Master Attacking Coach Prepares to Unleash Attacking Force.
...and now on to the blunt instrument that was our attack....
Attacking Midfielders
Dusan Tadic will probably be remembered this season for the
game against Bournemouth when he scored two goals and was brilliant. Up until
that point, I would have gladly see the back of him but Hughes seems to like
him and seems to get more out of him that the previous two managers have. He
will be going to the World Cup so it will be interested to see how it gets on
there and whether he fancies staying for another season. I think he would’ve
been on his way if we got relegated and also if Pellegrino was still in charge
but he seems to have had a new lease of life under the new manager so who knows?
Overall this season, he has been
infuriatingly poor but has stayed in the team despite only doing something
decent about every 15 games.
James Ward-Prowse has had another strange season in that
when he’s got a run of games on the side he has done quite well but he quite
often finds himself dropped and under Hughes, has hardly played at all. Often I
think with him that as he is an Academy graduate and didn’t cost us any money,
he is easier to drop than someone who the club paid millions for. Another issue
is that I’m not sure what position is his best. Not physical enough to play as
a defensive midfielder and probably not quick enough to play further forward.
Right wing appears to be the best option for now though in his minutes on the
pitch under Hughes, he’s definitely been getting stuck in more. It has all added
up to being another in-and-out season though when we were struggling to score
goals, it always mystified me why he was ever left out given his set piece
delivery. That was Pellegrino though I
guess.
Sofiane Boufal has had two seasons now and in that time has
contributed about three goals and zero assists. The goals are always spectacular
but that’s not enough to persevere especially as he has now been identified as
having a shit attitude and has been bombed out of the team as soon as we got a
manager who wasn’t prepared to put up with any crap. Over the course of his two
seasons he has never established himself under three managers and I can’t
imagine he’s ever started more than three matches in a row. He has contributed less than Gaston Ramirez
so it’s over for him. Clubs abroad seem
to be interested so hopefully we’ll get a decent fee and he can go and be a
waste of space somewhere else. Boufal’s
response as soon as the season ended, as the dedicated pro that he is, was to
vow to get his head down, work hard and fight for his place… my arse. It was to immediately talk up a move to
Marseille. See you later you twat. Such a talented player who you always want to
do well but time to accept that it just isn’t happening.
Nathan Redmond will be pleased to see the back of the season
but despite his travails this season, I can’t help but want the guy to do well.
There is a player in there but he gets too affected by things do go wrong and
just seems to fall to bits. Anyone who booed him from the terraces this season
should just fuck off and go and support someone else because if ever there was
an illustration that it does absolutely no good then just look at the effect
that had on Redmond this season. I’ll bet you wankers were jumping up and down
and singing his name when he scored at Everton. If the guy is given the license
to attack and encouraged to do so and not worry too much if he loses the ball
then he can be a serious player and maybe proved that Pep Guardiola is not
insane after all after the post match strangeness of that went on at the
Etihad. Assuming Hughes stays, I’ll bet Nathan has a better season next season.
Josh Sims has played the odd game and looked at threat off
of the bench but still doesn’t look like a starting player to me. Mind you, he
has come back off a long injury absence so I will be hoping to get a full pre-season
and push for starting place next season.
Tadic 6, Ward-Prowse
5, Redmond 5, Boufal 3
Strikers
Charlie Austin has been our main goal threat and is once
again our top scorer but once again he has spent half the season injured and
when he plays, he always looks like he is one step away from another hamstring
injury or another shoulder injury and another four months out, which he spends in the pub. He does have a
sixth sense of being with the ball is going to drop but he is finishing is not
as clinical as many would have you believe and his lack of pace and movement is
an issue when he is upfront on his own. In short, it was a typical Charlie
Austin season. All that said, his goals have been important and without them,
we would have been relegated without question.
Unlike a couple of our strikers, he is at least a goal threat and this season, we have been a better team
when he has been in it. Cheats at
Monopoly as well.
