Southampton story: 2nd season: Momentum building

Hello and welcome to another post about the second season of Southampton. After a good transfer window and a decent start, we had gone into the second part of the season in good spirits. Could our form improve?

Yes it could. Out of 15 games we won 9 games, drew 3 and lost 3 (one in the League Cup). I’m a bit disappointed that we lost to Man United, but not surprised. Now at least we can focus on the league (until the FA Cup starts), and boy have we improved our position!

5th in the league, not bad at all! It’s unlikely that we will catch Ipswich and Stoke, but if we stay in the play-off places, we have a great chance of going up this year. Fierce rivals Portsmouth are also in there, and we must finish above them to appease the fans. A surprising fact is that Swansea, who finished 3rd last year, are mired in 10th. Was Ferrie Bodde that much of a loss? Anyway, let’s move on to the ratings:

It seems that Bodde was indeed a loss; he is topping our ratings list with 7.26. Second and third place goes to Stephen Appiah (7.21) and Morgan Schneiderlin (7.19). These great scores from my midfielders have caused me to drop one of my favourite players, Franco Zuculini, for the last few games. Top scorer is Stephen Appiah, on 12 goals in 25 starts. Second place is Marek Saganowski, finally hitting form with 10 goals in 15 starts. Third place goes to Cameron Jerome, grabbing 6 goals in 11 starts. It’s still not enough to get him a higher rating that 6.64 though! Best assister is Rudi Skacel, with 10 assists in 19 starts. Second is Nathan Dyer (7 in 23) and third is a tie between Marek Saganowski (5 in 15) and Morgan Schneiderlin (5 in 21). Top passer is Saganowski, 80% of his passes on target. Second place goes to Ferrie Bodde and Stephen Appiah, both having 79% passes complete. Tied fourth place are Morgan Schneiderlin, Franco Zuculini and Adam Lallana, all getting 78%. So some great scores there, hopefully the guys can keep this up! And just before I go, I have 2 screenshots to show you:

2 big Premier League clubs were after me, Blackburn and Aston Villa. Villa were 9th at the time, which was astonishing; why would they sack a manager who’s got them to 9th?? Blackburn were in 14th place, and their manager left the club for Real Betis in Spain. I didn’t want to leave Southampton, but the Aston Villa job was so tempting! A big transfer budget, a big wage budget, some really good players...but I have to stay with the Saints. I have to finish what I started and get them into the Premier League.

Anyway, that’s it for now, next post coming up soon!