Saint86

Can't watch that and not be sad. Think by the end (with all the goings on under SR and the lack of support from the GAO ownership) he may have been exhausted... but in another world (with proper backing) he could have been a special special manager for saints i think. To have spent £160M and not given him what he needed really is a criminal waste in the world of running a football club 😰.

Surely he could be giving that course given his long and drawn out experiences at united... Or maybe he's giving Rasmus some pointers for his next TEDs talk? 😂

If it is, certainly don't term it as one. Our record in "must win" games is pretty f'kn atrocious recently 😄

I agree, it is a piss take. I would like to think that anyone who buys one now will have to sit behind all existing members as a minimum, and similarly behind any fans that have been multiple times all season. I sadly think there is a load of fair-weather fans (desperate to get games on their account for the playoff semi and Wembley) attending recent matches - sadly they'll be a lot of the same ones that booed the team off for finishing 4th and who couldn't even be bothered to stick around for the appreciation lap. A pretty shit state of affairs supporter wise. Does raise the question though, should we make it to Wembley and lose - will a decent portion of the fans that are there stick around for the team post match...? or is it perhaps more realistic to wonder whether they'll even stick around long enough to boo the team off?

Dead rubber it is then...

Whilst I agree our defence could have been better, we're a very attacking side and would have won promotion at a canter had our strikers been able to finish off the plethora of guilt edged chances in matches. Ultimately we have the highest xG in the division. Also, lets not overegg the pudding, we actually have 12 clean sheets not 11 - which puts us Joint 11th (still not good defensibly), but Leicester have 15 (after their last 2 clean sheets), and Ipswich have 14. So not actually that far off the top 2 - Its a balance. Slight improvements to our finishing and defence and we'd have been laughing. Sadly we spent half our transfer budget on a cripple up front and CDM who had yet to play a season of senior football. Good luck united 😄

It has been done to death. What we're ignoring is that if our strikers could actually finish we'd be pinging in 4-5 goals in some opening halves... like cardiff.

Never noticed before, but its a clear foul on Viafara re shirt pulling for their opening goal. Robbed! Justice that they went on to be the worst all time pre team I say! Ironically, Rasiak is the kind of player we need now. Someone to drift into space at the key moment and actually finish!! Would also take gabbi back in a heartbeat!

Its interesting that you dig down into Downes, and generally i agree and initially started with him when i was doing the breakdown above (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/flynn-downes/leistungsdaten/spieler/506189). I think we've got something like a 60% loss rate when he doesn't play, and only a 20% win rate (could be wrong - i was looking at that pre Leicester). I've been banging the drum all season that we're shocking when we don't have the right balance in central midfield - i.e. need a serious anchor, and need a creative player to properly dictate play (stu is the best, aribo is effective in his own way) - when we have a mixture of attacking mids, wingers, and forwards playing 5 of the 6 midfield/attacking spots (especially without a proper anchor) we just lose all cohesion to our play, we stop dominating possession, and teams are able to break us down and counter with ease. Its tended to happen a lot when we make changes circa 60-70min, and has been an issue repeatedly without downes. I think this does tie in with needing another serious window to tailor the squad. Its notable even now that once we lose Stu Armstrong or Aribo we lose our ability to control the game, hold the ball, make incisive passing etc. (and not to repeat myself, the loan swap of alcaraz and rothwell is still mind boggling to me as alcaraz is the kind of player we need (I assume it centered on the large loan fee we banked up front). But when you pair that lack of control in an attacking sense with a loss of a serious CDM anchor we become both unable to defend or keep possession. And its a recurring theme post 25game unbeaten run and falling apart defensively post subs.

