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Just got back from the game thread...


Saint Garrett

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Lallana didn't get booked,it was Chaplow and Hammond, their 6th and 9th of the season respectively.Amazed that no-one has picked up on the fact that Hammond is now just 1 yellow away from a 2 matcher with about 7 or 8 games to go before the next

amnesty.

 

I guess you wern't at the game and are going by some on-line report.

 

Lallana was booked, just as the added time started, for dissent. It was right in front of me and was a result of the ref giving a goal kick, when Barnard had tried to cross from the by-line.

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Held off until now to allow my emotions to stabilise having spent 2.5-hours driving back home after the match.

 

Adkins had a game plan which was scuppered with the first attack of the game. Without the 3-in midfield what chance do we stand out fighting 5 and sometimes 6 people crowding the space?

 

N'Guesaan and Lalanna are not combative midfield players - Lalanna is a skillfull forward that needs the ball in to his feet out wide or the second ball off the the target men. Last night both did their best in a make shift set up. I thought generally our passing was OK but we did resort to hoof when there were no other options. Our finishing was blighted by good defending to the goal line and some good stops by the keeper. The fact is we should have converted at least one chance.

 

The communication betwen Barnard and Lambert seemed non existent at times both clattering into each other at most hoofs forward in the last 20-mins! Why do we insist on hoofing down the middle. At Oldham it worked really well hoofing it out wide to Lambert - but LAncashire seemed to cope easily with everything we threw at the Walsall defence!

 

I thought it was a fantastic turn out and the atmosphere was generally good until frustrated with decisions and time wasting some fans took up residence on the perimeter!

 

Inconsistent refereeing again, but I thought the pitch held up OK - so what excuse do we have? I would say for all the alleged quality and depth in the squad we are not clinical enough or creative enough now we have injuries to key players like Guly & Schneiderlin - not to mention Forte and Chamberlain.

 

So onwards to Colchester - and I expect much of the same. If the first or second attempt goes in the confidence will return - if we miss a few opportunities and Colchester take control of the middle and make us play out from the back, I fully expect more of the same. As fans we set ourselves up for falls - our rivals call us arrogant, however even they are saying with the money etc we should be doing better! Time to listen? Nah we will still be out of this league come May 2011 - not sure how but you have to still believe!

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How the **** did we not win that? All over them for most of the game. Easily had enough chances to win comfortably. Was a definite handball near the end IMO so should have had a penalty. Just one of those days I'm afraid. They had about one shot all game and scored from it, we had about 15 and didn't score once. I spoke to a few people coming out the ground who said we were awful and it was one of the worst performances all season, but I completely disagree. Glad to see plenty in this thread saying we played well too. Great turn out from Saints fans (as usual). Disappointing but time to move on. Colchester is a must win now.

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Lallana didn't get booked,it was Chaplow and Hammond, their 6th and 9th of the season respectively.Amazed that no-one has picked up on the fact that Hammond is now just 1 yellow away from a 2 matcher with about 7 or 8 games to go before the next

amnesty.

 

Lallana was definitely booked for dissent near the end.

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How the **** did we not win that? All over them for most of the game. Easily had enough chances to win comfortably. Was a definite handball near the end IMO so should have had a penalty. Just one of those days I'm afraid. They had about one shot all game and scored from it, we had about 15 and didn't score once. I spoke to a few people coming out the ground who said we were awful and it was one of the worst performances all season, but I completely disagree. Glad to see plenty in this thread saying we played well too. Great turn out from Saints fans (as usual). Disappointing but time to move on. Colchester is a must win now.

 

They obviously didn't go to Hartlepool then, a mate with us last night, made the long haul up there and he said that we were much much MUCH worse than last night last week. Trouble is, as I said earlier, there is so much desire and passion for us to win our way out of this league that sane judgement of the teams performance goes right out of the window; especially 10 minutes after the final whistle of a defeat.

 

Glad to have it confirmed that I know my Lallanas from my Hammonds re the booking.

