Absolutely diabolical performance. Didn't deserve a point and it's an opportunity missed with the initiative handed over to Wolves.
Poor quality, but it was hard to fault the desire. How many times will Gray keep proving all the haters wrong?! At least a point was absolutely essential. It's made things more difficult again, but we're still in the hunt.
Hope that is a wake up call. We need to be so much better in the next three games if we want 7th. Still in our hands though.
Shocking: Cathcart, Doucoure, Pereyra, Hughes Okay: Foster, Janmaat, Masina, Deulofeu Good: Capoue, Kabasele While Gray just gonna Gray.
A series of poor individual performances (Cathcart, Pereyra and Doucoure particularly) led to a poor team performance but can't fault the effort right to the end. Some incredible saves from Foster and I thought Masina was excellent and Janmaat was solid too. Kabasele had some good moments but can be an idiot at times - nearly gave away a penalty and was lucky not to be sent off at the end. I thought Gray was poor all match but he has a habit of popping up with a goal when playing poor and he took it very well. On to the weekend!
Wonderful team spirit. Never say die and typified by Gray persisting to the end. Gracia deserves immense praise for changing it up and being bold with his substitutions. A little more quality in the final third and we are more than capable of winning this one. Southampton's chances came through errors not through any creativity. As footballing sides go the gulf between them and us on the ball was enormous. We are clearly the better team but unfortunately at times this season things have not gone our way. But that team spirit and that on the terraces is superb. We can still claim seventh. Southampton's time wasting antics were embarrassing.
ive never hated him. he relies on service as hes the most advanced on the pitch. if the rest of the team are playing **** then its scraps. he wont be the most skilful on the pitch but just needs a few sniffs at goal.
That's the worst I've seen us play in a long time. Horrendous. I have no idea what Cathcart was thinking 3 seconds into the game, but it wasn't anything relating to football. Capoue was the only player I'd say did well. Good goal from Gray, but otherwise he was pants. Still, he did more than everyone else. Now we need to hope Arsenal remember how to play football tomorrow.
I don't remember them being incredible? Maybe he can be bumped up to a good to be fair. I often think goalies can do better when being beaten in 1 vs 1s as well, though it was a top finish by Long.
Hughes I've come to expect complete non performances from, he's a Championship player, but I've never seen Doucoure play that bad. Those two were woeful tonight. Fair play for going until the end, but I fear we've ****ed it tonight. This time of the season you need to be winning your home games, especially against teams deep in the bottom half.
Players looked pretty drained throughout that match. Doucoure taking two touches where he’d normally take one. Others consistently making poor decisions. The ball not sticking up front. Loads of tired hoofs and headers away which only invited more pressure or let Saints off. Personally I think the 80 mins with ten men against Arsenal are starting to show their effect now. Not sure how many minds are drifting to Wembley too. We’ll get brushed aside easily at the weekend if we play at the same level. Need to get Holebas back in and settle the defence back down too if we’re to have any chance of 7th. Foster, Mariappa and now Cathcart - all of whom have been pretty faultless all season - have cost us goals in the last three matches on the bounce. Just when we need the defence playing at its peak, it’s falling apart through injury and gifting stupid goals to opponents. That’s got to be having an effect throughout the team. Think Wolves will see to Arsenal tomorrow so Saturday is almost win or bust looking at 7th.
Well done Gray. Ultimately Pozzo won’t pay for centre backs so what does he expect from the budget options he has assembled? They’ve done well this season overall but you have now a multitude of fundamental mistakes from Kaba, Mapps and Cathcart spread over the season. The summer will show if Pozzo has any interest in progress or if he just wants to make his dollar.
