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Southampton At Leicester City The Verdict

This was the best chance to get that elusive 1th point of the season, Saints fans were the 12th man, but this was a sorry performance that lacked just about everything you could name.

There is not a lot that can be said about this game that hasn't been said week in week out before, Simon Rusk put out the same side and it looked tired, the players lacked motivation and put bluntly we did the same old things and got the same results.

At the back we played 3 central defenders, but there was no variation, all three lack pace and they lack marking skills and leadership.

Simon Rusk has no excuses here, he has clearly decided that these are his men, he left Nathan Wood on the bench and Armel Bella-Kotchap and Charlie Taylor at home, he had the personnel, he needed to change something here and he didn't.

In the rest of the team it was the same story and at half time at least Rusk realised his error and changed things, but it was too little too late, however the one thing that turned Saints fans was the substitution of Mateus Fernandes with only 57 minutes gone, I don't have anything against Will Smallbone, but he is not going to get you back into a game when you are behind, Mateus Fernandes is.

This was Rusk throwing in the towel, Jay Robinson also came on for Sulemana, but he is a youngster, we needed a point, why is Ryan Fraser sat at home, why is Adam Lallana not named on the bench.

I have seen some horrible abuse aimed at Rusk on social media, that is unfair, Rusk's only crime is not to be up to the job in hand and making some poor selections, but it is not his fault he is left holding the wheel till the end of the season.

Rusk is clearly a good coach, but he is not yet ready for management at the top level, perhaps he will be in the future, but not at the moment.

So it seems that we will limp to the end of the season doing the same things and getting the same results, unless Rusk decides that plan A has failed and he has a plan B.

This was perhaps the worst game of the season, it was awful to watch, two sides who were fairly evenly matched, probably not in a good way, once Leicester got in front, you felt that was it, when they got the second just before the break it effectively ended the game as a contest, Leicester concentrated on not doing anything silly and letting us back in the game and we did pretty much the same, a total lack of leadership and motivation.

The only positive point was once again the travelling fans, the departure of Fernandes just before the hour mark prompted a long and loud rendition of a song in his honour, that seemed to continue for most of the rest of the game.

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