mrfahaji

Romeu is probably the biggest puzzle to me - appearing in a lot of 'get rid' or 'indifferent' lists. I'm not disputing he isn't producing the goods, but he won player of the season season before last, and looked like the next inevitable departure to a bigger club. I'm reluctant to write off a player who has shown that level of performance (in the same way that I remain hopeful of seeing good things from Lemina, Hojbjerg and one or two others). I'd rather ask why he has regressed so much and what it would take for him to get back to his old self. He also comes across as a good guy, so would be surprised if it was an attitude problem.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/premier-league-is-losing-competitive-balance-as-top-six-reach-new-heights-sgnnkxpst I don't have a Times subscription but from the headline and opening paragraph I'm pretty sure this is a relevant article! It's almost as if it's not just about how Saints are performing.

Quite a lot of us fully expected him to be a big loss.

Ha, very good point!

That was the season City finished 4th and were very beatable under Pelligrini and Liverpool finished 8th in Klopp’s first season wasn’t it? Which I’ve said previously was a great season that felt like a watershed moment, but it just convinced the big clubs to go mental to make sure the smaller clubs never get a look in ever again.

True, I think it's wrong to use specific examples. But the main point of angelman's stats is that the number different teams to finish in the top 4 has dimished each decade. So it doesn't matter who the big clubs were, there were either not as many dominant teams or their period of dominance was shorter. Also, Everton do still describe themselves as part of the big six One more point, I'm not complaining that there are bigger or better teams than us, that's always been the case. It's the magnitude of it. Man City spend about 5 times as much on wages as most other clubs. They can afford to have 2 entire teams of top international players, and sign all the best youngsters and put them all out on loan. It used to be that you could beat them at home, or get them after an european match etc, but it just doesn't seem that way anymore. If Aguero and Sterling are injured, they just play Jesus and Sane instead. It's the difference between thinking "going to be tough today but we might nick something" and "best we can hope for is to keep the score down". Admittedly that's partly a reflection of where Southampton are, but West Ham, Everton, Watford or Leicester clearly aren't faring much better than us in these matches either.

That's not the point I'm making. Yes, Southampton's fall from top half regulars to relegation fodder is our own fault, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the top 5 (which will probably be top 6 once United get their act together) are virtually unbeatable and no matter who the 'also rans' are, there are 14 of them and they don't stand a chance.

But angelman's stats above show that that reasoning is supported by facts, not just some hunch or warm feeling for the good old days. 2015/16 was great because Stoke finished above Chelsea, West Ham and Saints finished above Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal finished above the two Manchester clubs and Leicester finished above them all. At the time it felt like things were changing, but the big clubs responded by spending more than ever before and signing up the best managers in the world and it's now worse than it was before. Regardless of what you think of it as a sport, at the end of last season I saw Osi Umenyiora wax lyrical about the NFL on the BBC show, and he said "the product is so good. The teams you don't expect to win, win, and the teams you'd never think might lose, lose. Everybody has a chance." And I thought, somewhat glumly, "exactly the opposite of the Premier League then".

The top 5 this season have the following records against non-top 5 teams (i.e. excluding matches against eachother): Man City P7 W6 D1 L0 Liverpool P6 W6 D0 L0 Chelsea P7 W5 D2 L0 Arsenal P7 W7 D0 L0 Spurs P8 W7 D0 L1 That's 96 points out of a possible 105. (Not to mention one of the Chelsea draws was against Man Utd). So based on the results so far, if you are one of the 'other' teams, you go into a game against the top 5 with less than 10% chance of getting any points. Likley return from the 10 matches against them is one win (and no draws). It seems like one more recent phenomenom is that it no longer seems to matter whether these teams are home or away. It's never been easy to go to the big grounds, but now it feels like they can turn you over just as easily on your own patch as they can on theirs. All a bit depressing how no-one in the media seems to care about this.

Wow. You should be thrown out of the stadium for even asking that question...! But for a lot of people now, the idea that there might be an issue with sitting in the wrong stand is strange. Eventually the 'weirdos' who don't want to be surrounded by opposition fans will be phased out and football will be a nice vanilla place with no atmosphere where everyone's a winner just for being part of the special day. We're virtually there already.

Yep. I didn't want Tadic to leave and I don't like Les Reed, but I'm not going to blame him for that one. The problem is if the replacement for Tadic (Elyounoussi) isn't very good, and he hasn't shown much so far. But isn't that as much, or more, to do with Ross Wilson?

Austin would probably have scored that chance, but if he was still on the pitch at 90 minutes he wouldn't be up with play to get the chance in the first place. To me that shows why I'd rather give Gabbiadini a run with Ings to form some sort of partnership and use Austin towards the end of the game if we need a goal. But as others have said, if Gabbiadini is only ever going to be used as an 'impact' substitute, he may as well not be here. An admittedly crucial contribution at Swansea aside, he generally doesn't make an impact when he comes on, and certainly seems rusty in front of goal now too.

Didn’t see the game so can’t pass judgement on anything, but re Stephens: Could his (apparently) good game be because Bournemouth play football on the ground and use strikers more about speed and skill, as opposed to crossing it in for big centre forwards? People say Stephens can’t tackle but I’ve often seen him stand players up well. On the other hand he has always looked atrocious dealing with anything in the air.

