League 1 Match 4 - Southampton 0 Rochdale 2

Purple - not good.

Rochdale at home and surely a golden chance to put the JPT fiasco behind us and get three points. No one would give a toss about the JPT if we won this one and Dean Wilkins responded to one of the few good things to come out of that game and picked Alex Chamberlain from the start. He started on the right with Puncheon on the left. In my mind anyway, this meant we’d be more direct and Puncheon would be getting the ball across quicker and not cutting inside every single time he gets it. Aaron Martin was recalled in place of Jaidi and the same announcement was made as before every home game that today, we had special permission to use the multi-ball system which means that Dan Harding can shout and make faces at the ball boys all game.

Rochdale were playing in purple which is a really wanky colour to have a football strip in. I’m sure that they fly off the shelves in the club shop. It was an uneventful start to the game with any Saints life coming through Chamberlain and Puncheon. It took 20 minutes for anyone to have a shot when a Sir Rickie knock down fell to David Connolly who took time off from repeatedly falling over and giving the ball away, to smash a shot wide of the post. Rochdale responded with a long range effort from Jones which produced a nice ‘one for the cameras’ from Kelvin Davis as he comfortably palmed it away.

For me it was already worrying as Rochdale were getting 10 behind the ball when they lost it and Saints were predictably clueless yet again, in how to break it down. The answer is to attack with pace but what we do nearly all the time is go sideways and backwards until usually one of Harding or Butterfield are forced to toss it into the mixer, somewhere near the non-jumping Sir Rickie. It’s predictable and predictably fruitless.

In my opinion, we have found a good player in Aaron Martin who is looking more assured every time he plays. He wants the ball and is happy to distribute it but his main aim is to defend at all costs and I’ve never seen a clearance draw gasps from the crowd but his 80 yard effort will take some beating. If you are going to put your foot through it, you may as well do it properly.

Sir Rickie did pick out Punch with a decent cross field ball and Punch cut inside onto his weaker foot before forcing a save from the Rochdale keeper. This is one kind of Puncheon effort - A reasonably well hit effort but any keeper would have saved it to be fair. We had two more examples of classic Puncheon shooting in the next 10 minutes as he twice worked himself into shooting positions before lashing it into the top corner…. of the Northam Stand, twice.

No doubt that Saints were doing the vast majority of the pressing but then, so we should be. Rochdale broke out and Jones found himself with the ball, about 25 yards from his own goal but with eight Saints players in front of the ball. He motored though the gaping hole where one of Schneiderlin and Hammond should have been and got to the edge of our box unchallenged before slipping a pass to O’Grady who fired under Davis (who seemed to dive the wrong way) before Martin could make the block.

Worryingly, Martin needed lengthy treatment afterwards and it looked like one of those ‘three months out’ jobs but he soldiered on the remaining 30 seconds and at least managed to walk off of the pitch. Half time, one nil down to fucking Rochdale, boooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

It was noticeable that do Prado was not warming up at half time with the other six subs so I was assuming that he’d be on at the start of the second and I was of course, hoping it would be Schneiderlin going off. We’re 1-0 down and we need a goal – Schneiderlin never scores and he never provides an assist either so no real point in him being there but he extent of the tactical tinkering at half time was to put Chamberlain and Puncheon onto the wrong wings. I didn’t hear the whistle to start the second half above the noise in my head being caused by grinding my teeth together.

I stop my teeth grinding as Hammond fires in a rocket which hits some poor bugger on the head and his legs kind of buckle like a boxers do when they’ve been caught flush on the chin. Chamberlain fired over from about 30 yards when he should really have carried the ball on but he was committing defenders and making things happen. Connolly was falling over and being a Rochdale's best defender and Sir Rickie was wandering about like drunk bloke on a dancefloor.

Both of the latter woke up to produce Saints best move of the match and Rochdale stood and watched as Sir Rickie and Connolly combined brilliantly to give Puncheon a shooting chance from three yards which he smashed into the top corner…. of The Chapel Stand. It really was unbelievably bad and any confidence I had of there being a Saints goal just disappeared. The build up for that chance aside, Connolly was continuing his shocker of a match and it was no surprise when his number went up on the hour with do Prado replacing him. When you think about it though – we’re 1-0 down and we are replacing a forward with a midfield player. Fonte then caught the long-range shooting bug and had a go, deflection, roof of the net.

As is natural with all this Saints pressure, it was soon 2-0 to Rochdale as Fonte was outmuscled by O’Grady before having a chance to clear and being too slow. The ball was played back to Jones who smashed in a brilliant strike to give Davis not an earthly. Dean Wilkins response to going 2-0 down was to take off an attacking winger and bring on a left back as Heather Mills replaced Chamberlain. The massed ‘YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!’ from the SMS faithful, surely told the manager what everyone thought of that decision. Heather was kind of on the left wing, Punch was too, Schneiderlin was kind of on the right and Guly was kind of up front but not really. In short – no one seemed to have a clue where they were supposed to be aside from the keeper, defence and Sir Rickie.

We had a chance to pull one back with five minutes to go as do Prado played a superb first time pass into the path of Dan the Moaning Man but he skewed his left footed effort woefully across the goal and it was easily cleared. And so we finshed the game with Rochdale playing possession football and their crowd giving us the ‘Ole Ole Ole’ treatment. Fantastic – can I go home now ? Final whistle – now I can go. Crap.

Three home games in the league and one point. Three teams that have all defended deep and with numbers. We have scored one goal with a deflected free kick so what does this tell us ? It’s simple – no pace in the side to open up teams and a tempo that is too slow. So, we end up lumping it forward to a centre forward who is not fit and then we get frustrated and over commit and get done on the break.

We really missed Lallana and Barnard today but we really should be beating Rochdale at home regardless. I gave up a bit on Puncheon today and finally accepted that he’s actually not very good. He’s a trier who gets himself into good positions and always wants the ball but when it comes to a final ball or a shot then forget it. Alex Chamberlain will be good given time and Guly do Prado had some nice touches but we have to brave enough to play him in the centre of midfield and leave out the French (Lack Of) Resistance who is rapidly becoming one of the most ineffective players I’ve ever seen. So much ability, so little product.

If Dean Wilkins is auditioning for the managers job then he’s out of the interview room with Cortese’s teeth marks in his arse after today. The first substitution was questionable and the second was diabolical. In evidence m’lud, I also give you the generally cluelessness in the last half and hour and the fact that we had another striker on the bench in Tony Garrod – why not throw him on for the last 10 minutes. Bottom line is that for all our play, Rochdale deserved to win as they carried more threat.

I know of course that we started last season on -10 and technically, we were lower than we are now but losing 2-0 at home to Rochdale? I understand that this is a bit harsh towards our opponents and I have say that I thought they looked a decent outfit who will survive comfortably if they play like that. Jones in midfield was superb and O’Grady up front gave Fonte a really tough game. I don’t care about them though, I care about the Saints and one week after winning 4-0 away from home - we’re a fucking disaster. We’ve lost two home games in a row, scored none, conceded five and still those interviewed say, ‘The Manager leaving hasn’t affected us…..’. Bollocks.