Following the double shit shows on the road in Bristol and Blackburn, it’s time for a return to St Mary’s to play Preston North End. We played them last time in the Championship and they were absolute shite as we won easily by 3-0. Oh for that today. We were supposed to play them earlier on in the season of course, but the game was cancelled because of the fire in the warehouse behind the Chapel End. So, is today going to be a comfortable win or is today going to be an absolute fucking binfire?

Preston have started the season pretty well and currently just outside the playoff positions in seventh place. They had a decent win last week coming from two down to beat Sheffield United, with the winning goal coming from Daniel Jebbison, a striker loan from Bournemouth. They have committed fully to the Premier League youngsters loan methodology, with Harrison Armstrong from Everton, Alfie Devine from Spurs and Lewis Dobbin from Villa revamping their team this season. It’s a route that we have course went down two years ago and it’s all good until you land in the Premier League and have to spend about £50 million quid just to say the same as you were the previous year. Preston won’t be worrying about that right now because it’s probably better to do that than what we’ve done, which is increase our wage bill massively with a load of players who have so far not proved that they are up to it.

Paul Heckingbottom is the manager, who struck me as fairly uninspiring kind of guy when we came across him as Sheffield United manager during one of those times when they had just sacked Chris Wilder before they employed him again. One player that caused us problems last year was Milutin Osmajic up front, who managed to draw the ridiculously stupid Mason Holgate into a fight in the away game and it’s the sort of rough-house striker who will cause problems if we are not up for the physical challenge today. Every indication so far this season implies that we won’t be.

Will Still’s press conference this week revealed the obvious – Welington suspended for being a twat, Shea Charles out for a while with his hamstring injury, Elias Jelert still injured.. The news we didn’t want to hear is the Flynn Patient Zero Downes, is still struggling to stop being a medical case study, this time with a knee injury, so it’s a bit of a worry as to what we’ll have in the centre of midfield if he doesn’t make it. The name of Joe Aribo has been floated around again, with Still saying something slightly strange about him potentially being an important player if he wants to play. I’m sure it’s just a figure of speech but is he saying he doesn’t want to play? Cameron Archer is apparently also struggling with an injury picked up at Blackburn and what a loss that will be. Damion from the start perhaps? Please no.

There can be no soft selling of how important this game is. It will ramp up in every single home game in particular, until we start turning this around. Will Still knows this and was particularly to the point in his press conference, basically saying that we need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and just fucking get on with it. Leo Scienza has also been interviewed and has shown that he has learnt a few English expletives, which will stand him in good stead. So, to paraphrase, the message from the camp is “just fucking do it“. We will see. Talk, as we have found out over the last few years, is definitely cheap.

Come an hour before kick-off and Still has surprisingly bottled it again and gone with the back three with THB coming back into the team instead of Josh Airshot. Thankfully, Patient Zero has recovered enough to take Charles‘s place in midfield and the good news is that we are wearing our usual black shorts in case he shits himself with whatever stomach bug he has today. Finn Azaz is preferred to Tom Fellows upfront.

Away we go an it’s a tactical change as Azaz and Jander are to the right and left of Flynn Downes, with Arma and Leo seemingly split as strikers. Scienza livens things up straight away, carrying the ball pass three or four players before working it out wide to run Manning on the left. His cross towards Armstrong comes to nothing as he is crowded out. A free kick on the left following a foul on Scienza, gives us another opportunity as Manning crosses and it goes to the far side where Edwards puts it back in but more committed defending sees Downes blocked as he tries to slide it goalwards.

Saints are actually playing a little bit quicker and it’s vaguely promising as Jander and Azaz combine to put Scienza away on the edge of the penalty area and he cuts inside onto his right foot and aims for the far post but the keeper Iversen is across well to push it wide. Decent effort, but Leo would’ve wanted to start it out a yard wider.

After a positive start things begin to turn on about 20 minutes as Manning needlessly over-commits himself on the left and Preston break and a couple of quick passes and suddenly they’re three on one with just Ronnie Edwards back but luckily Dobbin put his effort away over the bar. The crowd notably turned with this incident and we got our first chants against Sports Republic and the general consensus of opinion is that they should get out of our club.

Having had the warning, we don’t respond well and a low cross comes in from the Preston right. We have seven players and the goalkeeper in the penalty area compared to Preston’s two strikers but THB misses the cross and then Edwards gets bundled out of the ball by Dobbin and even though McCarthy saves the first effort, Dobbin easily rolls the second one to the net.

That’s all she wrote until half-time and the players depart the pitch to a volley of booing and apathy from the crowd. Will Still is obviously busy though because when we start the second half, both Tom Fellows and Jay Robinson are on the pitch, the shit formation has gone in the bin and Finn Azaz and Ronnie Edwards are watching from the side line. The line-up now more closely resembles what we should have had from the start.