;)

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They obviously didn't go to Hartlepool then, a mate with us last night, made the long haul up there and he said that we were much much MUCH worse than last night last week. Trouble is, as I said earlier, there is so much desire and passion for us to win our way out of this league that sane judgement of the teams performance goes right out of the window; especially 10 minutes after the final whistle of a defeat.

 

Glad to have it confirmed that I know my Lallanas from my Hammonds re the booking.

;)

 

Hartlepool was much worse, and there have probably been about 12 games worse than the one last night, including some games that we've won. If we keep creating as many chances as we did last night we will win most games. No need to panic at all IMO

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Adkins lack of ambition in January will be the reason why we don't win promotion
How can you make an informed decision about his ambition in January? For all we know he had loads of ambitious targets, but the club (not Adkins specifically) failed to land any of them. Edited by kpturner
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I'm surprised that many are saying we played hoof ball last night when Merrington suggested we did that only when we ran out of ideas after squandering 20 odd chances. Surely you dont create 20 odd chances by simply playing hoof ball.

 

Do people confuse hoofball (which is aimless long balls to big frontman to batter the opposition) with direct play (which in my eyes is shifting the ball quickly forward to front / wide men with support to put opponents off balance)? This is a genuine question as I don't think we play long ball tactics as our stock game but do think we use direct play at times to mix things up.

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I'm surprised that many are saying we played hoof ball last night when Merrington suggested we did that only when we ran out of ideas after squandering 20 odd chances. Surely you dont create 20 odd chances by simply playing hoof ball.

 

Do people confuse hoofball (which is aimless long balls to big frontman to batter the opposition) with direct play (which in my eyes is shifting the ball quickly forward to front / wide men with support to put opponents off balance)? This is a genuine question as I don't think we play long ball tactics as our stock game but do think we use direct play at times to mix things up.

 

I think at certain points of the game we played longer ball than our style of play is used to, but it often worked with Lambert collecting and playing it out wide. We certainly played well, you can't create a shooting opportunity every 4 and a half minutes (on average) if you play badly.

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Agree pretty much with what everyone has posted so far, we do seem to lack that killer touch or guile.

I thought Walsall put a lot of sterling effort into their defending which at times bordered on the incredulous, but still the chances went begging.

Going to bed now for a sulk!!

Then we don't have the most talented side in the division, do we?
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What a load of guff so p1ssed off these results will cost us a auto promotion spot Morgan went off injured & after that our passing game reverted to lump it to Lambo not good enough you have to take 1 or 2 of 20 chances to be fair only about 4 or 5 of them were clear cut.

 

A defeat here is tough to take they offered little or no threat going forward terrible mistake for there goal a draw would have been harsh but to lose is a kick in the plums.

 

Good turnout by the Saints fans the bar staff in the supporters club which is ace by the way said they have never seen so many fans there which says a lot about Walsall.

 

I am starting to lose faith in a automactic place & resigning myself to a play off slot which is pants unless we win it I thought NA was right to get Barny & Morgan in the starting 11 but not a the expense of Chambo and whilst we dominated a created more than enough chances we were far from on song.

 

Promotion is so important to us this season without it we face a massive clear out of players & will have to start again come on Saints sort it out FFS

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I quite enjoyed it in a 'standing-under-a-cold-shower-tearing-up-ten-pound-notes' sort of a way.

 

New ground, decent turn-out from Saints, typically rumbustuous lower-league game, lots of grunt and graft from both sides, thrills and spills all the way in the second half, a fat keeper that had a Tomaczeski of a game, and a dodgy ref too - what more could you want from a game of football in league one?

 

I'm not sure that NA can do much more with the hand he's been dealt? He picked the team most people on here would have gone for (Jaidi for the physical away game, Harding over Dickson, he started Schneiderlin and kept Chaplow in too, he started Barnard over Gully, he has Lallana coming back to fitness; the early change was forced by injury and N'Guess did 'OK' ie no better or no worse than most other Saints players, AOC no great impact when he came on).

 

Adkin's was also hampered in the January window, it looks like he identified players but it's fairly clear Saints either a) haven't got any money or b) won't pay the prices being asked - I think we have to very quickly (ie this summer) get our collective heads around the fact that we will 'always' be asked to pay more for our players, and if AOC does go for silly money then that situation will only get worse rather than better.

