Still early days...??

[NickG]

Am I alone in still not knowing how we will do this season? And thinking its far too early to call for the manager's head?

 

 

7 games is always very early to look at the season....the last 7 games tell you far more!

 

 

We have had a very hard start.

 

After 7 games we have scored 12, bettered only by the top 5 plus Fulham. If we can score that readily against top sides I can't see us struggling for goals...often the reason teams get relegated.

 

Last year only Man U, Man City and Chelsea managed to match or better 12 in their first 7.

 

We are 4th from bottom. After 7 WBA were 4th from bottom. They had lost at home to Man U, lost at home to stoke, drawn at home to fulham.

 

WBA finished 10th.

 

We have only just started to see benefits of new CB pairing and Ramirez after their signings and international window.

 

 

Of course a team getting relegated will start slowly - but so will one comfortably mid-table.

 

 

The moaning about subs often sound like kids looking superficially wanting their bestest player on cos he will score...not if we don't get the ball he wont.

 

Saturday could have been very different if the CBs could have stayed together (let alone if Ramierez played, much bigger loss imho that Berbatov).

 

An unlucky OG changes things hugely.

 

 

If Cork had been fit and had come on instead of Guly...etc

 

We lost, we are a newly promoted side, new players, excellent manager.

 

Personally, gut feeling is we will be comfortably ok. But reckon its another 3 or 4 games before we will really see which way season will go.

 

I have been embarrassed by how quickly fans turned against players and manager on here. Surprised Fonte had nerce to turn up!!

[St Chalet]

We are top scores better only by most of the teams that have played us, tells its own story.

 

We have had injuries and a tough few fixtures. That said he have continually compounded this by producing basic errors, if we can't cut this of it we will be in trouble.

[doddisalegend]

benefits of our new CB pairing?

[Big_Bald_Si]

I still think we'll struggle. However, this is what I was expecting, as we're a promoted side that have come up off the back of two successive promotions.

 

Certainly no delusion here. It's frustrating seeing our comedy defending each game, but is this much of a surprise? We weren't that strong defensively last year, we conceded plenty of bad goals. I don't think we can suddenly expect to have a great defence overnight - especially when our defensive additions include a young, promising right back that's not played in the premiership before, and an unknown Japanese centre back.

[Manuel]

I said 16th at the start and, if we're lucky enough to stay relatively injury free, I'm confident we can still achieve that with the squad and manager we have.

[paris]

Great first half performance yesterday , second half not so good , imho need one ot two still to come in ,Gazza , Punch and Fox stood out for me .....

[david in sweden]

now there you go Nick G,

.....coming in with a well-argued, sensible and patient response to our opening few weeks in the top division, but BE CAREFUL now.....

....you're going to get a lot of flak from the "anti-Cortese / Adkins out " brigade who can't stand it whenever we don't rule a game.... and come away with 3 points from every match.

 

This is the sort of post that normally turns up ......after about 200 idiotic diatribes about our failings, and now we have to prepare ourselves for the onslaught of " experts " who want to sack NA (without having an available replacement)..., and will criticise every player in the club - even though we can't buy in any new until January.....and all your logical explanations will anger Turkish for one, who doesn't like " hypotheticals" ......ah well ....

 

I thought it was a good post though, and I agree with every word.......

[maysie]

Anyone claiming they know how this season will end up either hasn't seen a football season before or gives their opinion far too much weight.

 

I've seen countless worse teams stay up and better teams go down. Some improve over a season, some get worse, some stay erratic or just plain bad. I shouldn't be surprised by the reaction, it's predictable stuff from predictable people and depresses me mainly because they don't appear to learn anything despite watching season after season. It leaves little point in conversation or debate as no logic is getting through sadly.

 

From saints start all I've learned is we can give good sides a good game, we can create quite a lot, Lambert won't be afraid of anyone and our defence is giving away as many goals as we expected. I wouldn't be surprised to see saints improve and finish mid-table, and wouldn't be surprised to see them continue like this and struggle to stay up. Depends on injuries, Adkins management, individual errors, the influence of Boruc, form and January defensive signings.

