After another draining afternoon at St Mary’s, albeit with the rare positive of a win, the overall performance, and particularly the first half, must be questioned.

It even seemed to mystify the manager, which is telling.

I appreciate the team is nervous at home but they feed the frustration of the fans by the way they play.

Why are we so negative at home?

Why do we seek to anger the fans by the near constant and ridiculous desire to go backwards?

We were playing a team ( the only team) below us for goodness sake, yet we take every opportunity to pass back, and it’s not as if we are any good at it.

The players in the defence, and I use the term lightly, struggle to cope playing intricate passes, they seem to think they can stroll around like four Virgil Van Dijks - but without the skill.

It’s chaos.

It puts the shivers up the watching public and it creates more problems than just simply getting rid of the ball quickly, which I’m no advocate of but surely it can go forward more often?

At least if we lose it a bit further up the field it hasn’t presented the opposition with a scoring chance.

We pass back, and we commit suicide.

We are better going forward, but no, we just keep going backwards playing negative possession football, except we can’t keep possession. Frustrating is not the word for it.

Up front, for all Redmond’s endeavour can I suggest he practices passing the ball under pressure?

He works hard, gets forward, then seems to panic and just kick it straight to the opposition.

Under pressure he consistently fails to find a Saints man. He has a lot of skill but he has to improve his short passing significantly otherwise he simply will never be the player he should be. He deserved to be replaced, despite some fans displeasure.

Boufal at least seems to have learnt when to release the ball.

So please Ralph, stiffen their resolve and let’s attack properly from the start on Wednesday, cut out the ridiculous desire to go backwards and try be more positive.

Bob Barton

Chandlers Ford