I have just managed to dredge up the energy to watch the highlights from Saturday

Dear oh dear.

In just about every Southampton attack (bar the late break away) we have 8, 9 or even 10 players behind the ball and yet every single Southampton player has all the time in the world to pick a pass, shot or do whatever the hell they want. No pressure on the man with the ball at all.

This is a common theme of all of our worst away defeats under Hughton. The midfield and defence seem like they are under instructions not to tackle or go to ground but rather just to stay on their feet and keep their position at all times. Its like the zonal defence some teams play at set pieces (which i'm not a fan of either) but we employ it from the moment the ball gets in our half. I can understand not wanting the players to dive in and get caught out of position constantly but you still have to react to what the opposition actually do with the ball and make tackles at some point before they get into the danger zone otherwise teams will just waltz through you like they did.

Tettey, Johnson and Howson also appear to all be covering the same 10m patch of grass in most of the clips and our defenders now get outjumped at set pieces by players half their size because they are all static and back on their heels. I really don;t understand how Mcnally can watch this stuff on a regular basis and not think that our coaching staff are doing a terrible job.

Glad i did not watch it on Saturday now otherwise I would have been in a right old strop.

Posted By: Jim, Mar 17, 10:33:21