 

The main disappointment is how little anyone seems to be enjoying any of it.

 

Bit in bold sums it up for me, yesterday wasn't great,but it was still exciting when we piled on the pressure and got the late goal,

[doddisalegend]

Anyone claiming they know how this season will end up either hasn't seen a football season before or gives their opinion far too much weight.

 

I've seen countless worse teams stay up and better teams go down. Some improve over a season, some get worse, some stay erratic or just plain bad. I shouldn't be surprised by the reaction, it's predictable stuff from predictable people and depresses me mainly because they don't appear to learn anything despite watching season after season. It leaves little point in conversation or debate as no logic is getting through sadly.

 

From saints start all I've learned is we can give good sides a good game, we can create quite a lot, Lambert won't be afraid of anyone and our defence is giving away as many goals as we expected. I wouldn't be surprised to see saints improve and finish mid-table, and wouldn't be surprised to see them continue like this and struggle to stay up. Depends on injuries, Adkins management, individual errors, the influence of Boruc, form and January defensive signings.

 

The main disappointment is how little anyone seems to be enjoying any of it.

 

Maybe we've changed as fans in the years out of the top flight...

[Ohio Saint]

The main disappointment is how little anyone seems to be enjoying any of it.

 

I'll +1 that sentiment too.

 

I just watched the highlights on saints player. I was a bit too beered up when I was watching the stream (Well, it started late here, 8:30 am)

The highlight version certainly airbrushed the second half, but in all honesty, we still should have easily won, and were victims of a little bad luck in not scoring more.

 

I still think we will have enough about us to beat enough of the other crap teams and get a win here and there against better teams playing badly on the day.....We will be OK by the end of the season, I think (Hope) I can't see us being consistently bad, or consistently good. That should be enough. IMO

[Giordano]

[The main disappointment is how little anyone seems to be enjoying any of it.

 

Very true indeed. This Forum is full of some poor tortured souls to say the least. Those who have supported Saints for more than the last two years are aware that this is business as usual but thats scant consolation.

 

It really is quite amusing to see how much of a froth people can build up with self important self appointed expert status indignity over what Nigel did next. It's never been clearer to me how ignorant and how fickle we supporters can be. And you wonder why some players and even the clubs can regard the support with contempt sometimes. I've lost count of the Managers we have had in the recent past but I like Nigel the best and i want him to stay. I believe in his philosophy, even if it's out of a book, but I also understand that the football evolution is not linear. There are ups and downs. Two straight years of ups must be followed by some struggle. To think otherwise is, frankly, ludicrous.

 

Name one team in the last twenty years thats got promoted from div 1 to championship and then to dominate the EPL? None, just to survive is amazing - ask Norwich and Swansea. What we are doing at Southampton is virtually unprecedented. And thanks in no small part to Nigel.

[Whitey Grandad]

Yes, early days, we need another 3 to 5 games to get a better perspective.

[The9]

Name one team in the last twenty years thats got promoted from div 1 to championship and then to dominate the EPL? None, just to survive is amazing - ask Norwich and Swansea. What we are doing at Southampton is virtually unprecedented. And thanks in no small part to Nigel.

 

Newcastle didn't do badly from 1993-1997... completely irrelevant of course, and they won nowt.

 

Not sure how "unprecedented" doing something Norwich did the season before us can be considered either, but other than that, I broadly agree with you. The only people getting in a massive lather are people who like to get in a massive lather and generally have ridiculous expectations based on ignorance to begin with.

[The9]

Oh, and I'm not enjoying it much, but then that's hardly a surprise, we've been braced for this for almost a year and it's everything we expected.

[rpb]

Yes, early days, we need another 3 to 5 games to get a better perspective.

 

Indeed - in the year we were relegated from the PL we had 4 points after 7 games and were in 17th position (the same as now). The next four games brought 4 draws and a loss - if we could improve on that I would be more optimistic.

