We've been rumbled.

Pressing Southampton is a viable tactic now.

Sorry I've been off. I am on the job market, housing market, getting married, and crucially, a teacher in middle of term. I've still been at St. Mary’s most weekends and am totally hooked on this season.

Hull City brought a lot of things I’ve half-written this season to a head. This piece is about our 25 game unbeaten streak — how it started, how it was sustained, and what brought it to an end. I’ve written it because I think the end of our streak presents a challenge like we had right before it started, in September.

This is a blog about being good, then getting rumbled.

August — undercooked.

On opening day, Russell Martin’s Southampton were a hot mess. Beautiful, incisive attacking football marred by calamitous gaps at the back. Flamenco dancing with our arses hanging out. But we took 10pts from 12 through a combination of sheer force, late winners and playing even leakier teams. We conceded four against Norwich and still got a point off them.

Then we got rumbled.

September — first rumble.

It was Sunderland that found us out. You see that pink space in the image below? That's part our shape that encircles opponents, sets up camp in their half. The Black Cats knew that if they stayed compact and resisted our advances, we would make mistakes playing the ball laterally across central areas and their runners could exploit the turnovers. Jack Clarke ran riot. At full-time (5-0) Martin was visibly hurt.

After Sunderland found the blueprint, September was a disaster. Leicester (4-1), Ipswich (1-0) and Middlesbrough (2-1) turned out to be top sides this season but they beat us by following Sunderland’s lead. All have different styles but all were successful because they stayed in shape and exploited a possession system that had been taken out of the oven too early.

Game 1 - Leeds (H)

Perhaps the silver lining was that Southampton fixed this problem at precisely the right moment to wrongfoot our main promotion rival in a head-to-head. Leeds looked awful against us in the first half, but they were only doing what everyone else had done and succeeded: stay in shape, wait for the mistake, pounce on the counter. But the mistakes didn’t come. For 45 minutes, Southampton were flawless. Ambitious, stretching passes that pulled Leeds around St. Mary’s like a ragdoll. Farke’s side were three goals down before they even had three touches (hyperbole, not a stat). In the second half, Leeds had to come out and play us, and naturally showed a bit more of why they currently sit in second place. But on that day, the damage was already done.

Games 2-24 - the streak

Then began the long, hot Indian summer (winter). I don’t need to tell you all what this was like. In busiest period of the season, Southampton Ws were arriving like buses: one one a Tuesday, one on a Saturday, and often very late but you still knew it was coming.

Interestingly, the way teams set up against us didn’t really change. Home and away, opponents continued to allow us to assert ourselves, on the basis that if they could make it through to the hour mark, maybe they could snatch a point. And it worked too. From October through December, Saints were mostly brilliant but there was still a 15-20 minute window in every game where we lost control and let the opposition back in. Sometimes we got away with it. Sometimes The Late Show™ dug us out. But Rotherham, Preston and Huddersfield all sneaked through that window and pinched draws we should have won.

This window is important. I think that 20 minute window simultaneously cost us those draws but is also what gave us our record streak. The prospect of the window made it worthwhile to play passively, to let us dominate the game, then hold out for an equaliser or for Saints to run out of puff. But at the same time, playing that passively, nobody could beat us. No wonder, nobody even really tried. For 25 beautiful games.

Then we got rumbled.

Game 25 - Huddersfield (H)

Somehow, I feel it’s fitting that lowly Huddersfield were the ones that figured it out. 20th in the league, with 31 points from 31 games, the Town said fuck it.

In possession, Martin’s Saints play with a back three. For our entire unbeaten streak most teams didn’t even bother to press them in our own half. You just get sucked in, leave space in the centre and then Southampton pass round you and suddenly you’re sprinting back to your own goal.

Huddersfield set up with a mobile front four, and pressed the living shit out of our backline. Having four to our three means you can press in pairs. In the image below, Manning has the ball. One player blocks the wide option (Fraser), and the other prevents him from playing in the no. 8s in the centre. Smallbone is an option, but there’s a fifth man to stop him from turning round. The ball has to go back inside, across the backline. As ball is switched left to right, the mirror situation occurs — one player stops Bednarek playing wide, another centrally, and the ball is forced back inside.

