Premier League Match 16 - Southampton 1 Brighton 3

 

Good With Feet, Hands Need Work

Even though we’ve had the Liverpool away game and the Lincoln game in the cup, either side of the World Cup, today feels like the real beginning of Nathan Jones tenure as Saints manager. I guess it’s the first really important game.

No one was expecting anything at Anfield and that’s what we got but with the precarious position in the league table that we currently occupy, today is certainly a game that we need something out of, preferably a win of course. Having not provided a decent performance against Lincoln on Tuesday night, may fans are apprehensive about what lies ahead today against what is a very good Brighton side, or it was before the World Cup anyway.

They got themselves in a very good position in the league table when Graham Potter was manager but he left to take the poison chalice at Stamford Bridge.  Brighton appointed Robert de Zerbi within a matter of days and have carried on picking up the results and sit seventh in the table. One of the star performers this year has been Alexis MacAllister who was a bit part player last year but got in the team regularly this season, got picked for the Argentina World Cup squad, got himself into the starting 11 and is now a World Cup winner, immortal in his own country. I really much doubt he’ll be playing today because if he’s got any sense, he will still be on the piss in Argentina. Whether MacAllister plays or not, they will still be some real quality in this Brighton team with the likes of Caicedo, Gross and Trossard. Brighton have been improving year-on-year and this year would be the first where they have not even been in anyone’s conversation about potential relegation candidates. Hopefully, de Zerbi’s new manager bounce would’ve worn off by now and they can throw in a stinker of a performance today because we might need it.

“Relegation candidates” is of course the bracket that we are in now and Nathan Jones needs to get this side picking up some results to get us out of that bracket as soon as possible. It will be interesting to see what the starting formation is today. We were clearly better on Tuesday when we went 4-3-3. Ralph Hasenhüttl never got us playing well with three at the back though Jones sought to distance himself from that being his favourite formation after the game on Tuesday, I’m sure we will see it again at some point. With Stuart Armstrong and Sam Edozie impressing substitutes on Tuesday and AMN and Adam Armstrong sucking ass, I’m expecting there to be changes.

As it turned out it was 4-3-3 but it still managed to be worrying on paper.  Lyanco was picked ahead of both ABK and Caleta-Car and Diallo got the nod in midfield with JWP and Elyounoussi.  Sam Edozie got a deserved first start on one wing but this was offset by Moussa Djenepo being included on the right.  Che Adams was of course, up front.  There was a place on the bench for Jimmy-Jay Morgan, due to the injury to Theo Walcott.

Unfortunately, right from the kick-off, Brighton are looking like they have no issue with the fact they haven’t played a game for a few weeks and Mitoma, who had a very good World Cup for Japan, turns Lyanco inside and out before forcing a save out of Baz at the near post. We have our own twisting turning winger of course in Sam Edozie and he immediately follow suit by bundling past three players and putting over across which is met by Elyounoussi but he can only direct it straight at Sanchez.

So far so good and even though Brighton are having most of the ball, we are looking comfortable enough until Brighton build down or left hand side and work the ball across to Lallana in the middle. He moves it onto March on the right hand side, who moves it onto his left foot and chips it back in and Lallana is completely unmarked to flick his head at it. The header is marginally to the right of Bazunu and he absolutely fucking clown-fumbles it into the net. Fucking hell. Yes it’s a free header but you’ve got to be saving that for fuck‘s sake.  Lallana tones down his celebration but have no fear Adam, we still think you’re a twat.

We have a chance to get back into the game straight away and it’s through the livewire Edozie again, as he tricks his way infield before being flattened which gives us a free kick. Up steps JWP for his first free-kick in what seems like ages and it’s decent, it just swings away at the last moment and goes a foot wide.

Any confidence that we may have had at the start of the game has gone to pot a little bit and Brighton are comfortable in possession and we are not getting close to them. They seem to have a spare man everywhere and our midfield is absolutely nowhere.  Diallo just doesn’t mark anyone and he’s not scanning around to see where any free player might be.

Goalkeeper, Right Back, Centre Backs and Defensive Midfielder Not Involved

Salisu tries to get in to win a 50-50 but it’s all slightly half-arsed and the ball drops to Gross. Out left it goes to Mitomo, who waits for the overlapping Estupinan before laying the ball in front of him and his first time cross is missed by Baz and it’s going to be a tap-in for Solly March but Perraud does his job for him and hopelessly slices it into his own net off his right foot. Fucking hell. Again, Baz should’ve cut it out and Perraud has to do better than putting it in his own net but where the fuck were the two centre backs and the right back?

KWP is still absolutely nowhere to be seen as Mitomo bursts down the left hand side and crosses low. This time Baz does get a hand to it which prevents us going three down. Half-time, booed off and deservedly so. That was absolutely fucking clueless shit.

