Pompey are a settled side in top form at the top of their division and full of confidence. We on the other hand are in some disarray near the bottom of our division and clearly lacking confidence. They were at home whilst we had a long journey. I can’t take too much from this game other than that we didn’t really give them a game. Defence is woeful and we seem to be married to a diamond formation and we don’t seem to be capable of changing it. It’s too early to make judgments about the manager, or his signings. I’m sure they are playing at a higher level than they’re used to and I include the manager in that, and they have work to do to make the step up. The thing that worries me more than any of that is the feeling I’ve got that the current administration don’t understand the game and are playing at understanding it. You can’t do that at this level. It’s not a pub league, it’s one of the best in Europe.
If they were still in any doubt about how tough the championship they have had enough warnings but so far they seem to have ignored them. It's the fifth best league in Europe in my opinion where naivety and inexperience will be punished on a regular basis but here we are approaching the end of the transfer window in their second championship season and they're still getting it wrong.
There’s still a week to go but yet again it seems we’ll end a transfer window weaker than we started it. We keep doing it and it’s unforgivable I’m afraid.
And yet some (as is their right of course) still defend them!!!! I tried to ask people yesterday for their views. On the coach, and at the match. Once again they were scathing and unanimous in their condemnation of the owners. But the most telling comment came from a group of about 10 Southampton fans at the match who were friends and family of Brad Collins. Their question was "When a team gets promotion, generally the owners realise they need to strengthen. Your owners have done the opposite. Do they not realise just how strong this league is? You have my sympathy mate". Our owners are naive and incompetent, and they've proved it time and time again. 5 more sleeps.
These owners saw what was required after purchase for 6 months upon our last relegation. For me, there is no excuse for their blind naivety or ignorance this season. They massively set us up for failure by the train crash of transfers in and out in the summer. Who in their right mind flogs off influential players from a promotion winning side for bang average championship fees then replaces them with cheap foreign punts of no quality? They have just rolled the dice and kept their fingers crossed they’d come up lucky. That isn’t a responsible way to run our football club and will probably set this club back for many years to come. My feeling is they are ten-Bob billionaire supposed businessmen, to which they have no real footballing wealth between them, just dipping their toes in the English leagues having struck lucky in France with OGC Nice. Therefore no money has been spent, regardless of the FFP excuses that everyone else in the championship seems to flaunt, and we are increasingly buying inferior quality foreign players and management staff due to this, pushing the cheaply made gamble further as the returns on transfers are beginning to drop. Their gamble is massively failing and I seriously do think they will sell up and move on to the next suckers buying their fantasy football plan as they have already probably personally recouped any initial outlay (probable money loan) with player sales or the sales of Woodrow, Mowatt and Chaplin upon this looming relegation. This will leave us as a club properly back in the doldrums of lower league obscurity, stuck with a team full of lower quality foreign imports. The future looks bleak indeed.
