Much has been made of a lack of strength in depth after the defeat on Saturday
The Daily Echo identified Saints problem on Saturday in the defeat to Brentford as due to the fact that we didnt have enough depth in the squad, well I beg to differ.
In this division we have the biggest squad and we also have, on reputation at least the best, we should be able to put out two sides capable of winning promotion, the problem is at the moment we cannot put out one.
For every position we have at least two options, sometimes more, yet ttoo many players seem to be underperforming.
On Saturday we had four out injured or suspended, sadly they were probably the four best performers of recent weeks, however those that came in and replaced them were all capable players in their own right at this level and higher, so although the squad was stretched it still had enough there to cover the problem.
Even after the starting eleven, of the seven on the bench, Bialkowski, Connolly, Harding, Gobern & Martin all have had first team experience leaving only Doble & Dean as rookies, I would say that there is no other team in this division could put out a bench of that experience under normal circumstances, let along a crisis.
No the problem is not one of depth, its one of managing the squad to its potential and Im afraid that just didnt happen on Saturday.
Its not as if it came as a shock that the four were missing, obviously we knew Fonte would be out from the moment the Hartlepool game was off, Chaplow has been on the injury list for three weeks, Barnard we know is carrying a knock and Richardson presuambly has been injured since coming off in the Cheltenham game a fortnight ago, as has lee Holmes we knew the problems well in advance, we were still able to put out a strong side, including the bench.
But given these problems why didnt we recall one or more of those out on loan, perhaps indicative of the situation is Jason Puncheon, a regular starter all season till recently, the moment he is dropped then he is out on loan to Millwall very quickly, should we have recalled him, we could certainly now use him or Joseph Mills for that matter.
Puncheon's departure perhaps suggests that all is not well with certain players in the camp, normally when dropped players at least give in a month or two before starting to make waves, but not in this case, he was gone almost within days, on Saturday it would have been ideal for hm to come on and change the game and force himself back in the side, but clearly he was not interested in doing so, his performances this season were similar in many respects to Rickie Lambert, in the way that he is a shadow of his former self, however he had an immediate impact for millwall and even scored, good players dont become bad ones overnight, why could puncheon suddenly change from being woeful to useful and in a higher division to boot.
Of course Nigel Adkins will be wanting to Mould his squad and perhaps Puncheon is one he didnt fancy, but the situation should have been managed, at the time we let Puncheon out on loan, we knew that several players were carrying knocks, we knew that several were injury prone and others were close to suspension, the clubs best interests needed to be served before that of an individual player and if that meant holding on to him till January when we could evaluate it better than so be it.
Our problems lie in the fact that we have got too many players and too many of them not performing to their ability, five out injured, four on loan and one suspended would have meant most of the clubs in this league playing trainees,probably even asking for a postponement but for Saints it was no where near that bad.
We have to stop making excuses and start winning football matches, our problems lie with individual players performances, no other reason, if they were playing well then they would be winning football matches, but they are not playing well, they look leaderless, unmotivated and lacking in confidence, deal with that and our problems will disapear.