Russell Martin is right to berate 'soft' Southampton - but he needs to look in the mirror too

“We were soft,” Southampton manager Russell Martin told the media after his side were defeated 3-1 by Bournemouth on Monday evening. “If you lack fight and aggression and spirit and togetherness and courage that we lacked in the first half, you're going to have a big, big problem. I didn't recognise our team.”

He was right to be angry. The Saints were utterly abysmal in the first half of their South Coast pseudo-derby, displaying a lack of gumption and resolve as the Cherries steamrollered them beneath a relentless wave of attacks. It was 45 minutes of football that was redolent of last season’s Sheffield United side. The problem is that while Martin has just cause to be furious with his players, he needs to be willing to take his own share of the blame.

Martin may well be “hurt” by that first half, but he must also accept that most teams only dissolve their shape and positioning like that when they aren’t sufficiently well-drilled. He is within his rights to criticise the lack of aggression, courage and intensity shown. That said, he has to accept it’s easier for a team to look composed in defence when they know where the ball is meant to go when they take possession. Southampton evidently didn’t for large periods.

That last point should be a serious concern. Martin prefers a possession-based style of football which looks to achieve control through relentless slower, shorter passes (his old MK Dons side broke the EFL record for most passes leading up to a goal with 56) but his structure has sometimes looked rather ropey when placed under pressure, with teams that can press hard and high often disrupting the supposedly rigid passing scheme. It was an issue that came up in the early stages of the Championship play-off final against Leeds United, but they got away with it. Little appears to have changed.

They also switched off from a quick set-piece yet again, and conceded what is already their sixth goal from dead-ball situations in six matches – the most in the Premier League, as you might imagine. That wasn’t a particularly routine issue in the second tier last season, when they conceded the joint-fewest goals from such situations, and is a new problem about which little seems to have been done yet. At the back, Southampton look jittery, disorganised, poorly put together and unable to handle pressure.

Were Bournemouth, as it happens, really that good in that first half? Antoine Semenyo was excellent, certainly, Marcus Tavernier was lively, Lewis Cook imposed himself on the midfield and Evanilson’s finish for the opener (a much-needed first goal for him) was lovely, but it was all made so easy. Every time a cross was dealt with or a tackle made, Southampton were trapped so deep and were so unclear about how to distribute the ball that it was handed straight back for the Cherries to try again. This was a low block without a plan for the following phase, and when they did get chances to move the ball forward it was pedestrian and easily-countered.

Martin may also need to recalibrate his understanding of what he’s looking for in a performance. His post-match criticism were levelled largely at attitude and application – fair enough, it must be said, because until the second half not a single Southampton player took their part of the field by the scruff of its neck or looked close to doing so – but he rather oddly homed in on the number of fouls committed.

“They make 20 fouls to our 10 or whatever it is. I think that sums up the whole game,” he said, inaccurately for what it’s worth, because while Southampton did indeed commit ten fouls in the first half, the home side only committed eight. That fact, should he spot it when looking at the stats later, might perhaps tell him that fouls are not a sign of intent or a marker on the path towards a successful performance. They are, first and foremost, an indication of how well your players can time a tackle. It’s a particularly strange thing to focus on for a manager who wants his side to be in possession the bulk of the time.

When the Saints earned promotion back in May, Martin made it clear that he planned to persist with his slower, possession-based style of play in the Premier League. “The style is something that myself and my players believe in,” he said at the time. “I won't change and I love what I do. We'll need to embrace the challenge without losing who we are.”

Which is a fine sentiment, but he may want to reflect on the fact that there are still weakness within his system that need to be tended to and, perhaps, that Southampton were at their most dangerous in the second half when they played in a more direct manner – Taylor Harwood-Bellis’ goal came from a late run into the box to meet a deep cross, and most of their other flashes of threat came when they got the ball down the flanks in uncharacteristically direct manner to Ben Brereton Díaz or Joe Aribo.

There was some hope for Southampton in that second half, at least. Whatever Martin said at half-time, the team clearly came out focused and determined not to be made a fool of. They held their shape better as a team, strung passes together and kept their discipline. The creativity was lacking, however, and even against a Bournemouth side that were plainly in cruise control they never truly looked like scoring a second.

Martin’s commitment to his methods and style is arguably laudable in some ways and it’s refreshing to see a play-off winning side come up and look to hold their own on their own terms rather than reverting to some of the uglier, more ‘pragmatic’ football played by some of their forebears, most of whom failed to stay up themselves. Perhaps it’s fair to say that even if Martin gets everything right, Southampton will be odds-on to go down anyway, such is the gulf in quality and resources now between newly-promoted sides and even established mid-table teams in the Premier League.

But Martin is also beginning to come across as dogmatic and perhaps naïve, sticking by his guns when they’re firing blanks. He needs to start asking valid questions not just of his players, but of himself, otherwise this Southampton side will stand little chance of survival.