[Whitey Grandad]

Indeed - in the year we were relegated from the PL we had 4 points after 7 games and were in 17th position (the same as now). The next four games brought 4 draws and a loss - if we could improve on that I would be more optimistic.

4 draws and a loss in 4 games? I'd hope we could do better than that!

[rpb]

4 draws and a loss in 4 games? I'd hope we could do better than that!

 

Oops - 4 draws and a loss in five games. It took us 17 more games to get two more wins though.

[Doctoroncall]

Maybe. Just seems to be a huge gap between all the expectations of fighting relegation and the reaction to not winning. Fighting relegation means not winning much. Finishing 15th means no winning much. There'll be weaknesses. Whining about those weaknesses rather than supporting the team is annoying. It's as if some can't handle not being near the top and expect a perfect squad. That's before we get to the comments of transfer activity which are so ill-informed and reactionary I'm amazed they come from people even capable of turning on a computer.

 

I think it's a bit of frustration. I knew it was going to be hard and the team is defensively weak but has a great forward line. Improvement in working together as a team ( supporting respective team mates e.g. Punch and Yoshi defensively), keeping the ball more and reducing the number of individual errors will see us alright. Just a question of how long it will take.

[Ohio Saint]

Oddly enough, going a goal up so early was even a bit bitter-sweet for me. My immediate was yes! Goal! That was quickly followed by the realisatition that most likely, it would be be as good as it gets for the rest of the game, and that a struggle to hold on to that lead might mean a very long 90 minutes. My expectations are certainly getting a rebuild after the last 3 years!

[Fitzhugh Fella]

We lost, we are a newly promoted side, new players, excellent manager.

 

Personally, gut feeling is we will be comfortably ok. But reckon its another 3 or 4 games before we will really see which way season will go.

 

I have been embarrassed by how quickly fans turned against players and manager on here. Surprised Fonte had nerce to turn up!!

 

 

Actually we drew but don't let that small detail get in the way of an otherwise excellent propaganda exercise

[VectisSaint]

If Cork had been fit and had come on instead of Guly...etc

 

We lost, we are a newly promoted side, new players, excellent manager.

Would have been very odd to replace Lambert with Cork, at least Guly made sense and played well.

I guess you were one of the thousands that streamed out before we scored given you think we lost.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Would have been very odd to replace Lambert with Cork, at least Guly made sense and played well.

I guess you were one of the thousands that streamed out before we scored given you think we lost.

 

 

Cruel but fair

[Miltonroader07]

When do the Early Days officially end please

[Gingeletiss]

Am I alone in still not knowing how we will do this season? And thinking its far too early to call for the manager's head?

 

 

7 games is always very early to look at the season....the last 7 games tell you far more!

 

 

We have had a very hard start.

 

After 7 games we have scored 12, bettered only by the top 5 plus Fulham. If we can score that readily against top sides I can't see us struggling for goals...often the reason teams get relegated.

 

Last year only Man U, Man City and Chelsea managed to match or better 12 in their first 7.

 

We are 4th from bottom. After 7 WBA were 4th from bottom. They had lost at home to Man U, lost at home to stoke, drawn at home to fulham.

 

WBA finished 10th.

 

We have only just started to see benefits of new CB pairing and Ramirez after their signings and international window.

 

 

Of course a team getting relegated will start slowly - but so will one comfortably mid-table.

 

 

The moaning about subs often sound like kids looking superficially wanting their bestest player on cos he will score...not if we don't get the ball he wont.

 

Saturday could have been very different if the CBs could have stayed together (let alone if Ramierez played, much bigger loss imho that Berbatov).

 

An unlucky OG changes things hugely.

 

 

If Cork had been fit and had come on instead of Guly...etc

 

We lost, we are a newly promoted side, new players, excellent manager.

 

Personally, gut feeling is we will be comfortably ok. But reckon its another 3 or 4 games before we will really see which way season will go.

 

I have been embarrassed by how quickly fans turned against players and manager on here. Surprised Fonte had nerce to turn up!!

 

Great post............bed wetters please read!

[acersaint]

Great post............bed wetters please read!

