A look at Jos Hooiveld who to his credit fought back to regain his place, but it should be remembered if we want to improve then we need to improve what was one of the worst defences in the division.

You canr knock Jos Hooiveld for effort, after a terrible start to the season it looked like his days were numbered, however after the injury to Jose Fonte he came back into the side and did a fair job for a while.

But Jos's problem, in fairness like his fellow centre backs was a lack of concentration, he would be caught out at vital moments, not to mention a talent for scoring own goals, the stark reality is that if Saints are to take that next step forward as Nicola Cortese has stated he wants them to do, then the centre of defence has to be improved drastically.

Thats not to say Jos & his fellow central defenders didnt have some decent games from time to time, but you cant get away from the fact that more often than not we go caught napping and sadly again more often than not Saints seemed to mostly let in goals that came from mistakes.

We didnt manage a clean sheet till the end of November and indeed only seven in total all season and that tells you why we fought a relegation battle most of the season and why ultimately we didnt get anywhere near pushing West Ham for 10th.

Many champion Nicola Cortese's ruthless streak as one of the main factors behind Saints back to back promotions and there can be no doubt that he hasnt shirked from tough decisions, not least in sacking two popular managers, now is the time though to be ruthless in aquireing players of the right calibre and sadly that may spell the end of the road for Jos.

He has probably pushed himself into a 6/10 for the season after his late run, but the reality is that in the first half of the season he was struggling to merit a 5, the question we have to ask ourselves is firstly would Jos or for that matter any of our current central defenders get in any other Premiership team, we know the answer to that one and that being the case I will recall a favourite phrase of mine and that is "Do the same things get the same results" Put bluntly we shipped so many goals for a reason and that reason was that our central defenders werent good enough.

Of course some will say another negative review of last season, but I dont see it that way, I see it as positive, do we want to move forward ? if we do and i know our Chairman certainly does, then we cant afford sentiment, we have to be ruthless on the pitch as well as off it, xsadly for Jos that means he should be surplus to requirements next season.       

Photo: Action Images

slynch added 10:19 - Jun 3 Hooi is better than you observe. He always seems to have the Star player to defend. And always, they seem to strangely have a quiet day that match. Fellani, Caroll, Torres. The first part of the season he had a lot of problems mainly due to last ditch attempts to save a position caused by the absenteeism and inabilities of the players around him. He was constantly dragged into the left back position or diving at shots from acres of space that should have been covered by defensive midfield. The defence was "organized" by Adkins into a system of "headless chickens" as Spiderman observed about his own play the others as a whole and Hooi got the blame trying to clean up. Since the new team arrived the defence has been re-organized to cover their basic tasks and I think they have been a meaner unit when all are fit. Hooi was re-instated as a centreback because he was better than the other one.

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SaintNick added 10:32 - Jun 3 With respect I think you have a bit of a blinkered view of things, at West Ham yes he marked Carroll but struggled and kept on giving away niggling free kicks that resulted in goals, Torres is not exactly the hottest striker in the premier at the moment. This sort of proves my point though, he can be tight for long periods but then give things away, Im not sure about the absenteeism of players around him bit, after all he had Clyne and Shaw on either side who are rated by so many. Its all about opinions though and I respect yours, however I just don't think he is premier class, hooi was reinstated because Fonte was injured although in fairness in the main he took his chance but the lapses still remain

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dirk_doone added 10:35 - Jun 3 I agree with you, Nick. I'll be very disappointed if Hooiveld is still in our first team next season. You didn't mention the fact that he is often caught out of position and is too slow to get back, leaving his defensive partner, Yoshida or Fonte, facing two strikers. Many goals against us were scored from opposition counterattacks because of this. Also, when a striker starts to run past him, he is painfully slow turning, so the striker instantly opens up a five yard gap on him. He is never able to usher strikers wide of goal by keeping pace with them. Our midfielders, Schneiderlin and Cork, did most of the defensive work this season. Without them tackling in front of him, he would have had even more strikers running by him than he did.

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wazzosan added 03:09 - Jun 4 Don't forget Jos consistently being outjumped by the very small Shane Long in the WBA game. For someone who is tall and all about the aerial game, it was pretty embarrassing.
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