Shane Long has contributed two goals this year and generally
been shit. A footballer with no technical footballing ability but a footballer
with a massive heart and the desire to run until he drops. That has been useful at times this season but
it doesn’t make up for the painful inadequacies in front of goal and with his
decision-making. If there are 19 choices that are good and one that is wrong,
Shane will pick the wrong one. He will shoot from a ridiculous angle or he will
pass it when he is right in front of goal with just the goalkeeper to beat.
Spurs away when he was clean through and fell over, Leicester away when he was
clean through and tried to pass it, succeeding only in knocking it to the
keeper and too many others to mention. Should
only be used as a winger really and then only as an impact substitute. If we
want to progress as a club, especially if we’re only playing one up front, we
need better players than Shane. I have
no issue at all with his attitude but he is just not good enough.
Talking of not good enough - Guido Carrillo. I gave him a
bit of time because playing up front on your own in a Pellegrino team is hard
work for anybody but Mark Hughes gave him half a game upfront with a partner against
a League one side, before deciding that he was in fact an Argentinean donkey
that we have paid £19 million for. Yep, we paid £19 million for a turd of a striker
who was no better than Sam Gallagher who we loaned out to a Championship club.
Let that sink in with our alleged dedication to providing a pathway for
youngsters. I guess the black box needs re-programming, only of course, this
wasn’t a black box signing – if we’d fed Carrillo’s name into the black box, it
would have told us to fuck off and if we’d typed in “£19 million”, it would
have exploded. Having paid 19 million
quid for him, there is no way we want to write that off completely but unless
we are prepared to take a £7 - £10 million loss, the best hope seems to be to
get him out on loan somewhere, possibly back in France where we came from. I
will never understand why we signed a player on Pellegrino's recommendation when
everyone could see by January that Pellegrino’s judgment on anything should not
have been trusted.
Partially forgotten until the Swansea away again was Manolo
Gabbiadini. This guy is class and has been chronically mismanaged this season
resulting in him hardly playing. He doesn’t help himself at times in that in
most games he continued making run after run after run after run but not
getting the ball so guilty of trying the same thing over and over and expecting
different results. This was until the Swansea game when he showed no inclination to come
short and try and help build up the play. He would be an absolute natural in
the number 10 role if he’s inclined to stick around. I hope he does but there
has been a lot of agent noise following him around since the start of the
season so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he departs. I swear that if this guy was in a decent side he’d score 20 goals. He is by miles, the
best all round striker that we have so in my view, it will be a crying shame if
we don’t keep him for next season.
Austin 6, Long 4, Gabbiadini 5, Carrillo 2
The Management
Where do we start with Mauricio Pellegrino. The first thing out to deal with was van Dick being a shithouse and he seem to exude some sort of calm authority at that point but then the football started. The first alarm bell was when we played a very poor Huddersfield side away from home and didn’t even try and win. A couple of slightly fortunate wins at home against West Ham and away at Palace gave us a slightly false high league position at the start of the season and then came Brighton away when we were again faced with a very poor team and we decided to defend the one goal lead we had from the fifth minute onwards and just invited Brighton to equalise which they duly did. One game later we had an abysmal defeat at home by Burnley when 4-4-2 and the long ball game left him totally paralysed with confusion. He should’ve been sacked after the pathetic 4-1 home defeat by Leicester or after the home draw with Huddersfield and he should definitely been sacked after the 5-2 embarrassment at Wembley against Tottenham… then he survived the home defeat to Palace… and then the home draw with Brighton… and then the home draw with Stoke…. How much longer..? It was now March and he was showing no signs of learning everything despite saying he was learning every single week and it took an embarrassing 3-0 defeat to Newcastle before he was actually fired. His tactical cluelessness and inability to change the game or react to the opposition changes had finally done for him. I think he has a very strong claim to be the worst manager we’ve ever had given the resources he had available.
