Southampton v Nottingham Forest Review

What a truly awful Southampton performance against Nottingham Forest. I’ve been watching Saints since 1974 and it’s as bad as anything I’ve ever seen from us. To be fair, Forest are very very average side who just worked so much harder than us today. I’m normally the one who is very positive, but apart from a nice cameo performance from Tyler Dibling, there was little on view today to suggest that things are going to improve.

Very obvious we need a change at GK immediately. The potential transfer of Bijlow may solve that problem. Personally, I’d have rather seen Ramsdale come into the club because he’s been tried and tested in the PL.

An average Forest side could have scored 3 or 4 today against our defence. KWP and Sugawara did not play well today, but I believe they’re capable of much more. THB had an off day today, Bednarek was passable. Stephens just isn’t PL standard. I love how committed he is to us but he gets into very bad positions due his misreading of the game and every pass is a lazy pass that just about reaches his intended target which puts pressure on the next ball. ABK is probably the best defender we have but has never really been given a chance under RM.

The midfield area was very disappointing today. Flynn Downes had a poor day today. Will Smallbone was OK but he’s not going to unlock a PL defence. Aribo’s habit of trying to protect the ball with his body instead of actually taking control of it lead to the goal today. Again, no end product to unlock a PL defence. Tyler Dibling was outstanding in his 15 minute cameo and it’s too early to make a judgement on Mateus Fernandes. I’d like to see Sam Amo-Ameyaw get more opportunities ahead of Edozie to see if he has what it takes.

Up front we were abject today. As I said in a previous post, AA is not going to be prolific in the PL but he will be a good squad player similar to Smallbone. Brereton-Diaz (£7M) and Archer (£15M) are in the early stages of their Saints career but it’s a lot of money spent on players unproven at this level.

I really admire the style of football that RM is attempting to play with us. Unfortunately, I also think it’s very naïve. Our recent transfer strategy has been to acquire a large number of players cheaply in the hope that they MIGHT turn out to be a special young player that goes on to have a big career OR we hope to acquire a seasoned veteran that MIGHT have one last big year in them.

IMO this strategy is flawed beyond belief. Instead of buying 10/12 unproven…