Huddersfield didn’t wait for our mistakes. By asking us to break their press, they forced their turnovers, and countered repeatedly. Southampton still spent a lot of time in their half, but were frequently exposed by dangerous breaks. Huddersfield fashioned two good chances, two excellent finishes, and at half time Saints were two-goals-and-a-Flynn-Downes down.

There are no words to describe the ridiculous 45 minutes that followed, resulting in a 5-3 Southampton win, and I certainly couldn’t put them in order than would tell a coherent story. But you all remember it and it doesn’t really matter for the story I’m telling here. The point is, again, we got rumbled.

The end - Bristol City (A)

Bristol City are better than Huddersfield but the recipe was the same. Like the Terriers, Bristol pressed in pairs, a front four against our backline with a fifth man to keep the no. 6 in check. Shea Charles did not enjoy this at all, and was hooked at half-time. Thrown into the role, Smallbone didn't like it much better. The willingness to turn and carry, to make things happen, was not there. Rothwell, the source of all chaos against Huddersfield, was anonymous.

All of this made Tuesday night’s game against Hull City quite frustrating. Respect to West Brom for going out and trying to West Brom, rather than counter Saints. But Hull City are an excellent side with nippy, dangerous forward runners, and predictably set out to try and Huddersfield us. I don't know if Martin and his team failed to anticipate this or we were just saving key personnel for the weekend, but we weren’t prepared and it was hard not to register a strong sense of déjà vu.

And not only did they Huddersfield us, they perfected the Huddersfield. As exceptional as Hull were, that is the larger problem. The cat is now fully out of the bag. You can press Southampton. Their midfield is squishy. They don't make sloppy crossfield passes anymore, but if you press them in pairs, you can stop them playing vertically and getting to the no. 8s.

What next?

As we did in September, I think we can get through this. We can reassert the fear. Pressing us high comes at a cost. It means giving up the middle of the pitch and/or running a very high back line (a la Ralph — not wise against our forwards).

Maybe there's a tactical solution Martin finds to fix this. Maybe the arrival of Brooks, a true right-winger, allows KWP to come deeper to help get the ball out of defence more often. Maybe Che spends a few games dropping into midfield. This feels like the point in the season that the absence of Ross Stewart is going to hurt the most.

But I suspect it's less about changing the system and more about just running it better. Getting balls into the centre whatever the weather. The whole team need to step up, but especially the no. 8s, who need to become viable passing options again. For that reason, I suspect Aribo may have just become our most important player. He was a monster in the second half against Hull. As well our most press-resistant no. 8 and most reliable receiver of the ball, he has the strength and technical quality to turn and make things happen. He makes the most tackles and interceptions (of our no. 8s), most successful take-ons, completes the most progressive passes, and his overall pass completion (89.3%) is as good as Smallbone’s (89.5%) and significantly better than Stuie’s (81.8%).

Stuart Armstrong is a wonderful ball-carrier but it comes at a cost. His ball retention, when measured by pass completion, miscontrols and dispossessions, is weaker than Aribo and Smallbone, and puts out a lower volume of tackles and interceptions (and blocks, not shown).¹ Against good teams with a strong press I think those two should start at his expense. Not enough data yet to judge Rothwell but the eye test hasn’t been pretty.

None of our no. 8s are bad, but none are perfect. Each are useful in different situations, so picking the right ones for an unknown opposition setup can be a game of rock, paper, scissors. Rothwell was paper on Tuesday, when we needed Aribo to be the rock to Hull’s scissors.

I don't know how Millwall will set up today. But we need to batter the next team who try to press us. Make all that running seem exhausting, risky and fruitless. But what does the dominant strategy against Southampton then become? Perhaps there won't be one, and setting up tactically for every game will be rock, paper, scissors.

1. To some extent, this is probably a reflection of him consistently starting games and having lots of possession and offensive responsibility, and his peers coming on to defend leads and do defensive work.