Absolute CRAP tonight overall bar a few. Capoue played very well but I do feel for Cathcart. It was a huge slice of luck that ball fell to Redmond and you just knew he was going to score. We fell to pieces for large parts of that game and really missed Deeney's leadership and Holebas in the defence. Agree with @lowerrous about the desire. Despite being second to almost all the balls the lads never gave up and in the end Gray scored a quality goal. Graica yet again continues to bemuse us all with his late subs. Cathcart had to come off, he looked shot of confidence but I really hope the fact we got something out of it can lift him again. Gray did little right first half, little second half but wow... when the bell chimes he came good again. Fantastic. Back three second half was a concern but they coped well. Southampton played very well tonight - no denying they didn't deserve at least a draw. For us though it's a point gained rather than two chucked away. We had no right to get anything out of that on the overall performance but credit where credit is due. We managed to break another Premier Leauge record tonight at least... so there is that. We move on now. Arsenal can do us a big favour by spanking Wolves tomorrow night now. This point could be massive end of the season, and we still have plenty to play for. The lads were def. not at the races tonight and need a good effort Saturday now. This was our big game tonight, and we almost blew it. Thank god for the L**** Legend he is turning into. Oh, and @wfcmoog did you win the free season ticket?
I have said all season I don't rate him and I 100% stand by that. He is and has played bang average all season bar the odd moment and is a painfully obvious weak spot in the side, despite our excellent season as a club overall.
Doucoure was terrible. But Southampton did well to cut out the areas he normally roams into. One of those games where we're trying to play neat passes through space in the middle and they stick 8 defenders in the space we want to use. Makes us look individually poor but saints done well in that respect. Missed Deeney massively.
Your having a laugh about Gray?!? Goal aside he was awful today. He wasn't the only one either and soton weren't any better. Another mistake costing us points and another missed opportunity. Been too many of those this season which is why we won't finish 7th
Worst performance I have seen from us in a long time, can't really be bothered to name them all but some of our players were terrible. Thankfully Southampton are not great because there is no way we would have taken anything against a better team with a performance like that. Was a bold move by Gracia going 3 at the back and we did look better, I thought Success could have come on a bit sooner as we needed someone up there that the ball could stick to and as bad as he is that's the best we had available. Overall I am not too disappointed with a draw as it takes us back to 7th. Will be sitting back and supporting Arsenal tomorrow.
Hughes is one of the few things I'm willing to (almost) stick up for Nath about. I wouldn't go as far as saying that he's a Championship player, but he should be a squad option at most, certainly not a first choice starter. He contributes absolutely nothing going forwards. He's the latest in our long line of "mediocre defensive wingers" that we've had in the Prem (Jurado, Amrabat, Carrillo).
Watford vs Southampton Highlights https://myfootballhighlights.com/watford-vs-southampton-highlights/
That's kinda the point though - even when he's bad, he still gets us vital goals. His goalscoring rate is more than twice that of all our other strikers, who are often just poor (without even scoring).
In fairness Hughes hasn't been playing well recently. Works hard, battles, never gives up but offers little else
but if he played well and didn't score you'd still say he was crap because he didn't score. he cant win.
Foster is going to get caught out soon with those daisy cutter punts up the middle - consistently fails to get height on his clearances and has been a bit lucky so far.
Gray will never be successful unless he is played in a formation and with players who suit him. He ran behind and found space time after time (as he usually does) That tactic wasn't going to work today.
Agreed with Nath, I also don't really rate Hughes that much. Slows the game down too much. In fairness to him he's not a right sided midfielder, he'd be better in the 10 role behind a striker, but we don't play that system. Poor performance tonight, thought we looked leggy and definitely ran out of ideas. Missed Deeney tonight as well, think he'd have caused them a lot of problems upfront. Success made a difference straight away when he came on because he pinned the centre halves back and held them off. Deulofeu looked dangerous cutting in from the left too. A good point in the end because I think Southampton will be a tough side to beat next season under Hassenhutl. Although at 19:44 tonight we'd have been saying a draw would be a poor result. Have to win Saturday now against Wolves. Lots more twists and turns yet.
I'd say victory vs Wolves is actually more important for ensuring we finish above Everton - 2 of their remaining 3 games look very winnable, which would have them finish on 55pts.
Yes totally agree, fair play to him as he kept on going and he did get us the equalising goal but he was poor and a premier league striker should be burying the chance he had in the first half every time. In his defence I will say I don't think the game suited him though as Southampton played so deep with a lot of players behind the ball.
