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Palace 1 Saints 0 - The end of the world?


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Disappointed by the completely negative attitude of Koeman in a game that we should have been coming to try and win rather than draw. The positive was the performance of Gazzaniga, which offers us the potential of a decent backup when Stek leaves in the summer.

 

I'm not so sure Stekelenberg will be leaving in the summer myself. Either way, Gazzaniga hitting form and becoming a viable option as backup can only be a good thing.

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Good post but I think we are getting carried away with Gazza, he is nowhere near Frasers level.

He had a great game, although still a couple of incidents which suggest he is still very capable of dropping a real bollock.

he doesn't have such a great game he will get slated on here.

 

Oh I agree totally....

 

what I wrote was that ....." if he plays like that every week" , he'd be as good a choice as anyone else ....(Forster ,or Stekelenburg - even with their CV's)

(although Koeman said that Stekelenburg had " medical issues " and Forster is still not back in proper training).

 

....it was just that watching yesterday...Gazza looked like a totally different player....to the indecisive, ball-dropping keeper, I've watched in some of the U21 games.

 

It may well have been " just one good game ", (hopefully not )...but if he continues to be our first choice for the next few weeks ...we'll very quickly find out...

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Well you must be a lot happier now then, mustn't you?

 

Not really. I was just being realistic, whilst others were getting all giddy and predicting a top 4 finish. We're just an average side who could finish anywhere between 7th and 17th. We could finish 18th, 19th or 20th based on current form, but I don't want to think about that.

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From the Sunday Times today:

 

Just after the half-hour, Palace found a way through the massed ranks of green. The goal, not for the first time in Southampton’s season, stemmed from a mistake by Maya Yoshida. Exposed one-on-one against Bolasie, Jose Fonte had no chance and Cabaye was left with a tap-in from the cross. It was a simple goal, but well-worked and thoroughly deserved.

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From the Sunday Times today:

 

Just after the half-hour, Palace found a way through the massed ranks of green. The goal, not for the first time in Southampton’s season, stemmed from a mistake by Maya Yoshida. Exposed one-on-one against Bolasie, Jose Fonte had no chance and Cabaye was left with a tap-in from the cross. It was a simple goal, but well-worked and thoroughly deserved.

 

That's harsh. If there was a "not for the first time" to be applied, it should have gone to Bertrand IMO, who - not for the first time - was caught upfield and didn't get back in time.

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That's harsh. If there was a "not for the first time" to be applied, it should have gone to Bertrand IMO, who - not for the first time - was caught upfield and didn't get back in time.

 

Because he was playing as a wing back, not a left back.... Koeman thought the best way of countering the Palace wingers was to get them one v one against less mobile centre halves and allow them to run them ragged, like Bolasie did for the goal, rather than have some trust in one of the best left backs in the league to deal with the threat.

 

Genius

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Because he was playing as a wing back, not a left back.... Koeman thought the best way of countering the Palace wingers was to get them one v one against less mobile centre halves and allow them to run them ragged, like Bolasie did for the goal, rather than have some trust in one of the best left backs in the league to deal with the threat.

 

Genius

Didn't we play the same formation away to Palace last year?

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It was not so long on here, after we beat Chelsea, that this forum - and the OS - was awash with smug over-confidence and complacency. We are all to blame.

 

Now we need a little realism. Players do not become bad players because of a loss of form. Blaming individuals is pointless.

 

It is time in training to realise strengths and tackle weaknesses. While we the supporters can continue to give full encouragement to all the team. Gaz for example made a succession of top class saves, but many only gave him grudging approval. That is stupid. He grew in confidence as the match progressed and his performance was the positive of the match.

 

We have always stood by Saints through thick and thin. The team will come good if we continue to do so..

 

Stop these sensible posts mate, no place for it after a loss, you need to blame, complain and snivel about things because everyone is useless when we do..

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That's harsh. If there was a "not for the first time" to be applied, it should have gone to Bertrand IMO, who - not for the first time - was caught upfield and didn't get back in time.

 

I only saw the highlights but what struck me about their goal was the awful shape of our defence with two centre backs hanging deep and wide open spaces on both flanks. To be honest, I didn't notice Maya make a mistake but I found it interesting that an 'independent' writer should have brought this up.

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I only saw the highlights but what struck me about their goal was the awful shape of our defence with two centre backs hanging deep and wide open spaces on both flanks. To be honest, I didn't notice Maya make a mistake but I found it interesting that an 'independent' writer should have brought this up.

 

I assumed he was talking about Yoshida's weak clearing header that went straight to (I think) Cabaye to start the Palace move.

