Just got home from the game. Plus points - the drive to Middlesbrough and home was excellent. The parking was free. The drink in a quirky pub called Twisted Lip was good. If only I had left it there - the afternoon spoilt by 90 plus minutes of football.
Middlesbrough were poor, they are poor, but somehow through a mixture of stupidity, ineptness and incompetence we managed to conspire to give them a win and having handed them a 2-1 lead they could have scored more as we still conspired to hand the game to them.
Beyond the wonderful goal we did score which should have been the starting gun for us to press on, I was disgusted for most of our performance - slow, pedestrian, almost lazy at times. Error, after error after error. Our midfield were dreadful - Smallbone - he is not cutting it. Downes is powder puff and lightweight. How many times did we lose the ball in midfield? I lost count. Holgate - was he really a PL player? - forget about the manager - when you are on the pitch you should be aware of what is around you, the gaps etc and be able to read the game - he clearly can't. Adams again missed a chance which would have made it 2-0 when frankly most would have put it away - his conversion rate is dreadful. Having gone 2-1 down and even with 10 minutes to go, there was no urgency to get back on top. The core of our defence did not appear too bad and steadier than recently only for others to let us down. One exception was KWP - he really did put the effort in when it looked like others had resigned themselves to another defeat.
This wasn't as bad as Sunderland or Leicester but I and most Saints fans present were right to be angry, disappointed and frustrated. I don't know what the hell is going on but the only direction we are going is League 1 at the moment. We supposedly have a good squad, a fairly expensive squad and yet compare our ramshackle team to that of other teams with lesser skilled players and budget.
I don't know where we go from here. Sack the manager and let SR try and mess up yet again - what have they done right since they have taken over? Rather than worry about Brighton losing to a Greek side, lets start debating what is wrong at SFC as it is not a happy club.
Someone last week wrote they are tired of it all - I don't think they are alone.
A footnote - Middlesbrough fans outside the ground afterwards and walking back to the car praised the depth of our support today - pity our players and manager and coaches don't seem to respond to it. Don't blame the fans when it does go wrong, blame the well paid players, managers and owners who seem indifferent and incompetent to give the fans something to cheer about. Nathan Jones is History - we appear to have made the cardinal sin of repeating History very quickly.
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