Once again Saints were found wanting in every department on the road.

Over the past couple of weeks I have made several points regarding our squad and tactics, and at Doncaster most of my points came home to roost as Saints surrendered pathetically to bottom of the table Doncaster Rovers.

When I was putting forward my case for signing Lucas Jutkiewicz I was shouted down, but could this failure to land him or indeed a similar target man, haunt us at the end of the season, I ventured the opinion that we play in a specific style and without Lambert we would struggle that was proved on Saturday.

Nigel Adkins opted for a sort of five man midfield, I say sort of, it wasnt quite clear what formation they were playing to be blunt, those that have been demanding Steve De Ridder to start got the answer why he doesnt with his display at the Keepmoat, a case of pace looks good but without an end product its worthless.

Saints had their chances in the first half and indeed could have easily have lead at the break with both Guly and Schneiderlin having decent attempts well stopped by the keeper, but we looked to be playing with no pattern or confidence and the more tha game progressed you could see Doncaster growing in theres.

The goal when it came again showed why we have such a poor away record, I have spoke about the need to keep clean sheets and be in the position to win games late on because of that, it has to be said that it was another soft goal, Hooiveld got caught napping on the half way line and really should not have been, Fonte came across and covered and looked to have pushed the man wide, but having pushed him right to the byeline he shouldnt have let him get a cross in, we all know what happened next.

Saints had 30 minutes to get a goal back, the strangest thing though was we did nothing for over a third of that time, having played so poorly and rarely looked like creating anything, we opted to keep playing the ay we were till finally we brought on Lee Holmes for De Ridder and then Barnard for Cork, it was a change of pattern but too little too late and although we pushed forward a bit late on, by now Rovers had got the game in their hands and werent going to let go, the problem was though we still lacked Lambert,

The worrying thing is that ver the last three games we have been found wanting tactically, predictablility has been a part of our game, thats fine when its working, but without a big traget man, our style of playing is nullified and we dont seem to know what to do to counter that, yes we have injuries but so do many other teams.

We have a big squad, but as i mentioned last week, the very position we need cover for, Lambert, we have none, how ironic that Jutkiewicz should score again for Coventry, how we could have used him on Saturday.

A lot of people have moaned about calling games "Must Win" pedantically as i stated the only must win games are right at the tail end of the season when a specific points total is needed, however come the final reckoning it will be our failure to get even a point from two trips ito bottom three clubs that will be the most likeliest thing to cost us, Boro showed how to do it at Bristol City and indeed how promotion is won.      

Photo: Action Images

BlackRod added 10:55 - Dec 5 Well, we lost the 'must win' game but remain top of the league and five points above third. Being in this position at the start of December is something we would have taken with both hands at the start of the season. We can afford some losses to lower sides - this should be balanced by against the odds wins against top sides. That said this article is largely correct. I couldn't get to the game but listened on Saints Player where the commentators were scratching their heads over the tactics being deployed - no width and so many changes that the players got confused. Many new players have been mentioned but, for whatever reason, only Jos has been brought in and I think we will regret that. Barney is still untested at this level and we need him to step up to the plate. Dare I say it but Blackpool is the 'must win' game. If we surrender our home record to them then there is a clear trend and we could find ourselves back in the play-off places come January.

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TimSaint added 11:55 - Dec 5 I don't think the team know what to do when SRL is missing. Sure he scores plenty of goals for us, but he is also an integral part of our style of play - linking up well with the midfield. On Saturday Guly offered nothing and particularly in the 2nd half, whenever he got the ball it was end of move / lose possession. Our tactics were very lacking too. Sure we had plenty of possession, but we created no where near enough chances from this. SdR didn't know what to do. He hugged the touchline all first half, never drifting in to get more involved, then played up front and then on the left for 10 mins a piece in the 2nd half, before being subbed. How Morgan with his 1 goal in all his time at Saints played the supporting role to the striker is beyond me. Yes he had a couple of chances and really should have scored 1 of them to put us in front, but then to play the holding role in the 2nd half, just about sums us up. Maybe NA is too scared to drop 1 of our midfield 3, now that Chap is injured, but he should really have given Barney a start (then take him off if need be) and should have started in SdR or Holmes on the right and dropped a Centre Mid. What is more frustrating is that despite all the possession, we continually gifted Donny the ball and chances on the break. Look at the goal for example. There were warning signs of this twice in the first half, but we don't learn. What is more frustrating is reading Hammond's comments on the official site / Echo /Other sites. He far too often gave the ball away, but followed this up with the fact that we are still top and we are going to lose some away games and that our home form is great etc and that our away performances are nothing to worry about. Dean, you are the Captain. Our away form is alarming. Do something about it, or be the CM who drops out of NA's beloved threesome. This performance reminded me of Saints in the late 80's and early 90's. Never really managing a win further north than the midlands and often being the architects of their own downfall. Please address this for the weekend and obviously for the 18th December as well.