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I presume it was the end of the world at White Hart Lane yesterday as they lost to Newcastle, while Liverpool's lucky late leveller against West Brom was a cause for embarrassing celebration. Otherwise, it might have been the end of the world there, as well.

 

No no no, just for us because we are sh ite and our manager, all of our players and our board are hopeless.....

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No no no, just for us because we are sh ite and our manager, all of our players and our board are hopeless.....

 

And it happens every season every time we lose a few matches. Les Reed is useless when he was a hero before. Koeman was the best manager we have had for years and now he is useless. The squad is the best we have had and now they are useless. It is the same crowd though who are still bitter about Cortese going and players leaving, most of whom probably had soggy matresses for the last two summers, who come out of the woodwork to have a pop when things are not going well. Do you know what. It is a game. I my lifetime only one team has gone through a season unbeaten. We are going to lose matches. We are going to play poorly. It is what it is all about. If you cant handle that part of the process it might be better that you find something else to follow that doesn't give you so much angst. None of us like losing but at least some of us can keep some kind of perspective when it happens.

Edited by sadoldgit
typo
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And it happens every season every time we lose a few matches. Les Reed is useless when he was a hero before. Koeman was the best manager we have had for years and now he is useless. The squad is the best we have had and now they are useless. It is the same crowd though who are still bitter about Cortese going and players leaving, most of whom probably had soggy matresses for the last two summers, who come out of the woodwork to have a pop when things are not going well. Do you know what. It is a game. I my lifetime only one team has gone through a season unbeaten. We are going to lose matches. We are going to play poorly. It is what it is all about. If you cant handle that part of the process it might be better that you find something else to follow that doesn't give you so much angst. None of like losing but at least some of us can keep some kind of perspective when it happens.

 

What sort of perspective are you looking for? The club was at an apex this summer having qualified for Europe off the back of a fantastic season. I don't think anyone was expecting us to get better but a fair few of us believed some standards were set and yet since then:

 

1. Lost two players we publicly said we wanted to keep at the club and another who 24hrs before he signed for Spurs we said we were confident of signing.

 

2. Invested in the squad in players of which we can only say one is right now up to the level / standard we set last season (VvD).

 

3. Bottled Europe which would have been a more than adequate sweetener for a so-so season in the league.

 

4. Bottled a cup quarter final

 

It's been a poor season thus far, I don't know what perspective you are looking for. We've come a long way in a short time and it has been fantastic. It's been a great journey and whilst I didn't expect us to push on from that (I would say it would be impossible) I also didn't expect us to so quickly fall back to mid table obscurity and become irrelevant again.

 

Big summer coming up.

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I can see us selling/releasing 7 or 8 first team squad players and needing to replace nearly all of them

 

It won't be anything like that. We'll only have three players anyone will be interested in: Mane, Wanyama, and maybe VvD. VvD's contract means his value is protected and he will stay. Mane will leave (2 years left this summer) and I suspect Wanyama will as well. Can't see any interest in the rest of our players whatsoever.

 

But we should invest in better players this summer if we can still attract them. There will be plenty of scope to do so. Who knows - maybe a net spend for the first time in two summers!

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It won't be anything like that. We'll only have three players anyone will be interested in: Mane, Wanyama, and maybe VvD. VvD's contract means his value is protected and he will stay. Mane will leave (2 years left this summer) and I suspect Wanyama will as well. Can't see any interest in the rest of our players whatsoever.

 

But we should invest in better players this summer if we can still attract them. There will be plenty of scope to do so. Who knows - maybe a net spend for the first time in two summers!

 

kelvin, Stekelenburg, Caulker, Gaston are all out of contract as well. Mane and Wanyama will be sold and I wouldn't be surprised if Pelle goes as well for a decent fee while we can still get one.

 

I don't see it negatively, just saying I think we have another opportunity to invest properly in the squad. Maybe get 60 million alone from those 3 sales and freeing up big money on the wage bill

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And it happens every season every time we lose a few matches. Les Reed is useless when he was a hero before. Koeman was the best manager we have had for years and now he is useless. The squad is the best we have had and now they are useless. It is the same crowd though who are still bitter about Cortese going and players leaving, most of whom probably had soggy matresses for the last two summers, who come out of the woodwork to have a pop when things are not going well. Do you know what. It is a game. I my lifetime only one team has gone through a season unbeaten. We are going to lose matches. We are going to play poorly. It is what it is all about. If you cant handle that part of the process it might be better that you find something else to follow that doesn't give you so much angst. None of like losing but at least some of us can keep some kind of perspective when it happens.

 

A very good summary

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kelvin, Stekelenburg, Caulker, Gaston are all out of contract as well. Mane and Wanyama will be sold and I wouldn't be surprised if Pelle goes as well for a decent fee while we can still get one.

