Saints battered barnsley but still lost.

How Saints lost this game is beyond belief, however the underlying fact is that they are a team of talented individuals who do not play as a team and cannot defend.

When thinks go against you, they go against you, we Saints fans are used to seeing stupendous free kicks over the years after all we did have Matty and then last season Gareth Bale, but we didnt often see either of them score two in one match of the quality of McCann's strikes for Barnsley in the first half, both were unstoppable.

At the other end we had chances, we hit the woodwork on several occasions and had efforts cleared off the line but the Tykes hung on in there defensively in a way you just cant imagine our back four doing at present.

But in truth even with our back line we are a team that lacks leadership and we seem to make change for change sake and the crowd are starting to turn against the manager because of it.

The booing of Jermaine Wright was wrong and unneccessary, yes he was having a bad game and couldnt seem to pass to his own side at one point, but it wasnt his fault, in truth though I think the fans werent booing Wright himself, but the fact that he is being played out of position, they have woken up to the fact that If George Burley doesnt rate Ostlund, and that has been clear for well over a year, then why has he made no attempt to sign a replacement, in short the fans see that Burley is picking players through favouritism, and if the fans know that then so do the players.

Why mix the side around so much, one of the success's of the season so far has been the pairing of Saffri and Viafara why change it ?

Going forward though the effort couldnt be faulted, we created chance after chance but failed to take them, perhaps part of the problem was that Burley is rotating forwards in the recent games , WHY ?  everyone knows that when forwards are scoring you dont replace them, you keep them out there, strikers like scoring runs, its basic that when a striker is scoring you keep playing him, basic to everyone bar George Burley.

Why was BWP replaced at the break ? probably because Saganowski had just scored, if he hadnt then it would probably have been the Pole who was taken off, to put it bluntly though it was a change that wasnt needed at that stage.

Also why was it Stern John replacing BWP and not Rasiak, John has not scored for Saints yet and has shown nothing to suggest he will at this moment in time, we should be playing the tried and trusted and when you want the ball put in the net then there is non better than Rasiak, people question his work rate, but in this game all you wanted was someone who knows where the goal is.

Most Ironic moment was when the last substitution took place with nine minutes left, at first it was thought that Viafara was the man being brought off and the crowd let the manager know what they thought of that, however when the mix up was sorted out and it was in fact Wright, why was Viafara moved back to right back, why didnt we go three at the back at this stage, they were a man down and playing one up front, yet we still kept four at the back. 

Where do Saints go from here, sadly I find it hard to see them going anywhere whilst George Burley is still in charge, last season we scraped into the play offs not because of the manager but because certain players played out of their skin and retrieved a situation that looked dead and buried in March, those players were the likes of Leon Best, Chris Baird, Andrew Surman, all players that were here before Burley, all players that had Burley's signings paid off wouldnt have been getting a sniff of a game last season, and I include Baird in that.

I have no answers about who would replace Burley, but I feel that we have gone as far down the road with him as we can, and I think you can see that on the field with the players, they are bemused by his tactics, and are a squad that is not being lead.      

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