At the start of the season it was clear that Saints had issues at the back and something had to be changed, that was done by Russell Martin, but perhaps at the expense of some of the attacking play.
After shipping 16 goals in their opening 6 matches, including 9 in the last 2 games of that opening spell, Southampton have seemingly sorted things out at the back, the next 5 games have seen just 5 goals in the back of our net, a distinct improvement, although there is still room for more.
But in that opening spell we scored 10 past our opponents, not a bad number, but clearly our lack of discipline in attack cost us dearly at the back, as we kept getting caught on the counter attack.
On the surface, Russell Martin appears to have changed his formation to preserve the defense on the counter and not go gung ho up the field at every opportunity. The last five games have seen goals stop in our own end but just six goals go in at the other end.
As Saints supporters entered St. Mary’s to watch the game against Leeds United, if you had told them that game, the trip to Stoke, and the home game against Rotherham would produce those stats and 7 points, they would have snapped your hand off after 4 straight losses. The last three games have seen only 2 goals conceded and 5 scored, an improvement at both ends of the field.
We achieved those 7 points, but not in the way most would have assumed and that is where the problem lay after the game against Rotherham, if we had beaten them 3-1 and drawn against Leeds, Southampton supporters would have left St Mary’s with smiles on their faces and with the perception that we are on the way up.
Instead it was with boo’s ringing in their ears from some sections of the crowd, something that left Flynn Downes shocked and surprised and if we look at it as 7 points from 3 games, you can see his point of view.
The crowd accused the manager of reverting to possession football, but the amount of possession and the way that we passed the ball against Rotherham in the 2nd half against Rotherham was not the cause of the goal conceded and therefore 2 points dropped.
We did not get caught on the break, we got caught by a sucker punch with a long kick from the keeper not being cleared and the ball lobbed in the net with virtually the Millers only decent chance.
Some fans point to the fact that it was a game of two halves, in the first we hit an early goal and had Rotherham on the ropes and in the second we sat back and passed the ball.
I would say that the game in many respects was not being dictated by us, we were passing the ball because Rotherham had 10 outfield players behind the ball, they had a solid back 5, a solid midfield line of 4 and then a forward harrying our back midfield trying to nick the ball.
We had to be patient to look for the openings, Rotherham were digging in and giving us nothing, but we created as many openings in the second half as we did the first, right up to the final minute when we almost nicked it late in injury time and the ball was hacked off the line.
The issue in this game was not possession football, but our failure to finish, if we had got a second at any time then we would have seen the game out and perhaps scored a 3rd or even 4th with Rotherham needing to come out from parking the bus.
Results ultimately make or break a manager and personally I want him to get results and keep his job, because if he does that then we have a chance of promotion, if he doesn’t, it might please some to see him sacked, but the then reality is that we will be playing catch up from a difficult position.
As we saw last season, just changing a manager might please some, but more often than not it changes little on the pitch.
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