Mark Hughes was then appointed and the fanbase was split between a bit of apathy, a lack of enthusiasm and some had a feeling that he couldn’t possibly be worse than what had gone before. His first league game in my view was one of the most important games of the season as we embarrassingly capitulated 3-0 to West Ham. If he didn’t know the size of his task before the game, he certainly did now and from then on in he changed the formation to 5 at the back and got us more solid but he managed to do this and make us more of an attacking threat as well. Claude had recognised our central defenders as being weak and the way he dealt with it was to bring the whole midfield back 10 yards so we had no attacking threat. Pellegrino hadn’t recognized anything and the master stroke of Mark Hughes was solving one problem without creating another. He also brought with him a steel, a top reputation as a player and the respect that brings with it and the will to win and demeanour that showed everyone that he was not prepared to put up with any crap. Making the players sit through a recording of the West Ham game again and pointing out what was acceptable and what was not acceptable was a masterstroke. Using all the bollocks that went on around the Swansea away again to his advantage was a masterstroke. I just have a feeling that this guy is perfect for the kind of club that we are. The modern footballer is a curious beast and they need to be managed and told what they can and what they can’t get away with. Hughes is the man to do that. Pellegrino was like a shit supply teacher who you nodded in agreement with but then put laxatives in his coffee. With Hughes, there will be some casualties along the way like Boufal but having had to deal with similar shit house players at Stoke, I’m sure he’s learnt lessons from that and is now better equipped as a manager to deal with a similar but slightly lesser problems that we have at Southampton. He has kept us up and he thoroughly deserves to stay on into next season. If he doesn’t then it is because there is some sort of problem behind the scenes and the club is not going to back him financially or something like that.
Over to you Les Reed. There is a certain blurring of the lines which goes on so you can never be entirely sure who is responsible for what but Les is the self-styled King of Football Matters at Southampton so as far as I’m concerned, anything goes wrong with the football side has his fingerprints all over it. The transfer window in January 2018 was abysmal, the transfer window last Summer 2017 was average at best, the transfer window of January 2017 was abysmal, the transfer window in the summer of 2016 saw too many of our big players leave. If Les stays, he has to have severely learnt some lessons from this seasons near miss. If he doesn’t then he’s not fit for purpose and he has to go. Even if Les didn’t think so at the time, there were huge holes left after all of these windows and he has to see it now and he has to act upon it. If we try and take shortcuts again next season we will be down near the bottom next season. It’s not just the transfer windows either – who made the decision to loan out Sam Gallagher and then buy no one to replace J-Rod in the summer and then sign Carrillo in January? How could he persevere with Pellegrino for so long when it was painfully obvious he needed to go? Les has escaped by the skin of his fucking teeth this year and you can’t keep sticking your head in the lions mouth without one day getting you head bitten off.
Les’ boss is of course Motivational Ice Hockey guy Ralph Krueger who has to his credit, only made one cringe inducing video this season. Hopefully he will know enough about football by now to be able to question Les on the absolute shit show that has gone on in his department. Of course, the Gao family may have ideas of their own and throw everything up into the air having watched a learned this season. Let’s just hope that whatever happens, happens quickly. There is no room for faffing about as is the Southampton Way. There is a World Cup and a short close season so every day is vital and we need next season’s structure in place within a few days of this season ending.
Pellegrino 1, Hughes 9, Reed 2, Kruger 3
Where do we start with Mauricio Pellegrino. The first thing out to deal with was van Dick being a shithouse and he seem to exude some sort of calm authority at that point but then the football started. The first alarm bell was when we played a very poor Huddersfield side away from home and didn’t even try and win. A couple of slightly fortunate wins at home against West Ham and away at Palace gave us a slightly false high league position at the start of the season and then came Brighton away when we were again faced with a very poor team and we decided to defend the one goal lead we had from the fifth minute onwards and just invited Brighton to equalise which they duly did. One game later we had an abysmal defeat at home by Burnley when 4-4-2 and the long ball game left him totally paralysed with confusion. He should’ve been sacked after the pathetic 4-1 home defeat by Leicester or after the home draw with Huddersfield and he should definitely been sacked after the 5-2 embarrassment at Wembley against Tottenham… then he survived the home defeat to Palace… and then the home draw with Brighton… and then the home draw with Stoke…. How much longer..? It was now March and he was showing no signs of learning everything despite saying he was learning every single week and it took an embarrassing 3-0 defeat to Newcastle before he was actually fired. His tactical cluelessness and inability to change the game or react to the opposition changes had finally done for him. I think he has a very strong claim to be the worst manager we’ve ever had given the resources he had available.
