Welcome to the Premier League Alex!
While I’m sure he needed no reminding of how ruthless the PL can be, particularly when on your travels, today’s trip to St Mary’s merely confirmed it. It also gave him a glimpse into the life of a Yellow Army foot soldier when following their team on the road in the big league.
For some it will have rekindled some horrible memories of their last season-long road trip when Chris Hughton was at the helm.
But let’s not panic. Today was horrible, no question, and even before the needless departure of Steven Whittaker there were signs of it not being a great day, but it was City’s first away league defeat in 2015 and the first under Alex’s tutelage.
Doesn’t sound like a reason to head for the pitchforks to me, yet social media has been ablaze with moans, groans and recriminations. And then there’s those who moan about the moaners, and even those who moan about the moaners moaning about the moaners!
So much for Russell Martin’s sensible plea for equilibrium.
Some have questioned the dearth of positives to emerge from the game – and they’re notoriously hard to come by when you play for an hour with ten men – but when it’s been the proverbial bad day at the office that’s generally par for the course.
Jose Mourinho and Brendan Rodgers were both struggling to find any yesterday.
That Whittaker’s dismissal made life difficult goes without saying. Having been shown yellow for some innocuous ‘ungentlemanly conduct’ the Scot desperately needed to keep his head down and clear of the thoughts of Jon Moss.
Alas getting entwined with Dusan Tadic was sufficient for some Serbian histrionics and card brandishing. The rest is history.
It was soft, daft and ultimately costly. The manager will be having a word.
And it did little to ease nerves that were already jangling after an opening 30 minutes in which City’s ball retention smacked of the aforementioned Premier league away days. In truth, at times it was a little ugly and listless.
From that base, to then have to fend off the challenge of an extra opponent was never going to end well; City’s only effort on goal in the opening 45 being Cameron Jerome’s miscued close range header from Graham Dorran’s cut-back.
Had City have been able to survive until half-time with the game goal-less perhaps the manager could have worked some magic but the second Graziano Pellè’s close range effort squeezed inside John Ruddy’s near-post it was almost game over.
A brief flurry of attacks early in the second period offered a glimmer of hope but still Stekelenburg remained untested and it was a brief flurry that soon blew itself out. The longer it went on the more Saints looked likely to get the second.
When it arrived neither Robbie Brady nor Andre Wisdom covered themselves in glory. And when the third arrived just three minutes later – again from the foot of the theatrical Tadic – it was damage limitation time.
So, a bad day and a gentle nudge as to the cut-throat nature of life in the Premier League. Alex will have learned from it, so too the players.
What can’t and won’t happen is for this to be a sign of things to come. It needs to be consigned to history as quickly as possible and lessons learned with equivalent haste.
As ever the boss was unequivocal in his post-match appraisal:
“The manner in which we relinquished the away record was disappointing. That wasn’t like us. We didn’t start well, even eleven v eleven we were poor, our use of the ball was poor.
“I think Whittaker’s first yellow was a bit soft, he was just trying to get back in position, but they were silly decisions and they cost us. We didn’t deserve anything from the game and we need to be better for the next match”, was his no-nonsense retort to the BBC.
What it does leave is an awkward few days for those not setting off on their international travels and some respite for those who are. Alex is not going to be happy. No point in pretending otherwise.
But, equally, by the time Bournemouth pitch up at Carrow Road on September 12, I expect the prep to have been done, the heads to be clear and there to be a game plan that’s good to go. And I expect them to bounce back in style.
Today was a grim one. They happen in the PL. We move on.
The first ‘bad’ result in 8 months – great to see such stiff upper lip and fighting resolve from some out there behind their electronic devices.
The Saints deserved their win but Tadic is a disgrace to the game – his two goals should not cloud that. Mr. Koeman should have a word in his ear about his reaction to the sending off.
There are defeats and then there are defeats – losing at home to Brighton in the Chumpionship is another level entirely!
We are 3 points off the top 6 and level with Chelsea – such is the stupidity of reading too much into this early in the season.
My biggest disappointment is the referee twice refused Pelle’s penalty claims yet did not brandish a yellow followed by a yellow then red card for simulation!