The half-time conversation concerns what an earth we can do from the bench at half-time and there is uniform agreement all around me that Diallo and Djenepo should come off so we can at least have 11 players on the pitch. Unsurprisingly, Nathan Jones thinks the same so Stuart Armstrong and Joe Aribo make an appearance as the teams come back out.

Immediately, Saints are pressing higher up the pitch and there is more energy but Brighton are such a good passing side that they inevitably deal with the press easily enough mainly through giving the ball to Caicedo, who seems to have a force field around him which means no Saints player can go anywhere near him.

Stuart Armstrong plays a decent ball into Edozie, who now seems to be playing up front but he takes a touch to beat the last defender before lashing well over the bar.  Another substitution is needed on 55 as Perraud is struggling so on comes Maitland-Niles to go to right-back, with KWP switching to the left. Edozie is still our best chance of anything happening and he has a shot blocked after Adams chests a cross down to him. We don’t look like scoring but at least we are carrying some sort of threat… and with that the game completely dies as Solly March picks up the ball on the right hand side, cuts in onto his left foot which everyone knows he was going to do, apart from JWP evidently, and he absolutely smashes it into the far top corner. Brilliant strike.  It should be 4-0 straight away after that as March is again allowed to get a cross in and Mitoma meets it about 8 yards out but heads it badly wide.

The referee Robert Jones has not had much to get involved in today but he makes himself the centre of attention as Edozie jinks past another two players before being blocked to the ground by Pascal Gross. Penalty given. Interesting, looks a bit harsh to me but VAR upholds the decision with both Sanchez and Gross getting the right arse about it and Sanchez’ mood is not improved as he saves JWP’s penalty but is powerless as JWP heads in the rebound.

With a little bit of momentum Che Adams then tries to bundle his way into the box but brings down Estupinan but there is no whistle so Adams plays on and piles into Sanchez and there are some handbags. With Sanchez already having been booked, that should be yellow cards both and therefore red to the Brighton goalkeeper but Jones completely bottles it, so both players escape.

It’s just winding down now. Sekou Mara is on for Elyounoussi and he hits the corner flag with one effort before the final substitution which sees it Edozie taken off and replaced with Adam Armstrong. Could’ve got something out of the game by giving Jimmy Morgan a few minutes but no, Adam Armstrong.

Absolute fucking dog shit and the first question for any journalist to ask is – What in the name of fuck have we been doing for the past six weeks?

When you are looking at a new player or a new manager, you never want to jump to immediate negative conclusions but sometimes the evidence in front of your face makes it very hard not to do that. No one is expecting miracles but in that time you should expect to see something.  Five weeks of training and two matches this week and what improvements or even potential improvements have we seen? 

Are we playing better football going forward? 
Is our midfield structure better?
Are we defensively more solid?
Are we playing with more intensity?
Do we look better organised?
Do we have more will to win?
Do we look fitter?

Of course you are not going to get everything but surely something should be better.  Then there's the old 'new manager bounce' cliche.  New Manager Bounce is not suddenly having a team of world beaters just because the manager has changed but what it is, is an increase in performance levels due to an increase in intensity as players try and impress the new manager and respond positively to his new impetus.  Have we seen any of that?

It is really not going to take to many performances like that before Nathan Jones find himself in trouble. From his point of view, that was a performance that suggested he hasn't achieved very much at all in the past 6 weeks. There needs to be some green shoots poking through the shite pretty quickly, to show the world that Jones just might just be the man to turn it around. Today, he set the team up, as he did against Lincoln, with just one defensive midfielder. With the players we have, I really don’t see that that is the way to go without Romeo Lavia. It doesn’t help when you pick Maitland-Niles or Diallo as your single holding midfielder. Both of them are simply not good enough in that position.  Neither have the awareness that the job requires.  It was interesting that last week, Jones was saying that he wished he had Oriol Romeu.

Having been dismal in the first half, we pressed for a bit at the start of the second half but not really.  I assume we were trying to stop Brighton playing out from the back.  Brighton still played every goal kick through Caicedo on the edge of their box.  No one nicked the ball off him, no one even fouled him.  I’m just a bloke in the crowd who’d had a couple of pints and I could see that pattern so how does a well paid manager, his team of analysts and alleged Premier league footballers not see it.  Fucking joke.  Maybe the ‘data’ before the game didn’t make that clear.

So, our attacking play - the ball either went to the Edozie to run at Veltman or it was the long ball up to the striker. Six weeks of training from Jones and that’s it, is it? If we were going to play like that then we might as well have appointed Sean Dyche, who at least has some relevant experience at the top level.

