Saints At Newcastle United The Verdict

It is very easy to write this Verdict, this game followed a very familiar path that most others have trod this season, clueless tactics and bewildered players.

In fairness to Mauricio Pellegrino, aside from the usual cry to play two up front, most Saints fans would have picked a similar team to the one that could perhaps be the last one that this manager chooses for the club.

Indeed if we wanted evidence that two up front is not the key reason this season is now so appalling, but it is the centre of defence and our failure to replace Fonte lst season and now Virgil Van Dijk that has cost us dearly.

Newcastle's games plan was clear and it paid dividends in the first middle, pump the ball forward and catch us on the break and they did that twice in the first half hour and both goals were down to poor defending, in fact in that first half most chances that Newcastle had were of a result of us giving the ball away cheaply.

In between the goals we seemed to have got to grips with the game and although we dominated we created little in the final third, the home side were waiting to pump the ball forward again.

The second goal was another calamity, Mario Lemina slipped as he went to put the ball back into the box and suddenly Newcastle were two on two on our defence, the result was goal for the home side and the game effectively over.

From then on the result was never in doubt, despite the fact that we had 63% possession and around the same number of shots as the home side, three times as many corners, again the one stat that mattered was goals for and we were lacking in that.

Mauricio Pellegrino criticised his players after the game, he spoke of a lack of spirit, he is right, but the man who is supposed to put that spirit in the team is him, the buck stops with the manager.

In the final stages of the season the one thing that wll carry us through is team spirit, if we haven't got it then we are finished, when the manager admits himself it is missing, then he is telling the board something.

Clearly the players themselves are lacking motivation, they are lacking confidence and they are not comfortable with the tactics, this was our worst perfromance of the season in that our other defeats of similar magnitude have been at Liverpool and Spurs, two decent teams, but this was against one of the poorest.

Funnily enough someone who was watching the game with me said no one is playing badly, we just have no spirit, motivation or a game plan, it is a collection of individuals and not a team.

I hoped that the manager might be able to drag enough out of a good squad to keep us up, this display showed that he can't motivate and to be blunt that is just about the only thing he is there for now.

We are at a point where literally the players themselves are being demotvated, we would almost be better than not having a manager and just letting them get on with it.

The tactics were predictable, the subs were predictable and the result was predictable, the time for change is now, the board for once have to do something that is unpredictable !

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