That first half was awful today, it looked like 11 random strangers had been pulled from the pub and had never met each other before in there life.
I hope that second half performance means the end of the diamond formation and the constant passing backwards.
Southampton who are currently the best side in the league did you see them consistently knocking the ball around between there centre halves? Must have been about 25 times in the first half one of the Southampton CB have pinged a 60 yard ball out to Fox or straight to the forwards man chest, that is not hoofball or ugly football that is a quality ball and a long way away from what we saw under Boothroyd. Then Southampton can play there football deep in our half.
Also another thing about Southampton's play was the number of players they got forward, every time Southampton had an attack they had 4-5 players bombing forward as well as full backs. We don't do this.
I think Southampton had a perfect balance between long/short ball and a good balance with committing players forward and not getting caught out on the counter attack.
People will point to the late goals but this game was lost because of the first half.