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Saints Cannot Attack And Defend

Claude Puel was much maligned by Saints supporters last season, but he knew one thing and that was he didn't have defenders who could defend and would allow him to commit players forward.

There aren't many Saints supporters with a good thing to say about Claude Puel, but he did know how to coach and he knew how to get results even if they were at the expense of entertainment, which eventually did for him as a manager at St Mary's.

Saints problems started the moment that Jose Fonte came back to the club after the European Championships with his head either in Manchester or up his own arse depending on what newspaper you read.

These problems were compounded further when Fonte was allowed to go without a replacement being signed and when Virgil Van Dijk got injurd we were in deep trouble with a central defensive partnership that was Championship standard at best.

In fairness to Puel he recognised this and go people behind the ball to make sure that we did not concede too many, but the fans were more interested in entertainement not results.

When Pellegrino arrived he had the same problems as his predecessor a year earlier, he had Van Dijk behaving terribly, yes we had finally signed Fonte's replacement in Wesley Hoedt, but he was once Van Dijk was out the youngest member of the back four, yet expected to be the leader.

Fo the second year running we let a central defender go in January and did not sign a replacement and this will ultimately be the one thing that costs us our Premier League place more than anything else.

Newcastle had our measure, blitzed us fro the kick off and showed that we cannot handle people running at us nor defend from set pieces., the problems I predicted a year ago are still there and now have dragged us down.

West Ham followed Newcastle's lead on Saturday, came out of the blocks quickly and destroyed us by running at us and finding space in the box to get in free shots and headers meaning the game was over for us like at Newcastle way before half time.

We can't say we didn't see it coming, this season has been littered with soft goals conceded from free headers and shots in the box and getting caught on the break, how many times did I point this out before Xmas, yet many just thought that I had something against Yoshida or Stephens, as I said then I have nothing against them apart from the fact they aren't good enough.

So we have been found out badly in our last two league games, both teams knew exactly how to play us and that is now going to be the case for the rest of the season and if two sides who were supposedly in turmoil when we arrived on their doorsteps could rip us apart so easily that does not bode well.

On Saturday I think Mark Hughes got too caught up in this entertainment demand for two up front, for this game he would have been better to play just one up front and concentrate on getting control of the game and then imposing ourselves on it, rather than attacking from the off, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but looking back you have to question why two players who have barely played in the past few months for one reason or another were suddenly going to be the answer.

So now we have to go back to basics for Arsenal, bring in Yoshida for Stephens, set up with a solid three in midfield and two who will work hard down the wings, perhaps start with Sane Long up top to run down the Gunners defence.

The last part of the season should not be about entertainment it should be about work work and more work, it should be about digging in and scraping results.

This season is far from over, we still have a game in hand, it is about being positive and going for it, but it is about getting the best out of the squad we have.

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