M_B

I've no doubt we were going down under Tomasson. We were never going to just start winning, we were crash landing into League 1. Much has been made of the lack of wins, but to lose 3 in 12, only conceding 12 goals has been a commendable effort.

Apparently that's the first time in 30 odd games that Southampton have failed to score. Defensively, the turnaround has been remarkable.

Said coming off today, the Wednesday game may actually turn out to be a must not lose.

..... or to give him his real name, Leon Worst.

Well obviously, but I would have thought there's maybe a correlation between "making us solid" and actually having a chance to win a game. Unless you think conceding 27 goals every 11 games is the way to go.

If we get enough points to stay up he will have done his job, however he gets them. We have obviously drawn a lot during Eustace's 11 matches, but the 11 previous we were lucky if we were even in a game, never mind drawing, and conceding 27 in the process. At least he's given us a chance we didn't look like having.

Tomasson's figures include pre Christmas when we were playing as well as we have for some time. It's the post Christmas slide which needed arresting, we were in freefall and going down, hopefully Eustace can keep us up. As someone else has said, you can read stats however you want to some degree. If you look at Eustace's matches won, with or without Stoke, it looks poor. If you look at his matches lost and goals conceded he's done a great job. Take your pick.

Poveda's performance in the home game against Sheff Utd was outstanding, he then got injured the game after, who knows what might have been.

To be honest, i think those 3 loans fail into the good as it gets category.

You're probably right, I mean, what does Keiran Mckenna know?

If Dolan or Gallagher came up for sale at another club, we wouldn't be able to afford them. They're already paid for, it's vitally important they're both signed up.

In Tomasson's last 11 games we conceded 27,in the 11 since we've conceded 11, and never more than 2. We've lost 3 out of that 11,all by a single goal. We needed tightening up, we were going down. The bloke has shown some nous.

Defensively, the turnaround has been impressive.

Outstanding today, man of the match

Go on then?

I'm not, I've been saying it for a while.

That's 3 defeats in 10/11 since Eustace came in, conceding 11 goals. Never mind the 5 goals, it's the defensive side which has been the most impressive. Eustace has come in and tightened up the defence and made us hard to beat. He's showed no shortage of nous and experience. Say it quietly, we might just have a decent manager who knows how to play the Championship.

You don't have to keep defending Tomasson, he's gone and what's left behind is left behind, he's boss of Sweden now. We were shipping goals for fun and it needed addressing, we need Eustace to somehow, anyhow keep us up.

I suppose we'll see if it works in the end, without doubt conceding 24 goals every 10 games is definitely relegation form. It had to be halted, we were going down.

I'm just looking at the goals against, last 10 league games we've let 10 in. Previous 10 under Tomasson we let 24 in. We were going down,hopefully the damage isn't irreparable.

First and foremost,Eustace had to stop the goals against and make Rovers harder to beat. 3 defeats in 11 since Tomasson left suggests it's working, those 3 defeats by a single goal. It's easy to forget that we were getting spanked for weeks on end, teams are now having to actually work to beat us. Yes, he badly needs a win, but at least we're not beaten before we even go out, which is what was happening. What is it every manager is tasked with when they walk into a team shipping loads of goals? Tighten up at the back and make us hard to beat.

No, he will certainly have had enough time to turn it around, although I still think it would be a good effort if he saves us. Damage has inevitably been done but it isn't beyond repair. I still think it was always going to be a slow turn around, given the defensive issues. Since the goals dried up, that had to be the priority.

Honestly mate, if he was still here I'd still be backing him, but "losing the will" wasn't part of the project. However it got here, the club is in a mess under his part stewardship. I'm way past pinning colours to the mast of any manager or player, those days are well gone, he's got his feet under another table and doesn't give Rovers a second thought. We played some great stuff under him, but he left us in a relegation battle, that's all I'm interested in right now, it's all about if Eustace can keep us up.

I'm not blaming him alone, but nobody can exonerate him from blame when he oversaw such a bad run after being in such a good position. When the team has been in such a bad run of form, I wouldn't expect anyone to just be able to flick a switch and it all be OK. It was always going to be about grinding results out, and in my opinion, if he can grind out enough to keep us up he'll have done a good job. At least we look tighter defensively under Eustace, which is the main thing with only one bloke scoring. I suppose the difficulty of Eustace's job depends on how big a mess he inherited, to me we were definitely going down under Tomasson.

Two better performances against Boro and Ipswich have only brought 1 point. It's important we keep up that level of performance, if we do the results will improve. Fancy us for a hard fought 0 1 win.