 

Very good post. All my friends who supprt other clubs, especially a Villa fan who is a football coach, all reckon that we will not go down and they are not just being nice!

[The Cat]

My Palace mate was calling for Dougie Freedman to go after they lost to Watford and Bristol City. 6 wins and a draw out of the last 7 games and he's now a great manager.

 

Funny how quickly perceptions change.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Great post............bed wetters please read!

 

Can you not think of a more intelligent insult to people (and I am not one on this particular subject) who just happen to have an alternative view?

You come across as someone who is is very immature, why not just give us your reasoning without resulting to cheap lemming-like nastiness?

[Wade Garrett]

Great post............bed wetters please read!

 

Bed wetter? Well done, you're obviously an uber fan because of your loyalty to Adkins.

 

Personally, I think he's out of his depth and not handling things too well. But I support Saints and like you want us to do well.

 

I just think the way of achieving this is different to you. Why does that make me a 'bed wetter'?

 

I don't agree that much with the original post either. We seem to make the same mistakes week in week out. The defence don't look well organised, or well-drilled. I am also a little baffled by Nigel's tactics and substitutions.

 

That's just my opinion, I know a lot of people disagree and that's fair enough. It would be pretty boring if we all thought the same.

[sad saints fan]

When do the Early Days officially end please

 

In about 32 games time>

[Thedelldays]

My Palace mate was calling for Dougie Freedman to go after they lost to Watford and Bristol City. 6 wins and a draw out of the last 7 games and he's now a great manager.

 

Funny how quickly perceptions change.

 

it is...however, cant see us getting any better...

 

next 2 games...0 points....

what is worse...earlier on in the year, I would have been gutted to come away from upton park with a defeat...

now, I just hope we keep the score down

 

heading into game 10 on 4 points is pure, unadulterated relegation form...

cant see us getting much at WBA either

 

we are just far too open

Edited 8 October, 2012 by Thedelldays

[sammysaint]

Nigels mistake yday was bringing on Guly for Lambo, taking off a massive threat for someone who is not that type of player was silly with 25 to go, yes do it with 10 to go but not with a important part of the game, yes Guly came on did well, and i am normally anti guly, guly should of came on for Morgan as he was lucky not to be sent off and guly came and controlled the passing at times, and Mayuka should of came on for Lambo with 10-15 to go.

 

Punch for Chappers was a good move yes Punch was attacking well but we needed defence cover Yoshi was being rinsed at RB.

[Fitzhugh Fella]

Bed wetter? Well done, you're obviously an uber fan because of your loyalty to Adkins.

 

Personally, I think he's out of his depth and not handling things too well. But I support Saints and like you want us to do well.

 

I just think the way of achieving this is different to you. Why does that make me a 'bed wetter'?

 

I don't agree that much with the original post either. We seem to make the same mistakes week in week out. The defence don't look well organised, or well-drilled. I am also a little baffled by Nigel's tactics and substitutions.

 

That's just my opinion, I know a lot of people disagree and that's fair enough. It would be pretty boring if we all thought the same.

 

 

Great post Wade. I actually slightly disagree with your view of Adkins - if we finish the season in the position we are currently in it will be a great achievement and I will be delirious, but at the same time neither can I buy into NickG's slightly OTT rallying cry. It is time people on this forum were allowed to give their view without being called moronic names.

Some believe the future is bright - great, some are more negative but let's not turn this into a petty name calling exercise that just ends up tedious.

[Miltonroader07]

Ha Ha ha this is not a site for people with open minds, learn it and respect it..

 

Next post

 

Bed Wetter

[CB Fry]

We're only three days away from people saying ten games is not enough to get a true picture, let's see where we are at Christmas.

[Dalek2003]

We have been unlucky with images and that could sink us.

 

Having said that, the defence situation at the start of the season was verging on being negligent. We had money and time over the season to get it pretty much sorted but we were complacent and as |I warned countless times it could sink us.

[Ohio Saint]

I think it's our own fault. No nuns on match threads any more.

