Southampton 0 Liverpool 2
At last some good news this weekend!

The problem for me isn’t whether or not we stay up. The problem for me is us simply not learning that playing the style of football we did yesterday will never lead to any form of progression results wise in the long term. We’re so utterly obsessed with generating hysteria over a short period of results, good and bad and we never take a step back to look at the bigger picture or general long-term plan for the club. The fact of the matter is, Parish & the Yanks are directionless. The only reason we’re still here is because they’ve thrown money at it and hired managers to keep us up and give us an artificial sense of unsustainable success.

When we’ve played with the ball this season and shown a bit of nerve we’ve given everyone we’ve faced a problem, yet we still insist that we have to play such garbage and are then surprised when we’re up against a desperate scrape for survival again. We are not gonna come away from these types of seasons unless we actually embrace some sort of change & accept that taking 2 steps forward will almost certainly mean we have to a step back first. Parish needs to have some bottle to do this, but he just doesn’t. He’s obsessed with looking good on paper.

Without taking this process to drastically improve in possession of the ball and having the ability in order to have some form of control over our own destiny in matches, we are going to go down. It’s just a case of when, not if and with Parish at the helm & the attitude of some of our supporters, I’ve simply lost confidence in this ever taking place in the current PL reign. That’s why I don’t share the same hysteria during good and bad short spells anymore, because I can see beyond the smoke screens that nothing is changing and the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result.

I know the media shove down our throats how amazing and difficult the English league is and how it’s so different to everywhere in the world of football but look at the game all across the world. Teams who have a mindset of soaking up pressure and playing kickrush are never relatively successful for a sustained period of time. They’ll have their moments of course, but the chickens will always come home to roost in the end when you play a style that effectively leaves your results to chance.

Edited by Mstrobez (11 Feb 2018 9.39am)

Why do you expect progression, its simple not that easy.
Why are West Brom, Stoke and Southampton all clubs that haven't been in relegation scraps in recent years, all sitting in the bottom 3. They all want progression as well.
Your simplistic view isn't reality.

Well it looks like despite the great job Roy has done so far looking at the results this weekend it could now be all over for us, pessimist I know but I can’t see us getting anything form the next 3 or so games, the writing was on the wall when we failed to beat Newcastle last weekend .... and those last minute penalties that were missed and the 4 points that would have yielded now seem to have come home to roost...... still whatever the division we will be playing in next season I will still be there, as I always been since 1958 ... good or bad, win or lose !

And West Ham in the week. I called this at the time.

It's not simplistic in the slightest and I've listed detailed reasons over the course of years on these boards about where we are going wrong and what we can do to improve. Progression starts with the footballing culture at the club and our attitude towards improving in possession is quite frankly pathetic and hysterical when short term results don't go our way, we never stop to look at the bigger picture at all. The difference between clubs like Southampton and us is the principle and belief that their style of play will breed long term results and that will hold true regardless of if they go down or not. If they go down this season, which I highly doubt, they'll come straight back up because of their footballing photoshop & transfer policy, they have direction and a clear idea of how they want to play. I'm not talking of a click your fingers and be better process, I'm talking of one that for once stops seeing short term results as the be all & end all of everything.

Southampton have had the second lowest net spend in the Premier League in the last 5 years, we've had the 5th highest. Higher than both Merseyside clubs. If that doesn't make you question why we have seemingly progressed very little then nothing will but I'd argue the "simplistic" way of looking at things is to believe that what's needed is to just keep throwing money at players that somehow we'll see a massive upturn in fortunes. The fact we've spent so much in the transfer market and are still looking at surviving by the skin of our teeth should ring massive alarm bells and indicate behind the scenes there is something desperately not right about those in charge, and their strategies and ideas.

No one is "expecting" anything and perhaps breaking away from the medley of teams in and around it is tough but I think fans have every right to expect some form of progression in our style of play. All progression starts with how a team play's on the ball & in the modern game it is vital that we improve in that department. Failing to do so & like I said it's a matter of when and not if we go down. And personally I think that even if Roy does pull off the great escape this season, we are on our last lifeline of this type.

Edited by Mstrobez (11 Feb 2018 5.56pm)