Allardyce on... Southampton

  • by Staff Writer No.2
  • Saturday, 30th August 2014

A disappointed Sam Allardyce gives his thoughts on today's poor performance against Southampton...

Sam the players seemed to lose their way in the second half – too many players not on song?

Yeah – you're spot on there. I don't think we were that good in the first half, to be honest with you. Compared to what we expected and what we were like in the last two games here against Tottenham and last week against Crystal Palace, we had a massive under-performance across the board today, which was a massive blow to us. A massive disappointment to everybody, particularly at home again.

Two home games. Two defeats. This can't happen it can't carry on. Yes, against Tottenham a good performance but we still got beat when we should have won. We didn't even get a point. Today we could have scraped a point. As good as Southampton were – and we must give them credit – up to the second goal there were no shots or openings created in open play.

We practice set plays on a regular basis and set them out on the analysis board. Our defending of set plays was a massive massive disappointment. Letting them score from two was unacceptable – even though we know the second goal was a goal kick and not a corner. You can't allow it to punish you like we allowed it to punish us. We started to get a bit desperate then and you don't get anything when you're desperate.

Sam do the players play with a bit of pressure here that they don't get anywhere else?

Well we didn't against Tottenham. I think everyone was looking forward to a continuation of the good performances. After the result at Palace there's nothing in the performance today that I can be pleased about. For a long time our resilience in open play was pretty good. But why do all that hard work only to give it away on two set pieces? Massively disappointing.

Perhaps it's a reality check here. The new players have seen the ups and downs and what the Premier League can do to you if you're not 100% and you're not on top of your game. Certainly a lot of our players were not on top of their game.

You were screaming at the players before their first goal?

Yes – to get across at the back they had 3 v 1. The players didn't look over their shoulders to shuffle over. We nearly got away from it with a massive block from Joey O'Brien but it fell to the spare man again who put it away. We were 1-0 up but I can't argue that Southampton weren't the better team today

What do you think Alex Song can bring?

I'm hoping he can bring a bit of leadership. Out on the pitch the lads are not opening their mouths enough. They all talk about what they should do before the game and in training. They all talk in the dressing room but when they get out on the pitch they stop talking to each other. The communication is zero.

Somebody's got to get a grip and say “it's a short corner – there are two out there”. Somebody needs to say “there's three against one at the back here.” It doesn't appear to me that anyone is taking the responsibility. Having spoken to [Song] he looks like a bit of a leader to me. He'll go out there and kick a few backsides on the pitch. That's what we need. Somebody needs to kick a few backsides on the field and get them motivated.




Will you be bringing any more in before the deadline?

I don't know. We had a massive boost, a massive uplift when I met Alex after all the hard work put in by David Sullivan, recruitment and everyone to bring this fantastic player to the club. The big let down is that he arrives on the pitch and it should have lifted everybody, especially the players that played today and the players haven't performed. I didn't expect a performance like this especially after the two we've just given.

He will make us better. Hopefully with the return of Carl Jenkinson, James Collins, Matt Jarvis and eventually Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll we'll be more of a force to be reckoned with.

Mark Noble is looking at playing for Ireland now. What would you advise him to do?

Play. Go play international football. He's clearly not going to get an opportunity here so if he gets the opportunity through parentage to play for Ireland he should go – international football is fantastic.

Have you spoken to him about it?

No – I didn't realise he had an Irish parent – not with that cockney accent!


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