 

We are also playing under the weight of ridiculous expectation (manager/players/fans) - how does NC's mooted plans for a 40k-50k stadium and talk of the Champions League help the current situation? Let's be quietly ambitious, but let's make sure we deal with the reality of finding a way of picking up 90 points in a Division 3 season first.

 

I constantly hear and read that 'Saints have the best squad in this league', 'Saints would come top 6 in the league above' etc etc ... all that counts for diddly squat when the Walsall goal lives the sort of charmed life it did last night.

 

Too many fans seem to completely over-look that the other side has something to play for too, and shock! horror! they also have decent players who put in a shift; in the last 2 and a half weeks I've seen Saints twice, Harlepool, Walsall, Charlton twice, Peterborough, and Exeter and across those 4 games I think it's fair to conclude that there is very little difference between the teams in the league and on their day 'all can beat all'.

 

Saints have lacked 'consistency' for years and that's probably the key thing you need for promtion and it appears it may be the one thing that money can't buy.

 

Not sure where we go from here - we could still finish almost anywwhere from 2nd to 10th(!) - the club motto? 'Never easy, never dull'.

 

Excellent post especially when identifying that Adkins picked the side the fans wanted and the restrictions on transfers. I'm not sure 10th place is even a remote possibility.

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What a load of guff so p1ssed off these results will cost us a auto promotion spot Morgan went off injured & after that our passing game reverted to lump it to Lambo not good enough you have to take 1 or 2 of 20 chances to be fair only about 4 or 5 of them were clear cut.

 

we didn't create all 20 chances before Morgan went off, so some of the chances came as a result of the hoof ball after he was injured.

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I'm surprised that many are saying we played hoof ball last night when Merrington suggested we did that only when we ran out of ideas after squandering 20 odd chances. Surely you dont create 20 odd chances by simply playing hoof ball.

 

Do people confuse hoofball (which is aimless long balls to big frontman to batter the opposition) with direct play (which in my eyes is shifting the ball quickly forward to front / wide men with support to put opponents off balance)? This is a genuine question as I don't think we play long ball tactics as our stock game but do think we use direct play at times to mix things up.

 

I do think you make a good point about the differences between say, long passing, a 'direct' style, and more general 'hoofing'. Considering as our best 'long passer' went off in the first 3 minutes maybe that game plan went out of the window a bit? I did see some accurate 'long passes' from Harding, Hammond and sometimes Chaplow. I also saw a lot of 'hoofing' from Davis, Jaidi, Fonte, Butterfield (especially, but he often had very little on in front of him), and Chaplow.

 

In the first half we tried to play a long-pass, counter-attacking game, often trying to hit RL early in the air and him flicking on first time for runners to get onto, this was fairly effective and produced several shots on goal. When this tactic wasn't on we often by-passed midfield with a more general 'hoof' to no one in particular. The only players that really had the ball on the ground in the first half were N'Guessen and AL and they were often double-teamed and pressed high up the pitch to limit their effectiveness (again we have no fast forward to run in behind and recieve a ball down the line).

 

Second half Saints went very 'direct', trying to get the ball into the box as often as possible, usually for RL but also for LB and Chaplow who also got fd well. Very congested in the Walsall box with often 4 defenders in the CB area and them keeping bodies behind the ball and in front of the goal at all times. Our best chances of scoring always looked like a set play and corners looked much better than they usually do: Fonte had at least 4 attempts on target, one stunningly saved and one cleared off the line (know that cos my nipper had 2 quid on him at 40-1! everytime Fonte was denied we were the ones shouting '80-effing-quid'!). Jaidi also had 3 headed attempts and his spectacular volley that flew wide.

 

Saints did try and play through on the ground as well (LB, AL, Chaplow, AOC) but often the penalty area was just too congested to find the final pass - Walsall showed what can be done defensively if every person puts everything they've got on the line - not pretty to watch but they won't care about that and you have to give them credit for playing with that spirit in their circumstances.

