Identity It’s A Crisis Can’t You See sang punk rock band X Ray Spex back in 1977 and those words ring true today for a Southampton side that doesn’t quite seem to know which way they should be playing.
Will Still has a few decisions to make today ahead of the game against table topping Middlesbrough, after nearly two months of the season he hasn’t yet decided who his best defence is and up front his best strikers, that has led to shoddy goals conceded due to the American old lack of organisation and going forward the chopping and changing both in the starting line up and also substitutions means that we seem to never quite know where whoever is up front will be.
Good sides ae well drilled and know how they are set out to play and play to a system, but what is our system ?
Two years ago under Russell Martin we might not have liked the tippy tippy football, but we knew how we played and so did the players, it was boring to watch at times, but when we went forward we knew where Adam Armstrong was going to be.
Arguably we have the best forward line in the division, Armstrong, Archer & Stewart are all proven goalscorers at this level, Jay Robinson is a talent and `Damion Downs is struggling but he isn’t being helped by the service is getting.
With a forward line like that we shouldn’t be struggling, but there is no cohesion in our play going forward, at Hull we played with wingers, but we also played a team with no height going forward, the big strong Championship defenders lap up our crosses.
So what is Will Still’s game plan ? That is the question that needs answering, when it fails in the first half, it’s chop and change and we lose shape.
Two years ago we beat Leeds at St Mary’s to finally click into gear and went on a 22 game unbeaten run in the League, hopefully we will do that again today, but it is hard to see it happening.
We can all see what the problems are but it seems that Will Still still can’t
It is hard to write a preview when you just can’t see what we are trying to do.