Mark Hughes was then appointed and the fanbase was split between a bit of apathy, a lack of enthusiasm and some had a feeling that he couldn’t possibly be worse than what had gone before. His first league game in my view was one of the most important games of the season as we embarrassingly capitulated 3-0 to West Ham. If he didn’t know the size of his task before the game, he certainly did now and from then on in he changed the formation to 5 at the back and got us more solid but he managed to do this and make us more of an attacking threat as well. Claude had recognised our central defenders as being weak and the way he dealt with it was to bring the whole midfield back 10 yards so we had no attacking threat. Pellegrino hadn’t recognized anything and the master stroke of Mark Hughes was solving one problem without creating another. He also brought with him a steel, a top reputation as a player and the respect that brings with it and the will to win and demeanour that showed everyone that he was not prepared to put up with any crap. Making the players sit through a recording of the West Ham game again and pointing out what was acceptable and what was not acceptable was a masterstroke. Using all the bollocks that went on around the Swansea away again to his advantage was a masterstroke. I just have a feeling that this guy is perfect for the kind of club that we are. The modern footballer is a curious beast and they need to be managed and told what they can and what they can’t get away with. Hughes is the man to do that. Pellegrino was like a shit supply teacher who you nodded in agreement with but then put laxatives in his coffee. With Hughes, there will be some casualties along the way like Boufal but having had to deal with similar shit house players at Stoke, I’m sure he’s learnt lessons from that and is now better equipped as a manager to deal with a similar but slightly lesser problems that we have at Southampton. He has kept us up and he thoroughly deserves to stay on into next season. If he doesn’t then it is because there is some sort of problem behind the scenes and the club is not going to back him financially or something like that.
Over to you Les Reed. There is a certain blurring of the lines which goes on so you can never be entirely sure who is responsible for what but Les is the self-styled King of Football Matters at Southampton so as far as I’m concerned, anything goes wrong with the football side has his fingerprints all over it. The transfer window in January 2018 was abysmal, the transfer window last Summer 2017 was average at best, the transfer window of January 2017 was abysmal, the transfer window in the summer of 2016 saw too many of our big players leave. If Les stays, he has to have severely learnt some lessons from this seasons near miss. If he doesn’t then he’s not fit for purpose and he has to go. Even if Les didn’t think so at the time, there were huge holes left after all of these windows and he has to see it now and he has to act upon it. If we try and take shortcuts again next season we will be down near the bottom next season. It’s not just the transfer windows either – who made the decision to loan out Sam Gallagher and then buy no one to replace J-Rod in the summer and then sign Carrillo in January? How could he persevere with Pellegrino for so long when it was painfully obvious he needed to go? Les has escaped by the skin of his fucking teeth this year and you can’t keep sticking your head in the lions mouth without one day getting you head bitten off.
Les’ boss is of course Motivational Ice Hockey guy Ralph Krueger who has to his credit, only made one cringe inducing video this season. Hopefully he will know enough about football by now to be able to question Les on the absolute shit show that has gone on in his department. Of course, the Gao family may have ideas of their own and throw everything up into the air having watched a learned this season. Let’s just hope that whatever happens, happens quickly. There is no room for faffing about as is the Southampton Way. There is a World Cup and a short close season so every day is vital and we need next season’s structure in place within a few days of this season ending.
Pellegrino 1, Hughes 9, Reed 2, Kruger 3
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