George Burley is complaining about that the defence isnt strong enough, its taken him long enough to realise.

Some Saints fans would say that our defence or lack of it cost us a point at Watford and maybe all three, last night against Colchester we once agin gave away a silly goal and to be frank it could have been more, its good to see that George Burley finally realises that he has a problem, he is just a month behind the rest of us.

There are many reasons given as to why George Burley hasnt signed a decent Central Defender to play alongside Wayne Thomas, money being the biggest, but in my opinion these are all excuses and having had the Jones money for the best part of a month there is no reason why Burley shouldnt have had a signing or two lines up the moment the loan window opened, he didnt and we have paid the price.

Those that say it isnt Burley's fault and that his hands are tied due to cash, would have a good case, if George hadnt signed Euell, John and seemingly chasing David Norris of Plymouth, from the moment we started the season against Palace we knew we had a problem but it hasnt been dealt with.

In truth Colchester came and did exactly what they have done for the past year or so, get men behind the ball and look to go on the break, we did the hard part and got the goal that should have made them come out and given us the chance to add to it, but the fact is every side knows we have a weak defence and goalkeeper, they know we are slow, they know that if they put balls into the box our defence isnt strong enough to win the ball and they know that our keeper wont come and collect it, in short we are always going to struggle till we deal with the probblem.

But it isnt just at centre back, in truth only Wayne Thomas at the back is good enough for a place, at right back if Burley doesnt rate Ostlund then why the hell hasnt he tried to find a replacement instead of using the position to give Wright a game now he cant get a sniff in midfield, Makin isnt good enough at ccentre half, nor at full back for that matter and at left back Skacel could be the answer, but hasnt shown enough yet to convince me.

Saints fans dont need to read a report of the game to know what happened, they could have predicted it before a ball was kicked, indeed its now happened in every game apart from QPR, the defence isnt good enough or strong enough and this gives the opposition confidence, they arent afraid to go behind because they know that we will collapse, things need to change and fast.

Ironically enough although I have been critical of Burley for a while, for a big part of that time I have been very much in a minority, with some fans feeling that after the managerial merry go rounds we have had although Burley hasnt done a great job he should be given time, but last night I felt the first tremors of large scale unrest with the manager, many seem to feel that he has now had nearly two years in the job and that we shouldnt be so weak in one area,  yet have so many options in other areas.

The upshot being that the crowd may be on the edge of turning against the manager, certainly the team were booed off the park last night, but that wasnt so much about the overall performance, after all Sain ts went foward fairly well with Dyer having some good runs and some good chances being created, but it was more about the frustration of seeing all the goos work being undone by poor defending and the manager failing to sort the problem out.

Saints can still launch a promotion challenge, they can start to get back on track by beating Barnsley, but after that it gets a lot tougher and unless defenders are brought in its hard to see how we will pick up too many points.           

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