We still deserved nothing though, and it gives AN plenty of food for thought! OTBC
Bob in Diss
`such is the stupidity of reading too much into this early in the season`
as is the stupidity of reading too much into losing at home to Brighton in the Chumpionship
First City game I saw was 49 years and 10 (and a half) months ago, not that I’m counting. One of the things that has changed far to much since then is the number of bookings and sendings off.
Yes, in 1965 players got away with some horrendous tackles, and I can fully appreciate that there was a need to punish and try to eradicate that. But unlike other sports football hasn’t accommodated tighter discipline by, for example, introducing sin bins.
Instead it seems to be automatic that if a player is yellow carded ANY subsequent offence is expected to result in a second yellow, however innocuous it is. It is crazy and ruins too many games.
The Whittaker situation was the perfect example of when a 5 or 10-minute sin binning would have been totally appropriate.
But that’s a fans view. We can afford to be idealistic.
However wrong the rules may be the players know what they are and have to learn to work within them.
They have to make a lot of quick decisions, and unfortunately Whittaker made 2 bad calls today. The most annoying thing is that the game he misses is Liverpool away when his obvious replacement (Wisdom) can’t play either.
But for all that Whittaker doesn’t deserve the sort of ludicrous abuse he’ll be getting on social media, nor do the rest of the team.
They do need to learn from it; and with AN in charge, they will.
Let us hope that today’s performance was an aberration. I was at St Mary’s when city were ripped apart by Lalana, Schneiderlin and Co. Today’s Southampton was not as slick but they do have a team of athletic big players. By contrast City’s team lacks height and physical presence.
Wisdom looked a good athlete and a physical presence when he came on. He is likely to have the next game to stake a claim to a place.
Bournemouth are growing into the Premier League. City will need all of Alex Neil’s tactical skills to win the match on 12 September.
It will be interesting to see what new faces arrive before then.
But WHEN did we lose at home to Brighton in the Championship?
While it is important not to get too carried away with things, the fact is this was a game we realistically should have been looking to win. To throw away that chance with two needless yellow cards & such poor understanding of the match situation for the first goal is incredibly disappointing. We’ve had a decent start to the season, but it could have been so much better & we haven’t played a big team yet.
Just a bad day at the office-I’d like to think so, but fear that unless we get some strong defensive cover in at full back and centre back, we are going to be horribly exposed when we meet teams of proven Premiership quality with pace up front.
Not impressed with Wisdom,Martin or Brady as defensive players.
This means we must attack teams to achieve any hope of success with the squad we have and we were obviously not up for it yesterday. Will be an interesting 48 hours.,but we must get a quick , incisive CB (the Dane looks the part) and possibly Mbokani and Antonio to give us better striking options.
I like the look of Toffolo at LB but those who have seen more of him will know whether it’s too early for him to be drafted in , or not ?
Saints were good very good yesterday. We played with lead in our boots and looked ‘flat’ throughout. Rotherham last Tuesday Southampton yesterday lots of travelling maybe a problem.
Still, this defeat will make us stronger and reminds us of how far we’ve come under AN days like yesterday were a familiar occurrence not so long ago.
George/Kevin – just enjoying the Suffolk bubble being burst (particularly by Chris Hughton) as was ours yesterday. I’m sure many that way poked similar jibes our way.
We’ve been spoilt over the past 8 months – a dose of reality such as received (albeit precipitated by having 10 men for an hour) is a good thing although some seem to exist on another planet.
Probably the ‘best’ of the dumb comments I saw was that AN showed terrible man management by not bringing Ricky on for 10 minutes!
Whittaker will be furious with himself. He cost us but it was a human error – it will happen from time to time. I think it’s the first sending off since Bournemouth away in January so it’s not like discipline is an issue.
Next match should be a cracker.
Looking on the positive side, which I always like to do, maybe this poor showing will work in our favour long-term. Two days of the window left, a timely reminder to McNally & Co that we might need to speculate to accumulate. No need to panic, but Saints are a mid-table team in poor form, so we should have put them under far more pressure early in the game. More quality and more game intelligence needed.
By the way, if anyone is giving Whittaker ‘ludicrous abuse’ on social media they are pathetic, and a disgrace to our club.
..forgot Grabban’s dismissal at Rotherham but then he ia a law unto himself!
Not only might Pelle have had a yellow card ( or two) for “simulation”, but Tadic certainly should have for his gestures when insisting that Whittaker should be booked (or has that instruction to referees been quietly dropped?).