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Southampton V Wolverhampton Wanderers The Verdict

Once again Saints threw away a game they really should have got something out of, so where did it all go wrong, how could we lose such an important game against a side down to 10 men.

The crowd put aside their views on Saints manager Nathan Jones when the game kicked off, but there was much bewilderment at some strange omissions from the team and indeed the squad, the manager had said we would see his true character going into this game and that seemed to be in his team selection.

There was no place in the squad for Duje Caleta-Car, Jones had said he would probably not play due to an unamed injury issue, but also missing were Mislav Orsic & Armando Bella-Kotchap, this raised a few eyebrows pre game.

Into the starting line up came the two new signings, Paul Onauchu & Sulemana, joined by Charly Alcatraz & strangely Ainslie Maitland Niles.

In fairness not a bad side with only Che Adams from the substitutes perhaps thinking he was being hard done by.

Saints started well and got a grip on the game and took a well deserved lead on 24 minutes through Alcaraz who after seeing his initial effort blocked fired home in off the bottom of the post to send the majority of the St Mary's crowd wild.

There were more cheering when 3 minutes later former Saint or more accurately sinner Mario Lemina was dismissed for a second yellow card.

Surely now Saints could finally win a game at home, one nil up and playing against 10 men.

For the 40 or so minutes everything seemed to be going to plan, we controlled the game and Wolves were yet to have a shot on target, as we approached the 70th minute though it was noticeable that some players were tiring, this is when the manager has to earn his corn, Nathan Jones in his previous games has used substitutions liberally, a week ago at Brentford he had used 4 of the 5 allowed by the 65th minute, yet here we were in the 70th minute with not one made.

In contrast the visitors had brought on 4 themselves to give them fresh legs to try and get something out of the game.

But as our players tired Jones did nothing and we paid the price with some kamikaze defending ending with Jan Bednarek getting his legs tangled up and falling into the net with the ball.

Now Wolves had their tails up and it surprised no one when they scored a winner in the 87th minute, by then we had made 4 substitutions in the 8 minutes after the equaliser as suddenly the manager pressed the panic button. But all that did was turn us from a side who had been playing to a system to be a disorganised rabble.

Another bizarre feature of the game was that James Ward Prowse had two free kicks right where he likes them but didn't shoot from either, both times he passed it short and both times we failed to get in a decent effort.

The first time I could see the reasoning, it was a change of tack and could have caught the opposition out, the second time was deep in injury time and in a prime position.

Surely Nathan Jones is not instructing James Ward Prowse not to shoot at free kicks, I have to say that I think that is the case, these were clearly training ground practised moves, JWP seemed to be playing to orders.

Sadly it is hard to see a way forward at the moment, certainly not under Nathan Jones, he has shown little to suggest that he has the nous needed to manage in the Premier League, he does not have the courage of his convictions, players come in and out of the side on a regular basis, Joe Aribo has been out of favour and had not started a game in the Premier League since Fulham on 31st December, he came on as sub against Forest a few days later, but in the following games he has not got off the bench, or at times not even been in the squad, yet here he was thrown into the fray on 79 minutes.

Now I haven't got anything against Aribo, but when we leave players who have played a part lately such as Adam Armstrong & Sekou Mara on the bench when we are chasing a game and put in a player out of favour such as Aribo it stinks of a manager who is clutching at straws.

A few weeks ago at Everton we turned a corner, but since then we didn't build on the performance the players gave in that game, Caleta-Car has been dropped so has Lyanco, leading scorer Che Adams was also on the bench, Moi Elyounoussi & Ibrahima Diallo weren't even in the squad yesterday.

Only 4 players from the starting line up at Goodison Park started against Wolves, Kyle Walker Peters was injured and Jones claims Caleta-Car is as well, but aside from that that it seems this is all down to tinkering from Jones, he is switching players around willy nilly to show that he is a coach.

But his scattergun approach is not working and when we truly needed him to make a tactical change to bring fresh legs he sat on his hands and did nothing.

The players yesterday did not let Nathan Jones down, they gave their all and put themselves in a winning position, but Jones let them down tactically, he failed to make 1 or 2 straight substitutions to bring on fresh legs and then he compounded the problem by making 4 within 5 minutes of each other to completely disrupt the organisation of the side meaning we poured forward like a team of under 10's but had no shape to our play.

To call Jones a clown is unfair, he has built himself a career in professional football and knows a lot more about the game than most of the fans who watch, but that does not mean he is a good Premier league manager or for that matter a good Saints manager.

On paper his stats may well look good, but at the highest level only a few survive and Jones as I write this has not survived, the news of his sacking coming in as I type this report.

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