 

In answer to your original point - yes there was an awful lot of 'hoofing' (a bad thing) but there was also plenty of legitimate and deliberate 'long ball' and 'direct play' which on another day would have resulted in a comfortable victory.

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I'm surprised that many are saying we played hoof ball last night when Merrington suggested we did that only when we ran out of ideas after squandering 20 odd chances. Surely you dont create 20 odd chances by simply playing hoof ball.

 

Do people confuse hoofball (which is aimless long balls to big frontman to batter the opposition) with direct play (which in my eyes is shifting the ball quickly forward to front / wide men with support to put opponents off balance)? This is a genuine question as I don't think we play long ball tactics as our stock game but do think we use direct play at times to mix things up.

 

Absolutely, last night wasn't hoof ball at all. It was direct pressure for the large majority of the 2nd half creating super chances that on another night would have seen us run out comfortable winners. Wasn't to be. Playing like that against walsall 10 times would probably yield 8 wins, last night was the 20%.. does make the next 4 games or so very very important to keep in the hunt for auto. And the game at dean court could even prove decisive come the end of the campaign.

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Some of the posts on the match reaction thread beggars beleif.

 

 

We have played so so so much worse this season and won.

 

Was just one of those games.

 

I agree but the after match thread is really just people letting of steam. I am glad we are away this weekend as I think there would be a tense atmosphere at St Mary's.

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Agree with most of the above. I felt by adopting a norrow diamond we were forced to play through the middle. IMO we should have the talent against this sort of side to stretch the game by using the width available to us. Thier was acres of space on wither touchline that both our wide(ish) men and the full backs failed to take advantage of.

 

Why do we need to adapat our tactics to match walsall when we should be good enough to dictate the play. Maybe we would leave ourselves slightly exposed at times through the middle but IMO we would have destroyed them out wide.

 

Again seems to be a far more balanced discussion from those who witnessed the game than some who feel the need to lose thier heads in the post match overreaction thread.

 

Anyway wasnt the best performance I have seen from saints away from home and I am as diappointed as most but Ive seen far worse and actually got more points (Ala Wycombe away last year)

 

For the record N'geusson (Sp.) IMO is a fringe player at the very best. We have gone backwards since last season with the loss of Antonio and Papa and thier creatiivity is sorely missing this season particularly as an option off the bench when we are up against it.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/w/walsall/9411826.stm

 

While keeping his feet on the ground, Smith expressed his pride in the Saddlers' achievement at beating one of the favourites for promotion.

 

"It's a fantastic result for the team and the football club. Yes, we had a charmed life at times, and maybe a little bit of luck was with us today, but there have certainly been games this season where we haven't had that.

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Jaidi could hardly be faulted for the goal it just skewed the wrong way as he tried to clear. In the video it looked like Fonte was caught blindsided by Macken and Butterfield was caught square and unable to cover. I don't blame him as he was exposed but I did think Davis was a bit too far out and might have been better not coming quite so far, allowing Fonte just a little more time to challenge Macken and less easy to easily lift the ball over him.

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I do think you make a good point about the differences between say, long passing, a 'direct' style, and more general 'hoofing'. Considering as our best 'long passer' went off in the first 3 minutes maybe that game plan went out of the window a bit? I did see some accurate 'long passes' from Harding, Hammond and sometimes Chaplow. I also saw a lot of 'hoofing' from Davis, Jaidi, Fonte, Butterfield (especially, but he often had very little on in front of him), and Chaplow.

 

In the first half we tried to play a long-pass, counter-attacking game, often trying to hit RL early in the air and him flicking on first time for runners to get onto, this was fairly effective and produced several shots on goal. When this tactic wasn't on we often by-passed midfield with a more general 'hoof' to no one in particular. The only players that really had the ball on the ground in the first half were N'Guessen and AL and they were often double-teamed and pressed high up the pitch to limit their effectiveness (again we have no fast forward to run in behind and recieve a ball down the line).