[lordswoodsaints]

I don't care who we have played,shipping 20 goals in 7 games is a pretty poor showing,couple that with tactical mistakes and mysterious substitute decisions and it all adds up to a bleak outlook.

I'm afraid Nigel's substitutions usually turn into gifts for the opposing teams so I would say that he does get substitutions wrong.

[OttawaSaint]

Just enjoy it folks, at the end of the day it is only football. We can't control what's going to happen. I am sure we will bed in eventually, if we get relegated, we'll all still be Saints fans, no use all this frothing at the mouth.

 

I'd like us to keep Adkins though, he's done a marvelous job and is perhaps trying too hard at the moment, seeing things he wants to change and reacting to it quickly as he is worried that if he leaves it as is, he will be castigated for NOT making a change. It's a learning curve and the experts on this forum with 20/20 hindsight wouldn't have got us out of League 1 with their supposed superior tactics and knowledge.

 

Hang in there Nigel!

[NickG]

Firstly, sorry for saying we lost... the misery on here convinced me we had!

 

No, I didn't leave early...far too tight to ever do that, need to get my monies worth.

 

It is a shame people aren't enjoying it, of course results effect that. I was away for the Wigan game but enjoyed Man U, Villa, the first half on Sunday and then the exciting come back. Ramirez is a player I look forward to watching.

 

We will lose a lot more games so Wade, Fitz, Alp etc (aka the bed wetters ) will have plenty to moan about.

 

There are issues to be addressed but the independant reporters view on our performance against Man City and Man U and NA's response to the pressure on the Villa game have given me no reason to suspect NA is 'out of his depth'.

 

Think some look at tactics far too superficially. I doubt I see a fraction of what managers see. But when a team is lacking possession, midfield pushing back etc sometimes bolstering midfield at expense of a forward can be attacking.

 

We are not going to be a tight 1-0 side (even if we were there would be odd results like Arsenal - cup final season) but if we are staying up, would much rather was with open attacking play and scoring loads. Of course we can hope to do that with better defending as well.

 

Find its strange that Fitz calls a post saying don't know how we will do as it is early in the season a propaganda exercise (then starts a propaganda thread ) think he is getting too much like his alpine buddy...understand its hard when you can't even enjoy a great winning streak like couple of years ago cos it will end sometime, must be really depressing for you now! getting bit worried about your intense interest in my postings

 

As he is obsessed with my postings a summary for Fitz

 

 

Still enjoying and proud to support saints.

 

Proud of the last two years achievement.

 

Proud of the young manager taking us forward, happy to be different.

 

Proud we are seen as ball playing attacking side not WHU.

 

Proud of our youth and players like Lallana, Lambert and Gaston.

 

Looking forward to games

 

Looking forward to visiting Anfield a ground I had never got around to see as kept thinking will do it next season - not making that mistake this season!

 

I am not embarassed by our start, nor by empty seats...

 

 

what I am embaressed by it fans of other teams coming on here, knowing the amazing success NA has had for us in two years, having got us into premiership, having ridiculously hard start but outside of relegation zone, probably seen us play Man U off the park for 80 minutes, ...and seeing discussion about his future, his replacement, polls on sacking him.

 

Pathetic childlike reaction and embarrassing.

[Avenue Saint]

Good op.

[NickG]

Good op.

 

thanks, little rant helps!

[St_Tel49]

Ha Ha ha this is not a site for people with open minds, learn it and respect it..

 

Next post

 

Bed Wetter

Just so long as you don't confuse open mindedness with vacant mindedness

[david in sweden]

Great post Wade. I actually slightly disagree with your view of Adkins - if we finish the season in the position we are currently in it will be a great achievement and I will be delirious, but at the same time neither can I buy into NickG's slightly OTT rallying cry. It is time people on this forum were allowed to give their view without being called moronic names.

Some believe the future is bright - great, some are more negative but let's not turn this into a petty name calling exercise that just ends up tedious.

 

 

 

well the answer to that (Duncan).. is to have one site for the positive-minded fans and let the others battle it out in a wave of negativity on the other...... to see who can be the most depressing !

 

How about it Mods ?