I’m less annoyed with Jones right now, than I am with the board.  Jones was appointed using the data analytics approach favoured by Rasmus Ankersen, rather than by a more conventional method such as, you know, looking at any experience that a prospective manager has at a decent level of football. Nathan Jones has managed for one complete season in the Championship. Of course, he has never managed in a top league and all bar that one season has been managing in League One or League Two.  I wonder if any other Premier League club has ever looked at him?  Wolves appointed Julen Lopetegui as their new manager around about the time that we appointed Jones.  He of course has years of experience of managing both in international football and at top level club football – Real Vallecano, Porto, Real Madrid, Sevilla and the Spanish national side. After his five weeks of working with his new squad, which was lower than us in the league, Lopetegui managed to win at Everton and we have gone to the rock bottom of the league.  Of course, it’s only one game but it’ll be interesting to see the difference between what Wolves do for the rest of the season, against what Saints do.  It may turn out that we turn a corner and storm to safety and Wolves drop like a stone but I wouldn't bet on that if I was you.

Jones has got no honeymoon period and he has no grace with the supporters and no credit in the bank. One of the reasons Ralph survived as long as he did is because he had proved at one point, that he was up to the job.  Jones hasn’t got that to fall back and whether that's unfair or not, that's where we are.

Moving away from Sports Republic and their Data Driven Alignment Best Practice LinkedIn Model for a minute… let’s look at the players and what they did or didn’t do today - a number of them out there today are shit and to be fair to Jones, any manager would struggle to get a result out of them.

Gavin Bazunu has let in a few ropey goals this season but none have been completely his fault but he has got to be saving the first one today because it’s straight at him. The fragile confidence that we have in the team was completely deflated by him allowing Lallana‘s soft header to bobble through him. He didn’t look great on the second goal either driving out to try and cut out the cross and missing it but there were other factors involved in how that one ended up in the net. Personally, I think it’s time to take Gavin out first team for a while now.  He will come again but a rookie keeper is not what we need right now. We have two experienced goalkeepers and though neither of them are brilliant, now is the time for either Alex McCarthy or Willy Caballero to come in. The last time we were in this position at Christmas was in the Pellegrino season and around this time of year, we got absolutely smashed at Tottenham and McCarthy came into the team for Fraser Forster and played a huge part in us staying up at the end of the season.

Both first half goals featured absolutely shocking marking. Don’t get me wrong, Brighton are very good side and they’ve got very good movement.  Our one defensive midfielder, Diallo just wandered about, not picking up anyone and Lallana, Trossard and Gross just wandered unhindered into whatever area they wanted to wander into. With no one playing as an out and out centre forward, Salisu and Lyanco were completely confused and they didn’t mark anyone either, nor it seems, communicate with the midfield in front of them. So, you have your three main players responsible for picking players up, not bothering and Brighton also had a March on the right and Mitoma on the left, terrorising their respective full backs.

So with the back half of the team being abysmal, what do we have going forward? We had Sam Edozie who was brilliant again and got kicked all over the park but he kept getting up and kept trying to make things happen. He got his reward in the end getting given what was probably a very generous penalty. It would probably have been given as an indirect free kick for obstruction in days gone by but that rule seems to have disappeared from the game but regardless, he deserved some sort of reward for his bravery and quality on the ball. The Jones-ball formation meant that once again, Elyounoussi and JWP barely saw the ball (watch Elyounoussi's lack of movement when our defenders have the ball) but when they did, they did absolutely fuck all with it. If Edozie was decent on the left-hand side, Djenepo on the right was absolutely fucking atrocious. He has absolutely no idea what to do and when to do it and one of the things that Jones got right today it was taking him off at half-time.  It gives me no pleasure to be right but I said at the time that the new contract for Djenepo was a ridiculous decision.  If Djenepo is getting minutes on the wing, then it is absurd that Nathan Tella is out on loan.

Che Adams again was decent, showed he cared and tried his best against the uncompromising Brighton defence. How dispiriting must it be when your job for today is basically to compete for high balls against Lewis Dunk, quite possibly the best defender in the Premier League against a high ball. It was good to see Adams smash into the goalkeeper as well.

Brighton were absolutely outstanding and are possibly the best team that we’ve played this season but on the other side of that is the fact that they won’t have had or will have an easier game than that this season. The key period of the game was after the first goal and we didn’t react at all until after half-time, by which time we were two down and the game was dead. Brighton are a club with a smaller stadium than us and have been in the Premier League for less time but they are absolutely light years ahead of us in terms of the first team on the pitch and they will be challenging for Europe this season and we will be challenging for the “Best Alignment across all Departments“ trophy. The Rasmus Ankersen Grand Vision needs to start providing short-term results pretty quickly otherwise Solak’s golden boy's star is not going to be shining so brightly when millions are wiped off of the turnover of his biggest asset.   The incoming transfer window and it’s going to be absolutely crucial for us. I would say that if we do not sign four players who are fit for purpose to make a difference in the first team, then we are almost certainly going to get relegated. We are currently rock bottom of the league and deserve to be there. This is where we are as a club.

Happy New Year everyone.