 

Second half Saints went very 'direct', trying to get the ball into the box as often as possible, usually for RL but also for LB and Chaplow who also got fd well. Very congested in the Walsall box with often 4 defenders in the CB area and them keeping bodies behind the ball and in front of the goal at all times. Our best chances of scoring always looked like a set play and corners looked much better than they usually do: Fonte had at least 4 attempts on target, one stunningly saved and one cleared off the line (know that cos my nipper had 2 quid on him at 40-1! everytime Fonte was denied we were the ones shouting '80-effing-quid'!). Jaidi also had 3 headed attempts and his spectacular volley that flew wide.

 

Saints did try and play through on the ground as well (LB, AL, Chaplow, AOC) but often the penalty area was just too congested to find the final pass - Walsall showed what can be done defensively if every person puts everything they've got on the line - not pretty to watch but they won't care about that and you have to give them credit for playing with that spirit in their circumstances.

 

In answer to your original point - yes there was an awful lot of 'hoofing' (a bad thing) but there was also plenty of legitimate and deliberate 'long ball' and 'direct play' which on another day would have resulted in a comfortable victory.

 

Thanks for the summary, looks like we mixed it up a lot to try to break the deadlock but it wasn't to be last night.

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Nah we will still be out of this league come May 2011 - not sure how but you have to still believe!

 

I didn't go and I've had hours to calm down.

 

I don't agree with above statement - Hartlepool United, Notts County, Tranmere Rovers, Walsall, these are all bread and butter games to gain points so that if you drop points to the top sides in tough games you give yourself a chance. If we can't beat these we'll never win at Bournemouth or Brighton.

 

I've fallen out of love with this poxy club and I'm sick of 'if we play like this every week we'll win more than we'll lose' and 'we brush ourselves down and get ready for the next game' and 'the training has being going well everything is great in the camp'. I'm sick of people taking the **** out of me at work every other week.

 

When's our ****ing turn then? When's our turn?

 

Blah, blah ****ing blah. Put up or shut up put some ****ing points on the board. Do you think the Championship is going to be easier?

 

****s every one of them.

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I didn't go and I've had hours to calm down.

 

I don't agree with above statement - Hartlepool United, Notts County, Tranmere Rovers, Walsall, these are all bread and butter games to gain points so that if you drop points to the top sides in tough games you give yourself a chance. If we can't beat these we'll never win at Bournemouth or Brighton.

 

I've fallen out of love with this poxy club and I'm sick of 'if we play like this every week we'll win more than we'll lose' and 'we brush ourselves down and get ready for the next game' and 'the training has being going well everything is great in the camp'. I'm sick of people taking the **** out of me at work every other week.

 

When's our ****ing turn then? When's our turn?

 

Blah, blah ****ing blah. Put up or shut up put some ****ing points on the board. Do you think the Championship is going to be easier?

 

****s every one of them.

 

If you didn't go why bring your negative drivel onto this thread?

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We have now lost 0-1 against 3 of the bottom 5 and have lost 4 of our 10 games against the bottom 7 this season. To spell it out, that is 12 points thrown away, 14 if you include the poor draw at Yeovil. The reality is we should be blowing these teams away but we aren't. Wallsall were as bas a side as i've seen, they defended bravely and we didn't have a lot of luck, dodgy ref, losing Schniderlin, these things didn't help but there are no excuses for last night, we were playing away at a side that has lost more home games this season than any other in this division, this should have been a banker. Make no mistake, depsite the stats, this was a poor display.

 

I've not had a chance to post today as got back from the game late last night and been away all day with work. Bad finishing in the first half, 5 times we were through on goal in the first half, 5 times the keeper made decent, but not great saves, in reality if he'd let them in, they'd have gone down as a goal keeping error such was the poor quality of the finishing. The second half our attempts at goal came from scrambled crosses rather than clear cut chances and the longer the game went on the more we restorted to humping it with long, hopefull balls, quite often resulting in Lambert and Barnard crashing into each other. Their goal was yet another individual error, Jaidi played well apart from that but yet again another cock up has cost us a goal.

