It was just another one of those performances that we’ve been seeing lately. Dominating football games but we aren’t doing enough to win them.
I’ll start with the line up. I had no problems with it at all. People will say they wanted henderson in midfield but I thought our midfield was dreadful against both wba and Newcastle so I was looking forward to seeing the quality of Thiago on the ball, ox’s pace and energy and I was happy having a senior pro in the back four rather than one of the kids filling in too.
So the game starts and we’re 1-0 down within minutes. A free kick that was never a free kick in truth but it was an early indication of what we were going to see for the rest of the game. But that said, the way we defended it was shocking. We switched off and I’ve said it a few times on this forum recently but it was amateurish and school boy like. Trent made an absolute mess of defending the ball and it was a lovely finish by Ings.
The rest of the half was just Southampton wanting it more than us. They were first to every ball, every second ball, they were aggressive, pressed us high and they defended well too. They were the better side in the first half but bloody hell the referee wasn’t doing us any favours was he. I don’t like blaming refs or commenting on them much but I thought he was awful.
Second half starts and it’s just complete domination by us. However, just like we saw against wba and Newcastle, we never truly looked like scoring. Apart from Manes left foot shot inside the box which he fluffed, did we have any other shots on target? It was poor. Really poor actually.
Trent had probably the worst game I’ve ever seen him play for us. The two cbs had nothing to do all game. Robbo was our best player in my opinion. The midfield three were poor once again. Ox not involved and rightly dragged off but I didn’t think shaqiri did much when he came on either. Thiago did ok but considering how good he is he wasn’t doing enough. He usually dominates and controls games much better than that but we’ve got to take his recent injury into consideration he’s probably a few yards off the pace still. I wanted him to pass the ball forward more instead of using the full backs as often as he did. Gini was completely absent first half but started to grow into the game as it went on but he wasn’t doing enough either. These midfielders need to help the front three out far more and force the games. Have a f**king shot. Stop playing so safe all the time. Try and force something to happen.
Salah was sh*te. Bobby ok I thought he won the ball back for us a good few times and linked well. And mane saw lots of the ball and was our biggest threat but I thought his end product was absolutely terrible. His confidence looks a shot to me at the moment. A mane in form scores a brace and makes two assists there tonight.
Very frustrating. Tonight was the first time this season I’ve felt our title is under serious threat. We are going to drop a lot of points this season. We just have to hope that other teams do too.
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