 

I don't see it negatively, just saying I think we have another opportunity to invest properly in the squad. Maybe get 60 million alone from those 3 sales and freeing up big money on the wage bill

 

Ah right - yep, I mentioned in another thread how we should have lots of scope this summer to increase our wage bill. There is the 80k a week that FFP allows us to anyway, plus no wages for Caulker, Stek and Ramirez as you mention. I think we should have a good 200k a week or so to play with if we want.

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After Cabaye laid off the ball he moved away to the left around the back of our defence and wasn't picked up because the spare defenders, VVD and Soares were ball watching, not for the first time, and never checked behind them. That allowed Cabaye to slip in behind the defence for a tap in.

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One draw (against bottom club) and 4 defeats from our last 5 games, is a dreadful run. People need to wake up and see that we are not progressing, we are going backwards.

 

We drew one and lost 5 straight in Nov/Dec last season, did we go backwards then too?

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It won't be anything like that. We'll only have three players anyone will be interested in: Mane, Wanyama, and maybe VvD. VvD's contract means his value is protected and he will stay. Mane will leave (2 years left this summer) and I suspect Wanyama will as well. Can't see any interest in the rest of our players whatsoever.

You mention 3 players, but Verbal is right. We will also be losing Ramirez, probably Isgrove, Caulker and Stek, hopefully Kelvin will also retire. Juanmi implies he may want to go. We may not need to replace ALL of the potential 7 or so, unless we fluke our way into Europa again, but if Ronald is still here he won't want to have a significantly smaller squad than he currently has, and there is precious little apparently coming through from the Academy, though hopefully Stephens will get the place freed up by Caulker.

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Because he was playing as a wing back, not a left back.... Koeman thought the best way of countering the Palace wingers was to get them one v one against less mobile centre halves and allow them to run them ragged, like Bolasie did for the goal, rather than have some trust in one of the best left backs in the league to deal with the threat.

 

Genius

 

Didn't see the match, haven't even seen the highlights, but fairly sure the plan would be to have 5 across the back to give their wide men 2 players to deal with when going forward, or play them as overlapping full backs to give the Palace wingers defensive responsibilities, whilst leaving 3 in defence as a preventative measure against their quick breaks.

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Didn't see the match, haven't even seen the highlights, but fairly sure the plan would be to have 5 across the back to give their wide men 2 players to deal with when going forward, or play them as overlapping full backs to give the Palace wingers defensive responsibilities, whilst leaving 3 in defence as a preventative measure against their quick breaks.

 

but a fair few times, zaha and bolasie were 1-on-1 against Yoshida and VvD respectively.

not saying that is right or wrong but it happened.

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Because he was playing as a wing back, not a left back.... Koeman thought the best way of countering the Palace wingers was to get them one v one against less mobile centre halves and allow them to run them ragged, like Bolasie did for the goal, rather than have some trust in one of the best left backs in the league to deal with the threat.

 

Genius

 

could not have put it better myself. Terrible tactical decision by RK and for the second time in three games I find myself wondering what the hell is he doing? This sort of tinkering can shake things up, but equally it can erode confidence in a manager.

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I assumed he was talking about Yoshida's weak clearing header that went straight to (I think) Cabaye to start the Palace move.

 

 

I'm surprised that this hasn't been made more of. Yoshida tried to cushion a header to Davis rather than just defend . People bang on about Leicester, Palace & Stoke and how well they're doing . The simple fact is these sides defend properly , they play in the oppositions final third but defend when defending is needed .

 

We seem to want to play in areas our players aren't capable of playing in .I'm not talking about knocking it long over and over as we did in Denmark , but playing %'s when defending . Had Yoshida just headed the ball back into their half or even in to touch , we could have got back into shape .

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kelvin, Stekelenburg, Caulker, Gaston are all out of contract as well. Mane and Wanyama will be sold and I wouldn't be surprised if Pelle goes as well for a decent fee while we can still get one.

 

I don't see it negatively, just saying I think we have another opportunity to invest properly in the squad. Maybe get 60 million alone from those 3 sales and freeing up big money on the wage bill

 

if we let two more key players go, then we will have to get at least two signings absolutely spot on to `break even'.

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Made it to Selhurst Park for the game.

 

Romeu MoM, Gazzaniga close second.

 

Wanyama doesnt look like he cares inthe flesh.

Long is all running and effort with no class

Fonte looked a bit shaky compared to normal. Done by bolasie for the goal. Did he think he was actually going to tackle hi with that half-arsed tackle on the edge.

Cedric needs two kilos of muscle but does have a good ball in. Cant go past anyone for toffee

VvD didnt put a foot wrong.