 

Sorry but this "it was one of those nights" "we lost a game, it happens" is starting to wear a bit thin now. 14 points dropped against sides in the bottom 7, lost nearly half of our games against teams in the bottom 7. This is not coincidence, this isn't bad luck, bad referees, poor pitches. This says to me we have a team that lacks bottle and fight, that cant get up for games like this and possibly we have a manager that cannot motivate the players to get up for games like this. If a team cant cope with the pressure of having to win away at Wallsall, the worst side at home in this division, how are they going to cope with a play off semi final or final? For the first time, i am seriously doubting if this team has what it takes to go up.

Edited by Turkish
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Oh yeah lol@all the Saints fans singing "Come on you reds" last night when Walsall were the ones in red.

 

I think some people are a bit stupid. It's me you can hear correction everybody at the beginning I think.

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The only times we really threatened them and worried them was when we played the ball along the ground. The fact we lost shows that saying there was no point in top-tapping it around was wrong.

 

What, when the only goal of the game came from a long ball in behind a defender ?

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Because it is my right to do so - as it is yours to ignore it.

 

Forty-one years I've been supporting and following this club - and we've had about five or six 'good' seasons but the promise by the club of so much more.

 

The game on Tuesday just about has done it for me - everything you read on here, everything you see on the OS and anywhere else related to Southampton FC has been said so many times before that it might as well be one giant season.

 

Don't you ever just get fed up of hearing the same stuff ? Apart from reading my negative drivel that is?

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We have now lost 0-1 against 3 of the bottom 5 and have lost 4 of our 10 games against the bottom 7 this season. To spell it out, that is 12 points thrown away, 14 if you include the poor draw at Yeovil. The reality is we should be blowing these teams away but we aren't. Wallsall were as bas a side as i've seen, they defended bravely and we didn't have a lot of luck, dodgy ref, losing Schniderlin, these things didn't help but there are no excuses for last night, we were playing away at a side that has lost more home games this season than any other in this division, this should have been a banker. Make no mistake, depsite the stats, this was a poor display.

 

I've not had a chance to post today as got back from the game late last night and been away all day with work. Bad finishing in the first half, 5 times we were through on goal in the first half, 5 times the keeper made decent, but not great saves, in reality if he'd let them in, they'd have gone down as a goal keeping error such was the poor quality of the finishing. The second half our attempts at goal came from scrambled crosses rather than clear cut chances and the longer the game went on the more we restorted to humping it with long, hopefull balls, quite often resulting in Lambert and Barnard crashing into each other. Their goal was yet another individual error, Jaidi played well apart from that but yet again another cock up has cost us a goal.

 

Sorry but this "it was one of those nights" "we lost a game, it happens" is starting to wear a bit thin now. 14 points dropped against sides in the bottom 7, lost nearly half of our games against teams in the bottom 7. This is not coincidence, this isn't bad luck, bad referees, poor pitches. This says to me we have a team that lacks bottle and fight, that cant get up for games like this and possibly we have a manager that cannot motivate the players to get up for games like this. If a team cant cope with the pressure of having to win away at Wallsall, the worst side at home in this division, how are they going to cope with a play off semi final or final? For the first time, i am seriously doubting if this team has what it takes to go up.

 

Thank you for posting exactly how I feel. You can be called negative now instead of me - and at least you went to game.

 

Exactly. How. I. Feel. With brass knobs on.

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Because it is my right to do so - as it is yours to ignore it.

 

Forty-one years I've been supporting and following this club - and we've had about five or six 'good' seasons but the promise by the club of so much more.

 

The game on Tuesday just about has done it for me - everything you read on here, everything you see on the OS and anywhere else related to Southampton FC has been said so many times before that it might as well be one giant season.

 

Don't you ever just get fed up of hearing the same stuff ? Apart from reading my negative drivel that is?

 

 

What do you want me to do? Stop supporting Saints?

 

Its a poor result, but i'll head up to Colchester hoping we can win.

 

Not have a stupid knee jerk reaction like yours.

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What do you want me to do? Stop supporting Saints?

 

Its a poor result, but i'll head up to Colchester hoping we can win.

 

Not have a stupid knee jerk reaction like yours.

 

Fair enough - I can't afford it anymore (or for many years) but you're not going to get an argument out of me. You are entitled to your beliefs and opinions.

Edited by David Strover
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