SFC Ref gives his opinion on the game with Manchester City on Saturday and the chances of survival as well as his view on the performance of the referee.

Well this result has only gone and made me 99% certain of our fate now! And anything bar a win next weekend against Palace and that extra 1% will be added!

As the fact that we’ve got another 8 games to play yet have already matched our record loss totals for a 38 game season, are bottom of the league and are miles off from looking like we’re going to stay up, only go and sum up how poor this seasons been.

When this games team sheet came out, I was baffled yet again as to how Elynousie started!? As week in, week out everyone says of how poor he is, and so often he’s the first to be subbed off because of this, yet somehow he always seems to somehow be in the starting 11!?

As he’s about the only saints player that I’ve heard all fans agree on, he should be no where near the starting 11, yet he always seems to find a way to start. As he’s got to be the worst player we’ve ever had, who’s regularly played for us starting a majority of the games.

But other than Elynousie the starting 11 still wasn’t perfect, our back 4 was fair enough, although I’d personally have starting Perraud over Maitland-Niles, but it’s hardly like there’s that much of a gap between the two. For midfield I can’t complain at all for the usual players, other than Elynousie. But up front… well that’s the issue as we didn’t really have anyone there. As I guess Walcott/Sulemana I can understand, with how well Walcott was against Spurs and how Sulemana does have those sparks of creativity and threat here and there, although I’d of played Onauchu rather than Walcott.

But for the game itself, this week I did manage to go (although did miss KO and the first 5/10 minutes) and saw the shambles that took place.

For most of the first half we actually played fairly well, as we did start a bit behind with Man City all over us, but as the half went on we seemed to get into it more and more, with multiple chances for Sulemana, as well as a few others, but just like usual saints took none of them, which came back to haunt us.

Sulemana missed a chance, just before Haaland got the opener, but on top of that is was the one of which he missed where he was through on goal that just summed up why we’re going down.

Just why he slowed down and doesn’t keep going I just can’t understand, as it seemed like he just didn’t have the confidence and that’s where we’ve lacked, as if that’s Ings, Lambert, Kane, Haaland etc… it’s 1-0 to us, or at the very least a world class save from Ederson.

But after Haaland got their opener, there was only one way this game was going to go, and in the second half it all just fell to pieces. As fair play to Bazunu, Bella-Kotcha and Bednerak, as those 3 were the main reason why we didn’t loose by more and did hell to keep us in the game for the first hour or so.

But still they’re not perfect and when your up against the best team in the world right now in my opinion, it’s fairly certain that Man City would get their chances, and unlike us, would take them! Which is exactly why they won it, and did it so comfortably.

As Ruben Selles may have started off great with us, but ever since the international break ended we’ve just seemed to have gone back to usual, and unless we can get going again, there’s only one place we seem to be heading.

But one positive was the goal we got, as it was a great run by Djenepo and a good finish by Mara, both of which worked really well together for that play as well as a few others after coming on.

And really for how poor everyone else was, I certainly think those two should be starting over the likes of Walcott and Elynousie next weekend. But that game next weekend will be a major one, as if we don’t win it then I don’t think that any saints fans will have any hope of us staying up, although us going down won’t necessarily be the worst thing for both the fans and club anyway.

Referee watch (Robert Jones)

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