After three days I plucked up the courage to watch the highlights of the Burnley game and I noticed several things that no one seems to be commenting on.
The defeat to Burnley sparked the usual comments about the usual players and an understandable reaction from the Saints fans, but now having watched the highlights, it's made me think that most of the uproar is based moe on prejudice towards certain players than what went on in the match.
1. Nathan Redmond
He had just about our best chance with a decent run and shot that produced a great save., he also created at least one good chance, playing in Ryan Bertrand in the second half for a decent shot on goal.
But no one mentioned that anywhere or the fact that most of our chances do seem to involve him somewhere along the line yet all I hear from fans is that he did nothing in the game on Saturday or at all all season.
Against Burnley at least, perhaps he did not have a good game, but he was the one player who did have a decent shot on goal that needed saving and he did move the ball quickly when we attacked to create for others, yet no one has given him credit for this, perhaps he is not the best player, but from the chances created he was our most effective, praise whoever you want, but Redmond did more than anyone else in terms of contribution, it might have only been one decent chance and a couple of potential assists but that was more than anyone else.
Our two central defenders.
They kept going walkabout too often in the final quarter of the game, once Burnley had two attackers on they were all at sea and neither took charge of the situation.
Yoshida was totally at fault for the goal a complete lapse in concentration, this is not me being anti Yoshida, having now watched it several times, Vokes was left completely unmarked with a free header, Yoshida suddenly found that Vokes had pulled off him a yard and now had a free header.
This was not the first occasion, minutes earlier, Vokes had played a one two and then run off of Yoshida who then trotted back leaving Vokes to be played in down our left and get a shot in at Forsters near post, again total lack of awareness and Van Dijk was not exactly holding the line behind Yoshida so neither came out of this little incident cobvered in glory
Fraser Forster
To blame Forster for the goal was harsh, the header was a free header from fairly close range, he could pick his spot and he buried in in the corner, it was also headed down which makes it doubly hard to save as it bounced up about 2 yards from the line.
Was Forster slow to react ? to be fair to him the ball was almost past him a split second after it left Vokes head, you see a lot of keepers rooted to the spot for goals like this, Forster reacted and got near it leading some to think he should have saved it, reality was he had no chance, even if he had dived before Vokes had headed it.
Up to this point Forster had done well and commanded the box, he didn't have a lot to do, but he did it as you would expect. He had a right to expect his central defenders not to allow a free header from this range.
Attacking Play
We got into great wide positions and put in decent crosses on quite a few occasions, yet they rarely resulted in an attempt on target as no one got on the end of them, the crosses were just where you would want them but no one attacks them, possibly because there is only Gabbiadini in the box and it is certainly not his game
This reinforces my point that our build up play is not set up for who we play up front, if we are going to play down the line and cross the ball then we need a big striker who can attack the ball, this is not Gabbiadini's game, he needs balls played into channels or feed off another striker.
We cannot move the ball quickly, our build up passing is laboured from the back through midfield and this means that the opposition can regroup, get behind the ball and not get caught on the back foot.
Burnley won the game because they switched to two up front, it confused our defence who struggled to pick up two players, we did nothing like this, we kept doing the same things till the final ten minutes when we broought on Long for the usual free for all where no one can quite work out who is playing where.
I can totally understand the frustrations of Saints supporters, I am just as livid myself, but I am looking at what was the root cause and not just blaming the usual scapegoats, we should be winning and losing as a team and we are not doing that, the players know that the formation and tactics are not getting the best out of them, they know they are square pegs in round holes and they know they should be being played to their strengths but are not.
This brings the manager into question, the selections on Saturday were strange, having brought in Hoedt for a man of the match performance at Brighton he dropped him for no apparent reason, Yoshida may well have been upset at being dropped at the Amex and could claim that he did not deserve to be dropped, I would not argue with that, but he would not argue that Hoedt having put in the performance should have stayed in the team. Especially since the pattern of the game was obvious well before kick off and Hoedt is a great build up player.
Pellegrino seems unable to make hard decsions, he will play his star names like Van Dijk, Lemina and Gabbiadini whatever their form, in the rest of the team it is baffling, he seems unable to change tactics, although I will say the nature of the squad means he has little choice in how he should be playing, but he just doesn't seem to see it that way.
He seems to just hope that one day it will all click, but the reality is it won't and the more we continue the worse it will get as the players get fed up doing their jobs but seeing their hard work go to waste.
The commentary on the hghlights I watched said just as much, they questioned why we played wingers but only one small forward up front, they pointed out that we had no one in the box, they poined out that our build up was too slow and laboured and they questioned why we did not play a passing player like Ward Prowse in a game like this or put a second forward alongside Gabbiadini to get on the end of the crosses.
These were all the points I raised ahead of the game in the previews, now if i can see it, if the pundits can see it, then why can't the manager !