Liverpool 3-0 Saints: Walk On, Walk On, Out Of Our Club

For once the international break was welcomed by us Saints fans, and I never thought that would be possible. It allowed me to have a relaxing weekend in which I watched neither of the England games and spent a day in London with my girlfriend. I didn’t really think about football, and it’s a sad indictment of our season that I didn’t really miss it. Too many weekends this season have been tainted by an underwhelming Saints performance.

The break also gave Pellegrino two weeks to sort our team out. No match under his tenure thus far had been massively encouraging, dropping points to supposed lesser teams, and none of our 3 wins were impressive or convincing. As we headed to Anfield, we knew that even a point would be big, seeing as though we’re playing all the Top 6 before the New Year. I wouldn’t say we were heading to Liverpool expecting a result, instead just needing one having butchered our supposed kind opening fixtures.

So could Pellegrino utilise the break and breathe new life into a stale squad? Don’t be stupid.

I made my first trip up to Liverpool on behalf of 90 Min so that once again I could FanVoice the game for their YouTube channel, and at the time of writing it’s had almost 15k views which is just crazy to be honest. It was great to meet Liverpool fan Bren, despite his unoriginal van Dijk banter. I hope you enjoy the vlog, I’m proud of it though if you watch all of them so far you can see my hope draining out more and more every week; this week I had none. The thumbnail sums it up.

You can watch my Liverpool vs Southampton FanVoice here: 

I’ll quickly say that I was really impressed by Liverpool as a place (not so much by Virgin Trains’ stupid seat reservation system, thinking they’re bloody Eurostar…). The town centre was really nice, the locals were very friendly, and the forty minute walk to Anfield was enjoyable, especially through Everton Park which gave an incredible sight, as you can see here. (I’m not a photographer.)

View of Liverpool from Everton Park.

I had a really fun day, despite Saints’ best efforts to ruin it. Yeah I’ve put it off long enough. Let’s get into the game, strap in everyone.

The disconnect between the fans and the club has been growing, and was fuelled midweek by a massive social media brain fart in which the fans appeared to be being mugged off by the team they spend their hard earned cash on. Honestly, the club know that Liverpool is a touchy subject for us with transfer goings on in the past few years, so who the hell decided this was a fun game?!?

Surprised it’s only 10 to be honest…

So would the Twitter brigade jump onto the team sheet like it did that tweet? Of course, and for good reason. Hoedt returned though arguably Yoshida has more pace which is needed against Liverpool. The main frustration was in attack where we trundled out Redmond, Boufal and Tadić; a trio we know doesn’t work – we knew that even last season. Ahead of them as a lone striker Gabbi… oh wait… Aus… nope. Bloody Shane Long who hasn’t scored since February. In my opinion this team sheet made it clear we didn’t want to win, which is never a good mindset, but a point at Anfield, as we achieved last season, is not be sniffed at. However, if you have no intention of attacking, don’t make basic defensive errors!

• Tadić was clearly at fault for that first goal, why try and run into trouble instead of just clearing? It was a great finish from Salah but he should never have had the ball in that position, after we’d done well to win it back from a corner.
• I don’t know what van Dijk was doing for the second goal, just ambling up field leaving a gaping hole for Salah to exploit. Ok, so you thought you’d been fouled, but play to the whistle!
• Forster isn’t solely to blame for the third goal, our defence was absent, but the way he just deflected it out into the path of Coutinho who converts is something that has happened too much this season… remember West Ham? And he got away with a scrappy bit of play in the opening few minutes where he couldn’t get a hold of the ball and was just trying to slap it away from Salah.

Not one of our players performed well. Davis looked like he cared but that doesn’t mean he played well. Bertrand had his moments but that was all. His free-kick was our closest chance, a set piece, and it was still wide of the post. No shots on target. Unacceptable regardless of who you’re playing at what level.

Romeu got his obligatory booking, meaning he’s now suspended for this weekends home clash with Everton, and with Lemina out, our midfield will be lighter than ever; there’s going to be an even bigger gap between defence and attack.

It’s bleak. Not one game do we go into with any confidence that we can win anymore. No one believes. The players don’t. The fans don’t. Pellegrino thinks we’re playing well though and that’s what’s frightening. There is no fight in this team. No passion. No motivation. Who is playing for the shirt?Who wants to be here? It has to be said unless something changes soon we are heading for a relegation scrap. Do these players have the mentality to perform in that situation? No because they don’t care. They’re just playing for themselves. We are not a team. End of.

Who’s the strong personality to rally the troops? That’s what we miss. Leadership. Our defenders have potential to bring that but swap every week. The squad is painfully unbalanced and that falls on Les Reed, but the sum of these parts is greater than what we’re getting now. Gabbiadini is a class striker for our level, but rumour has it that Mr Gao is willing to sell him due to a poor goal scoring record. In fact he’s apparently open to offers for Austin and Long too! HOW IS SELLING ALL OUR STRIKERS GOING TO SOLVE THE ISSUE?! Am I being thick? They’re not even the real problem area, the supply to them is non existent. How are they expected to score when they don’t get a touch of the ball? I’ve been fairly reserved in calling out Forster but even I’ve lost patience with him too – how long are we actually going to stick with him in goal when he contributes nothing?

These players haven’t all lost ability over the last two seasons, though I assume Eric Black is trying to coach it out of them. They’re just not playing for the manager. He really has failed to bring what was promised to us fans and what I assume he promised Les Reed. Some people say its early to sack a manager, but I genuinely believe he’s making no progress, other than to put our Prem status in more and more danger. What improvement has there been since August? Name one game you left feeling optimistic for the season ahead. And what’s more, Tony Pulis was sacked this morning due to West Brom sitting on 10 points. WE’RE ON 13! In fact, all three of our wins were against teams that have sacked their manager this season so you can’t really take any pride in them.

However, I’m not going to say anyone other than Pellegrino could be better. We said that about Puel and look where we are now. For all his faults Puel brought an identity, and ultimately did a job for us, no matter how much we didn’t like the manner in which he did. I wasn’t ‘Puel Out’ as I thought he would improve in his second season, but I’m firmly ‘Pellegrino Out’ and I know I’m not alone. I’ve never seen the fan base so united. SaintsWeb is all in agreement for the first time in a long time. The club can’t be blind to how disillusioned we are. #PellegrinoMustGo hour on Twitter is the first example of a protest against the club, and these will ultimately keep growing until he has gone (because let’s be honest, he won’t turn this around.)

Everton at home next and this is an interesting one because I get the impression that our fans want us to lose this one if it means the end for Pellegrino (if he isn’t gone before). As this is live on Sky any form of protest would get a lot of coverage and put the club under more pressure. Everton still haven’t appointed a new manager though, which proves just how limited the market currently is. Controversial opinion but I’d have Koeman back. There, I said it. It would take a lot of pride swallowing from both parties, and would involve Reed admitting to a second consecutive mistake which he obviously won’t do, hence why I fear being stuck with Pellegrino for some while yet. Eric Black as interim is also a scary thought.

I’m not going to the game next weekend. It’s my girlfriend and I’s 1 Year Anniversary and she didn’t fancy watching us lose, so I doubt I’ll be allowed in the pub to watch it during our weekend away in Oxford. Not that I’m complaining. It’s sad that I don’t mind missing it, but I think that encapsulates the entire fan base’s attitude. Things are getting more hostile by the week, and for good reason. I will be back with a blog post about it though, hopefully celebrating his departure.