Yeah i don't disagree, those two sides are clearly better than us on the defensive front - but equally they were both stronger sides that us last year (lets be honest), and have both been very good this year without as much change around and without entirely changing style. Just for comparison's sake, goals conceded per game for other top of the table sides (over the full 44 because i really CBA to take out any possible outliers 😄), WBA are currently averaging exactly 1 goal against per game. Leicester are 0.89 Leeds are 0.84 Ipswich are 1.2 Norwich are 1.38 Hull are 1.27 Coventry are 1.25 Mention for Bristol city on 1.07, albeit they've only scored 51 goals. On the goals scored per game front we're basically joint top with Leicester and Ipswich on 1.93 per game (over the full 44 - so ignoring any outliers where we got pumped 5-0 twice or 4-1). So in summary, i don't think all the negativity is perhaps justified. Whether we get promoted or not, next year will be tough. There will be a lot of change in the side regardless. Either to strengthen, or to replace some of our more experienced/talented (che adams? 👀) players (probably KWP 😰) that are out of contract or will attract moves to the prem. But then equally, it might allow Martin to have a summer where he can focus more on building a team than on trying to balance the ffp books and relying on loans etc. Although our director of football f'off prior to a big summer doesn't exactly help.

If that's how you read those numbers fair enough 😊. I'm merely saying that we've had a couple of freak results - 3 of our first 6 right at the start of the season with obvious mitigations, and 1 last time out vs Leicester (again) with obvious mitigations... And if you take out those 4 games, we've basically averaged 1 goal against over the other 40games. Whether people want to consider those 4 games as valid results or as outliers is nothing to do with me, i just looked into the breakdown a bit more and presented it 🤷‍♂️ - although my take is that they are more fairly treated as outliers.

If you actually break this down - We've conceded 14 of our 61 goals in 3 matches. (Leicester x2 and Sunderland). Two of those were right at the start of the season at the time of peak squad/club uncertainty. We should probably also include the Norwich 4-4 in this breakdown (same period?) At which point its more like 18 of the 61 goals (29.5%) we have conceded have come in just 4 games out of the 44 we've played (8.7%). In the other 40matches we've averaged 43 games against, or 1.075 goals against per game. (as an aside also, we scored 5 goals in those games - which means in the remaining 40 games, we scored 80 goals, or 2 per game on average) - so 2 goals per game and 1 against. With the amount of squad turmoil and state of team morale post relegation, i personally wouldn't consider the Norwich, Sunderland, and Leicester games (3 of our first 6) as particularly reflective of our defensive record - They are more more like fluke results. Its certainly fair to say that the team's morale, chemistry, and style/fluidity of play has changed a lot since then. So i'd therefore consider them as clear outliers - albeit disappointing. The 5-0 the other night was on the cards all day long frankly - i'm surprised so many are surprised. It was a nothing game for us and a performance just like that was surely not that unexpected? - we'd been playing back to back matches because of the two postponed games and the players were tiring, we had just had our automatic promotion hopes ended (with the associated mental comedown), and 3 big players were out - 2 of them with severe injuries (in Stu and Baz) to just cap off the squad comedown. And then to add to all of that, the Leicester had finally broken their recent duck in the previous game and knew they just needed a home win vs a demoralised saints to be within reach of promotion (whilst we had nothing to play for). We were the worst side in the prem last season by far, morale was through the floor, we've totally changed our style of play, seen massive backroom and first team staff change this summer... Playoffs really isn't a bad achievement. The team clearly needs support going through this period and into the playoffs though - because clearly, the Cardiff loss and recent run has taken a toll and the team needs lifting going into the playoffs.

I do not want Hull to sneak in. Very dangerous side on good form post January.

I noticed that. Ultimately he's still a young/inexperienced manager - its his first time with a club of this size and with the pressure of achieving promotion. Which is born out by a lot of what he says and how he often reacts to setbacks/praise.

The way we've played this season has also been superb at times. We've destroyed some teams with ridiculous numbers of attempts on goal (champ records possibly even?), played some very fluid and attractive possession football, and set a club record unbeaten run 🤷‍♂️. Also, the whole "product on the pitch" vs "fan support" / entitlement to boo is a very cyclical argument tbh. Regardless though, there is a difference between being a paying customer and expressing negative views, and then pretending that it hasn't happened 🤷‍♂️ (which is the post i was responding to).