Steven Davis ineffective.

 

The moment we get to the final third we have nothing. We panic, we dont try to keep the ball, we play low probability balls and just look toothless.

 

Not looking good. no belief.

 

Where has it gone?

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Personally I think if we are going to sell quality and buy in "fixer-uppers" then we should just try and develop the youth again, at least then we can mold them to our way of playing, theyre cheaper and have way less baggage.

Anyone else notice that Ron doesnt seem quite so keen on the youngsters? Watching Spurs this season it might be a coincidence but seems like Poch has done a fantastic job at bringing through a few stars. Maybe our production line has dried up which would be such a shame.

 

To be honest I dont think Targett looks up to it. But Reed was making some real headway last year. I know theres a lot of hope for Clasie to come good, but i can honestly say I have seen nothing about him what so ever and Romeu is hardly a superstar.

 

Not saying we should sell our stars and replace them all with kids, but if we relied on them a little more we can put the funds into 1 or 2 quality players rather than 5-8mill gambles . Maybe thats just fantasy thinking

Edited by Tommog
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And it happens every season every time we lose a few matches. Les Reed is useless when he was a hero before. Koeman was the best manager we have had for years and now he is useless. The squad is the best we have had and now they are useless. It is the same crowd though who are still bitter about Cortese going and players leaving, most of whom probably had soggy matresses for the last two summers, who come out of the woodwork to have a pop when things are not going well. Do you know what. It is a game. I my lifetime only one team has gone through a season unbeaten. We are going to lose matches. We are going to play poorly. It is what it is all about. If you cant handle that part of the process it might be better that you find something else to follow that doesn't give you so much angst. None of us like losing but at least some of us can keep some kind of perspective when it happens.

 

Bitter about Cortese leaving ? What I'm still annoyed about is the failure to re-appoint Hoddle in 2004 ! Never mind about 2014.

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Personally I think if we are going to sell quality and buy in "fixer-uppers" then we should just try and develop the youth again, at least then we can mold them to our way of playing, theyre cheaper and have way less baggage.

Anyone else notice that Ron doesnt seem quite so keen on the youngsters? Watching Spurs this season it might be a coincidence but seems like Poch has done a fantastic job at bringing through a few stars. Maybe our production line has dried up which would be such a shame.

 

To be honest I dont think Targett looks up to it. But Reed was making some real headway last year. I know theres a lot of hope for Clasie to come good, but i can honestly say I have seen nothing about him what so ever and Romeu is hardly a superstar.

 

Not saying we should sell our stars and replace them all with kids, but if we relied on them a little more we can put the funds into 1 or 2 quality players rather than 5-8mill gambles . Maybe thats just fantasy thinking

 

You have a good point, but to build from the Academy may mean we have to drop down a division for a couple of seasons. We can then come back up, have a few good seasons, sell our young players for a handsome profit and gradually drop down again. Then start the cycle again. Sort of a 'yoyo' policy on along piece of string.

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And it happens every season every time we lose a few matches. Les Reed is useless when he was a hero before. Koeman was the best manager we have had for years and now he is useless. The squad is the best we have had and now they are useless. It is the same crowd though who are still bitter about Cortese going and players leaving, most of whom probably had soggy matresses for the last two summers, who come out of the woodwork to have a pop when things are not going well. Do you know what. It is a game. I my lifetime only one team has gone through a season unbeaten. We are going to lose matches. We are going to play poorly. It is what it is all about. If you cant handle that part of the process it might be better that you find something else to follow that doesn't give you so much angst. None of us like losing but at least some of us can keep some kind of perspective when it happens.

 

Best joke I've heard for a while - that the miniscule handful of addicted posters on here could have the collective noun of crowd. Thimbleful might be more appropriate. I'm surprised anyone thinks it's worth the server space nowadays.

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I don't think it's fair to blame Koeman for this one. The tactics were OK, both in the first half and then when we changed shape and brought on Tadic and Pelle. The problem is that we are severely lacking quality in our attacking play. We only created two real chances today, with Davis drawing save of the season from Hennessey, and Long doing what Long does in injury time - a PL striker simply has to be doing better with chances like that.

 

One positive to take from today is that Gazzaniga put in an excellent performance and made some crucial saves. Good to see that he is much improved from the 'rabbit in headlights' act that he used to do when called up to the first team.

 

I would agree with this.

 

Gazzaniga was excellent. It was good to see him bellowing at the defenders when they let stupid shots on goal, especially when Palace shot from the counter. Definitely think he could take over from Forster some day, if his development continues. Hopefully we'll get Forster back and have him for a while first, and Gazzaniga still has a ways to go, but is looking a lot better.

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