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Thetrout added 12:15 - Dec 5 Was at the game on Saturday and the article is pretty much spot on. Nigel Adkins has done wonders at the club but that doesn't make him immune to making mistakes. When Rickie didn't appear for the warm-up I was worried but was confident Barney would step up to the plate and make a contribution. When he didn't start I was a bit bemused at how we were going to play. When the game started and Morgan appeared to be up front with Guly I couldn't understand it. Don't get me wrong I like Morgan but he's holding midfielder who's only scored twice in his Saints career, he's not a striker! After 10 mins I turned to the guy next top me and said 'we'll be here a fortnight and not score'. I honestly think you should play people in their proper positions. With both Lambert and Conners out surely Barnard was the logical choice to start? However, Nigel's led us this far so we've got to move on and keep the faith! By the way, how bad were our set plays? 8 corners in the 1st half and not 1 chance created from any of them! Danny Fox should be working on them all week. I don't want to see a repeat of him hitting it way past the back post and out of play against Blackpool, shocking!

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saintstowin added 16:30 - Dec 5 i am certain that NA will be regretting his (quite strange) decision to play Morgan upfront, or close to upfront. he pointed to his one on one as possible vindication of the decision, but frankly there's a good reason why he missed, he probably has had about 6 of those opportunties in his life! He certainly looked ill at ease running through. it's very frustrating to draw two blanks on two winnable road trips as we do have goals in us even without SRL. while we're not scoring freely it's vital we keep it tight and i feel the derby will really show if we've got the strength to be intense and focussed when the opposition come at us on their own patch. while it's tough on the road we need to keep that home run going - a prize please for most obvious statement of the day! but i have never trusted a manager of ours, as much as i trust NA.

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Whatsforpud added 17:18 - Dec 5 An interesting point from Thetrout about corners. It is frustrating when corners are wasted by being overhit. I feel that we should always have someone deep, beyond the 6-yard box (perhaps one of the centre backs) as assurance to keep play going. The best corner is one hit flat and hard, as long as it is higher than the first defender. But this needs that deeper target man to be there. Matt Le Tiss mastered the art. Also we usually favour the inswinging corner, which I feel favours the keeper. The more natural outswinger would tend to keep him on his line.

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SaintNick added 22:17 - Dec 5 in fairness fox is usually spot on, but he just couldnt seem to find his range espcially first half, however again with the absence of lamberts head at corners, fox had to look at different options when taking the corners
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TimSaint added 10:36 - Dec 6 I think some of Fox's poor corners were possibly down to the bitterly cold driving wind - but he should have learned from the first one !! His deliveries are usually top notch and created many goals for us already this season. With 8 first half corners we didn't create anything out of them, apart from gifting Donny a couple of good counter attacks. I hope we are working on this at training in the build up for Saturday. Speaking of WINDS - the bloke in front of us must have had 8 curries on Friday night, then continually ate pickled eggs on the journey up up along with some dodgy Yorkshire ale !! Anyone roughly in the centre of the stand, just to the left of goal would have caught a whiff on many occasions - and probably most of the donny fans too !! My cousin was nearly sick because of the stench and it was OUTSIDE !! LOL Next time - Please show consideration for your fellow Saints fans and either cork it or flush it !! (You know who you are !! lol)

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geezershoong added 11:07 - Dec 6 Couldn't understand why we didn't start with what we finished with. The Morgan S positioning was baffling to say the least. First black mark Mr Adkins!
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