Mike Pejic was fuming after Stoke City’s performance on and off the ball against Southampton
Mark Robins looks frustrated on the sidelines as Stoke City lose to Southampton.(Image: Ryan Browne/Shutterstock)
Well, we went from the best to the worst. Having praised Stoke’s performance here against Birmingham then they had better expect some stick for what happened against Southampton.
Lessons should have been learned from the Middlesbrough game and how we dealt with their building from the back.
The first-half performance that evening was excellent as we set off pressing in the attacking third. Two wide players and the centre-forward withdrew to then go and press on the edge of the box, the centre midfield can then back them up with cover and support and the back four can push up to near the half-way line. You get compactness and balance. It was so evident what we were doing right and it was excellent.
Then in the second half you look at how we ended up losing. There was a lack of all those principles being put into place in every third of the pitch.
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We knew Southampton were going to have a similar approach.
The players didn’t compete and they let the manager down. At the same time, he had moved players around and I’m not a fan of making so many changes, whether that’s switching personnel or asking them to do different roles. A young goalkeeper doesn’t need that in front of him. He needs a settled defence and a reliable holding midfielder.
The front three didn’t apply the first principle of withdrawing and then pressing. Lamine Cisse and Sorba Thomas sat off and spread wide when they needed to show the new lad Milan Smit what was expected. They should have set the tempo so he could then block off one of the centre-halves and make a directional play in the press.
Southampton could play slow, quick or however they wanted. We were spread and they could go straight through us. They had too many choices.
Then the midfield three never got anywhere near the visiting midfield. Steven Nzonzi was non-existent in terms of winning the ball in front of the back line, Tomas Rigo was having to go deeper and Bae Junho’s positional play was all over the place on the defensive side of the game. I would have switched Nzonzi for Ben Pearson at half-time to free up Rigo in the second half.
If your front three aren’t doing it, your midfield has to be compact. If you’re not pressing or defending in the attacking third, you have to get it right in the mid third with a compact back four behind – but we never got near them. They played through us, around us and over us at will.
Then we turn to the back four, which was an absolute disaster area.
Eric Bocat’s defending was abysmal and I was surprised when he came back out for the second half.
Bosun Lawal was caught out at left centre-back. They were not working as a pair and there were too many gaps.
Maksym Talovierov was caught too much forward, not tucking in. I thought he was unlucky to have been moved from centre-back and I wanted him back in the middle asap, put Lawal at right-back, Aaron Cresswell at left-back and start the recovery from there.
I felt sorry for Ashley Phillips who had a decent game against all odds. I felt sorry for Tommy Simkin as well because he was left stranded at times and he did well, although he should have done better for the second goal. I felt sorry for Smit because he was thrown into a team that was being exploited.
When we had possession, we failed to play forward. We played far too many passes square, far too many passes back when we had two on two, four on four ahead of us. The goalkeeper had almost four times the number of touches as the striker.
You can’t get away from football’s principles. You do not need 749 passes to score a goal. If that was entertaining at least you could have a debate about it but find me one Stoke fan in that stadium who enjoyed it.
You have to think forward, play forward, move forward. None of the attacking principles in possession weren’t put into place. Look to get the ball to your most advanced player and get him in behind the opposition.
Movement is crucial. You need your wide players to spin out or come infield, get between players, hog the line or push up. There are loads of different ploys, then two or your central midfielders can advance and support. The midfield has to manoeuvre players about, work angles and create space to exploit space.
But it was so static. Every time we were on the ball, everyone was stood watching what he was going to do with it instead of trying to give him a choice of outlets. So the ball ends up back at the goalkeeper.
You’ve got to make things happen. You’ve got to work harder to receive off the ball, you’ve got to show for each other. It’s no use leaving it for each other, you’ve got to do it for yourself. There were too many players who looked like they were hiding. That is not acceptable.
I think this squad has worked very hard through this season but you have matches like that when you form decisions on who can take you to the next level.
All the time we have been talking about the importance of making your home ground a fortress but now we’ve lost six on our own pitch. If you’re expecting to get into the top six without sorting that out, sharpish, then you’re hoping for a miracle.
There is something to prove when they run out at West Brom this afternoon (3.01pm). Let’s hope they play like they’ve had an almighty kick up the backside.
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