Not much goes on in the first 15 minutes bar a couple of breaks forward by Fellows, until Roerslev, in a rare example of him actually running forwards with the ball, burrows into the box and has an opportunity to shoot but turns it down in favour of cutting back, stopping and chipping it aimlessly over everyone and out for goalkick. Absolute fucking shit.

As we move into the last 20 there’s a brief glimmer of hope as Caspar Jander picks up the ball on the edge of the box turns onto his right foot and sets off a shot towards the far post, but Iversen claws it out of the top corner and pushes it onto the bar and away. Really good effort by the young German and an absolutely brilliant save. Not a lot you can do about that.

Flynn Downes clearly needs a shit and with a neat bit of symmetry we bring on Damien Downs because we are that fucking desperate. Jay Robinson appears to drop into midfield but it now looks a complete shambles. Ryan Manning puts over a cross from the left-hand side but the new man on the pitch is on his heels and it passes by him for a goal kick .

As time ticks around to the 92nd minute, Manning tries to pick out Downs again but the ball runs through to the goalkeeper. Preston look more likely to score in the next goal to be honest and Thordarson runs through our non-existant midfield before taking aim from 30 yards and it flashing narrowly wide of McCarthy‘s post.

Time for two more subs with Nick Oyekunle being brought on for his debut alongside the returning Joe Aribo, so we’ve got a debutant and someone who hasn’t played all season coming on in the 90th minute.

93 minutes and Scienza sends it into the box but it’s caught comfortably by Iversen who rather than going to ground and wasting time, gets on with it and bowls it out to the left back because he knows that Preston can run it up the pitch. Down our right they travel before Frokjaer-Jansen plays a 1-2 with Thordarson and smashes it into the net.

Just when you think it can possibly get any worse, it does.

That was absolutely putrid from start to finish today all the things that we’ve been talking about with regards to what’s missing from this group of players were displayed in 90 minutes of the most passive, boring clueless, unambitious style of football that you could ever hope to see.

The chanting against the board, “Sport Republic, Get Out Of Our Club” that started just before Preston scored their first goal was very significant. Firstly, if thousands of people are chanting something then you can’t be too annoyed about it because the numbers of people chanting it gives it a certain weight and validity. However, I think chanting like that during the game is nothing other than counter-productive and it was very very noticeable that the players shrunk and started shirking responsibility as soon as it started. It was kicked off by Ryan Manning doing Ryan Manning things over on the left and taking a throw straight to the opposition and from then on and I don’t think we touched the ball until McCarthy made a save and it was scrambled over the line whilst our defenders all looked to eachother rather than taking responsibility. Did the chanting help? No it did not.

What the charting does mean however is that it is highly likely the Sport Republic in the shape of Johannes Spors, will react by sacking the manager because that’s what happens 95% of time when the fans turn on the board. Will Still is an easy lightning conductor for the criticism and Sport Republic will be seen to be doing something if they get rid of him. This will only kick the can down the road until whoever the replacement is, finds that he can’t get a tune of these useless sacks of shite we’ve got masquerading as Southampton players.

I see it said often that we have a good squad. We do not, because of the deficiencies and these deficiencies stop it from being good. A good squad is balanced and strong in all areas. We have several decent individual players who genuine top six sides would want in their squad, but our squad is majorly deficient. We don’t have a central striker as we all know and we don’t have that horrible bastard in midfield who drives standards. We don’t have a captain figure who inspires others and is a top performer himself. Two of those three roles today were fulfilled by Adam Armstrong who was beyond abysmal. He didn’t threaten the goal once, barely touched the ball and if he’s the captain, for fuck‘s sake, you are basically playing without one. I can only think that like Russell Martin before him, Still does not place that much significance on who is the captain if he picks Armstrong to do it.

Will Still is not blameless, regardless of the squad he has at his disposal and I’d be very surprised if he’s still in charge much longer. He may limp on to QPR on Wednesday but unless he wins there, he won’t get the home game next week against Sheffield Wednesday. Basically, if he survives the weekend, he has to win the next two games otherwise he’s going to be gone and it will be impossible to defend him.

He bottled it again today with the way we set up at the start. We didn’t need three central defenders. We needed two who took responsibility and then we might have had that extra player to pass the ball to further on up the pitch to actually threaten the Preston goal which we did a grand total of once in the first half. Having said that, once we switched to a back four in the second half, we only created one chance and that was Caspar Jander’s curled effort from the edge of the box which produced a ridiculous save out of Iversen in the Preston goal.

Our players are cowards and do not want to play forwards. The one exception is Leo Scienza who is one of very few who gives hope for the rest of this season. When we brought on Robinson and Felows at half time, we at least ran forwards on occasions and we at least look like we might create something but then another stupid substitution.. I understand that Flynn Downes probably couldn’t play 90 minutes but taking him off and putting Damion Downs on, totally killed the midfield and we barely touched the ball again after that. Damion touched it once, because Spors priority signing striker is not very good. Joe Aribo of course should have come on at that point but instead he had to wait until the 89th minute or something.

