSaint

Wow. Wow. Wow. What a heroic defensive performance. Proud of the team. This will do everyone's morale and self-belief a power of good.

well... we can def take pride in the fact that for 40 mins, half our first team dominated the best team in the league on recent form. JWP, Valery, Forster... so strong. Tragedy re Salisu. I can't stand the red card rule. Why should the same offense in the 40th minute be given 10x the penalty as it would in the 85th min? Makes zero sense. One player's momentary rash misjudgment spoils an entire sporting contest....

Hilarious that Ralph put on Stu for a couple mins to maintain the stat that we never win without him! Fantastic performance. Determination all over the pitch. We were lucky here and there (the pen should surely have been a free kick on edge of box). But what a great result...

Broja is so exciting to watch. Amazing combo of height, strength, dexterity, confidence. Really great performance first half. Encouraging to see Salisu continue his ascent to truly world class centre back... Good luck second half, Saints. Would so love to see a second goal for us.

crazy that VAR doesn't reverse obvious corner mistakes. shd never have happened

with the Romeo-Salisu backbone of our team out, the defense looks terribly shaky. But it ain't over yet. A goal back and it gets exciting again. you never know.

Good team in the circumstances.... C'mon Saints. May the force be with you.

Much has been made of the shocking stat that since Ralph joined, Saints have lost 71 points from winning positions... far more than any other premier league team. But there's a key piece of context missing from those stats. Namely, how good have we been at achieving those winning positions in the first place? And the answer is: incredibly good. In terms of first half performances, we punch way way above our weight, challenging pretty much every team in the league and often notching up a lead. This, of course, has been Ralph's strategy from the start. When you have a team that costs way less than those dominating the league, how do you give yourself a chance? Answer: Blitz them. Build a team that's incredibly fit, and unleash a coordinated high press that forces mistakes and creates goal opportunities. It's thrilling to watch, and exhilarating when it works. The question has always been - how do you do that without burning yourself out? And how do you do it when teams KNOW that this is going to be our strategy? Overall, it seems to me our strategy has become more nuanced this year. It's not flat out for the first 45 minutes. Efforts are made to recoup energy, and then pick the moment to dial it up again. We've had several impressively professional 1-0 wins where the blitz has been followed by prolonged, determined defense. It's agonizing when that fails... Norwich and Brighton being the latest exhibits. But overall, I think you could argue that this strategy is still a smart way for us to go. It gives a real chance of scoring early against any team. To thrive, though, we need to either turn our efforts to 2 or 3 goals not one - we've often seemed to come so close to doing this - OR figure out how better to solidify in the second half games. Or both. And there's a third strategy that I'd love to see Ralph try sometime, namely: hold the blitz for the second half. Play it calmly, carefully, efficiently for 45 mins. And then, with energy in store, hit them hard second half. I don't mind losing some points from winning positions, provided we're left with more than enough to thrive. But I'd definitely enjoy a few games where we turn first-half solidity into second half glory. What do you guys think?

Man, if you could string together all of our first halves... We look such an exciting team. Tella's pace and Broja's class bring a lot. Lyanco is superstar in the making. JWP and Romeu total bosses. I'd bring on Moi and Diallo at some point to keep the energy up... Big half coming up.

I think we'll win. Hoping to see Moussa back in the squad. At some point he's going to ignite for us. A really exciting player. And it's so great to see Redmond back at his best. I thought he was stunning first half against Leicester. JWP looking back to his best too. And there's more creativity and energy going into set piece planning. All of which gives me reason to take the optimistic stance here. Optimists aren't always right. But they have more fun! Compare: three days of dread/meh vs three days of excitement. Come join camp hope!

I mean... we look the absolute equal to a very good premier league side. I'll take this.

Really fun to watch. Hope Tella's OK. He didn't take long to make an impact, did he? Redmond really exciting.... Salisu's had a spectacular half too.

I have a good feeling about tonight. I predict a tight game. 2-1 Saints. Winning goal from... Nathan Tella!!

One of the enduring gifts of the two 9-0s is that today's 4-0 doesn't seem bad at all, especially given the start. When the team first announced, most on Twitter were applauding Ralph's courage in going for it with a genuinely exciting, attacking side. It's easy to be wise after the event, but I think he'd have taken heat for anything he tried. There are rumors diallo took a knock yesterday which forced him to the bench. None of us has the full picture. I took positives from Broja and Tesla, and remain excited to see how December unfolds. Big month coming up.

Heartbreaker. My only quibble w Ralph is I would not have brought Walcott on. I would not have taken Che off. Adam and Che are a partnership just waiting to ignite. They're both really exciting players. It's going to happen. Just a shame it only half happened today. I thought JWP had a wonderful game. He's landing more great passes than ever... If we replayed that four times, same teams, we'd win three and draw one.....

Really looking forward to this. 2 week break way too long. I'd love to see Che build on his Scotland performance with a confident early strike. He's one of our jewels in the making.

Thanks, much... I'm looking forward to it.

anyone know where the 'away ticket office' is at Chelsea? I'm hoping to pick up tix there this eve...

Yup.... real credit to Ralph on this one. He stuck with his faith in Redmond despite so much heat from the base... and was proved right today. Rest of tactics spot on. We made Leeds look so poor. Yet we did so without burning all our energy first half and leaving ourselves wide open. Quality of some of the football truly sublime. There's a scenario now where we rocket up the table and start to dream a little bigger...

An optimist's perspective: Did we see more evidence today that Southampton are competitive against the best in the premier league? My answer. A resounding yes. The next three games will be key. A chance for Diallo to really step up. And we will have Stuart Armstrong back. I think things will be looking a lot better by end of year.

Disagree. His pace - and interchange with KWP - has been promising. Several exciting forward moves, admittedly w/o the end product yet.

My goodness, did I actually witness this right here on Saints Web? An angry dispute gets talked down by both sides being, um, reasonable. Hurrah! And bravo @TheLeftBack and @TWar.

are you at the game?

Ralph may be guilty of some misjudgments. But boring he is not. And I agree that there are powerful signs of an amazing team being built.