Because you can't make money on managers (except in rare circumstances like Koeman and even then it was a huge amount). Our whole business model seems to be about return on investment. Which is fine as an overarching concept, I actually agree with it, but don't think we should be quite so strict with it, especially when it comes to the manager.

I'm sceptical about these names - certainly as to whether they would join, but also whether we would even try to approach them in the first place. Our stock was highest after Koeman, and we interviewed (apparently) the likes of Pellegrini and Rudi Garcia. Certainly a good calibre, but are/were they on the same level as Jardim or Sampaoli? We ended up going with Puel who definitely didn't have that level of profile. When Puel left, we weren't at the heights we had been but we should still have been an attractive proposition. As well as Pellegrino, we were linked with de Boer, Stam and Vieira (who at the time had very little experience). These guys are another step down from Pellegrini and Garcia in terms of profile. We are now in a much worse position than we were then, so why would the likes of Jardim and Sampaoli, who may have been a stretch after Koeman left, suddenly be viable now? I'd love to be wrong, maybe the club will surprise me and pull out all the stops to get a great manager in, but based on what's happened before, I'm not getting my hopes up.

I'd say Hartson booting Berkovic in the face was a fairly unusual event

I'm torn really. On one hand it seems like confidence & belief are completely shot, and no matter what tactics or selection the manager makes, as soon as we come under pressure we crumble. But at the same time, isn't the manager responsible for that too? Especially if you think back to last season when that's one of the things Hughes did manage to instill - we were actually having a go and the players looked like they were digging in to save the season. Perhaps it's a combination of two factors - 1) there's a lot more urgency at the end of the season than the start and 2) motivation from a manager wears off (although the best ones sustain it for longer). I think back to when Carvalhal went to Swansea and they saw something of a transformation due to all the little changes he made at the club. But when they hit another slump later there was nothing left in the tank.

I'd probably go with this in terms of what the OP seems to be asking.

Haha, good point.

Sorry but that’s not true, Saints being awful just makes it harder to deal with. Even when we were good I didn’t like the Premier League, although in that season under Koeman it did genuinely feel like things were changing - Leicester won the league from Arsenal, having been chased by Tottenham for most of the season. We were 6th and West Ham also had a good season, think they finished 7th? If Saints were where Bournemouth are now I would be happy because I want us to do as well as possible, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily equate our success with how good ‘modern football’ is.

It's enjoyable seeing your team win, but that doesn't mean that modern football and the Premier League is good. When Saints were doing well it was enjoyable, aside from just enjoying the win, because you know how much the big clubs don't want you competing with them, so it's fun putting their noses out of joint. But I wasn't under any illusion that the Premier League was some amazing organisation/competition we should feel lucky to be part of. And that was a few seasons ago, since then it has got worse, the big clubs realising that they can't possibly let the Leicester thing ever happen again. I find it hard to believe there are fans of any non-top 6 club (and even then, some fans of those clubs see it too) that think there ISN'T a problem with the Premier League to be honest. It's easier to stomach when your team is doing well, but even then - do people not remember how inevitable and depressing it was knowing that any challenge on the big boys was going to be shortlived as they came to take all our best players? Unlimited and unrestricted spending money from super rich owners, stockpiling players, TV money just going on wages sending them spiralling to ridiculous levels (without quality improving), no reduction in ticket prices, flat atmosphere (flatmosphere?), no hope of achieving anything better than 7th... and most of all the organisation chiefs and all the media having their snouts in the trough and therefore not noticing or caring about these issues because the money keeps flowing in.

Agree with you agreeing with Cabrone and S-Clarke, they both summed up what I think. Not sure about needing a phoenix club though, it's not like our club is unrecognisable from the one we started supporting 10, 20 or 50 years ago, it's just they are getting lots of things wrong.

How many good chances did Chelsea create from open play while we were playing deep and inviting pressure? I seem to recall their best chances came on the counter attack when we going for it a bit more. If we worked harder, they would still have most of the ball, the difference is our players would tire faster and they would exploit it much more easily. Just playing devil's advocate.

So on that penalty... it should have been one, I agree. But, from a hypothetical point of view and not because I'm trying to justify them not getting it (they scored anyway, so it didn't matter): Giroud touches the ball to the side, in the direction that the defender is trying to play the ball anyway. Giroud doesn't follow the ball himself though. If Giroud had played the ball in front of him instead of flicking it out wide, it either would have been a blatant penalty or Hoedt would have won the ball. Can you see where I'm going with this? If the striker plays the ball with the sole purpose of winning a penalty, to the extent that he is no longer in control of it (which I know in this case is debatable), isn't it a bit harsh to give a penalty? Hopefully you can see the case I'm trying to make - I'm assuming the rules don't make such allowances and that it was technically a penalty so not claiming the ref got it right.

While I agree that playing with more tempo would be better - it saw us create chances and helped generate a bit more support from the crowd - it's worth noting that Chelsea scored their first and second goals just after some of our best spells in the game. I know the second is misleading because it was from a set piece, but if we go for it a bit more we can't be surprised if we're then cut open at the back. Whether it's players or manager or a bit of both, we don't seem to be good enough to be an attacking threat AND defensively solid.