My anger is still very much directed all over the place but I look at some other players on the pitch and the old chant of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” really applies. Today I thought Adam Armstrong was beyond pathetic and Ryan Manning was his usual wanker self. Put some good balls into the box but the off the ball side of his game was abysmal. Mads Roerslev has absolutely no decision-making whatsoever. His starting position is always too high up the pitch and when he gets the ball, he therefore always comes backwards with it. He’s never facing the right way when he receives the ball and it’s an utter waste of time expecting to keep any momentum in the attack when the ball goes out to him. Nathan Wood had an absolute shocker of a game today and compounded it by losing his shit after the final whistle with some fans near the dugout. Ronnie Edwards was piss-weak on the first goal. Of the defenders, THB was the pick of the bunch on his return to the side, despite being partially at fault for the first goal and slim-picking though it is, he probably should be our captain.

The first Preston goal today is so bad from the point of view of defending as a team and taking responsibility. As the ball is crossed into the box we have seven players and a goalkeeper in there and Preston have two strikers. Mistake one is allowing the cross to come in – Manning is nowhere near the guy crossing the ball. Mistake two is four of our players are just ball watching on the edge of the box and neither picking up a player or attacking the ball. Mistake three is THB allowing the ball to roll under his foot from the cross. It was the sort of low quality shit cross that we constantly put into the box but the difference is, we miss it. Mistake four is Ronnie Edwards getting easily rolled by Dobbin and allowing him to get the first shot away. Mistake five is Roerslev at the back post who is just ball watching, doesn’t sense any danger and doesn’t get involved at any point, just stands there until it’s in the net.

In midfield, £12 million worth of Finn Azaz didn’t seem to know where he was supposed to be playing. He was sort of a right sided number eight was kind of my guess but wherever he was playing, he was very ineffective and unsurprisingly hooked at halftime. Flynn Downes was okay in a limited kind of way but had very little confidence with the ball at his feet and Casper Jander was probably our best player, bar the ever willing Leo Scienza. Jander deserved a goal for his effort that produced the ridiculous save.

So, Still will probably get sacked because that’s where the buck stops. He has not done himself any favours with some of his decision-making and we have no discernible style of play and haven’t had since the day he arrived. I personally think that the players have been against him from the minute he walked in the door because we in the English game, don’t like anything a bit different if it turns up only having managed abroad, being very young and never having had a playing career. Our collection of wankers probably thought that they were above it all and this guy wasn’t worthy and so have not been buying into whatever Still was trying to implement. Just what he is trying to implement is anyone’s guess. The problem is that if there was any improvement, people would be more sympathetic, but there is none and we’re going the opposite way.

Still has failed, but so have Sport Republic with supplying him with what he needs as I said earlier, Sports Republic will sack him, then they will get a replacement and then we will still be shit until we sign the players we need. The aim for this season will very quickly become to stay up, rather than challenge at the top end of the league.

Usually I say something along the lines of it’s a good job that in the Championship there’s never too long to dwell on a bad performance or result because the next game soon rolls round but as I said, we seem to be getting progressively worse and so Wednesday’s game against QPR will more than likely be another complete shitshow in this massive clusterfuck of a season so far.

Onward we go to Loftus Road. The shit players will still be there, Sport Republic will still be there and the only question is whether the manager will be there or not.

So, I wrote all of the above by Sunday afternoon and so we moved to Sunday evening ….

Various media outlets started reporting that Will Still was no longer the Southampton manager at about 6:45pm with L’Equipe being the first and then Fabrizio Romano and by 7 o’clock, the club had posted that Still was leaving with immediate effect and that under 21’s manager Tonda Eckert was stepping in for the interim period. The statement was from Johannes Piss-Spors, who basically said that Will was a stand-up guy who worked really hard. Needless to say, Johannes made no mention of who made the decision to appoint hima few months ago, because that would be him.

As I said earlier, this was inevitable from the moment that the fans started chanting against the ownership halfway through the first half of the Preston game. It’s another example with this current set up we’ve got the club, that one man is carrying the can for the collective failure of the ownership, players and the manager. Will Still certainly wasn’t the best and he certainly didn’t help himself. I feel like he never really had the courage of his convictions and was always trying to fight a battle for respect from players. It’s always hard to pinpoint when things started to go wrong but the aftermath of the Hull game, when he left out some of the big character players, seems to be a good candidate for fractures appearing in the relationship between him and the players, that were never going to heal. To be quite frank, I don’t think they were having him from the moment he walked in the door. If that’s the case and that’s all well and good as long as you’re not blameless yourself and you’re putting in 100%, but none of these players could look themselves in the eye and think they’ve done a good enough job to prevent this scenario from happening.

I’m sure that Will Still will go back to French football and will be a success over there and hopefully for his sake, his brief tenure at the clusterfuck that is Southampton FC under Sport Republic, will not damage his career too much. The good news for Will is that he has many years ahead of him and it will only be his reputation in England which will have been damaged by this sorry affair.

Up the fucking shitshow Sport Republic Saints