Nordic Saint

In the Premier League, it's never happened before. But, in the old Division 1, it happened with Chelsea 68 years ago. I guess there has never been a team whose entire style of play is so dependent on one player as City's is with Rodri. They are currently as rudderless as an NFL team would be without its quarter back. At Barcelona, of course, Pep had Xavi, Iniesta AND Busquets.

His memory must be of another ground. You're right: you could never do that at the Dell, and I was there when we played Liverpool in 1970.

Their recent form is even worse than ours. They've lost their last 5 games. The possession game really is sh!t unless you have a player like Rodri, who acts like a quarter back, spraying passes forwards from the halfway line to keep the opposition's penalty area under siege and then stops them whenever they try to counterattack. And there really is only one Rodri.

Saints fans are so entitled expecting their team to be able to compete with big clubs like Ipswich and Bournemouth. Since the supporter who used to post stuff like that has left and said he's not going to support Saints any more, I thought I'd post that on his behalf. Sometimes I'm just too kind.

One of Ankersen's favourite maxims is, "EMBRACE FAILURE". Well. we've certainly done that, so in his eyes, we've succeeded. He said that you should recruit managers who've failed in the past, because they'll have learnt from their mistakes, so that explains why we've never had a successful manager come here since SR took over, and until Ankersen goes, it's unlikely that we ever will. He's probably looking at a new list of failed managers right now, just in case Russell Martin doesn't fail enough.

Team building starts with the spine. We've got Aaron Ramsdale, which is a start. Buy Ayoub El-Kaabi in January and at least we'll have a central striker to score some goals. We should have done that in the summer instead of bringing in a bunch of goal shy wingers and inside forwards.

Then there's reality. With our recruitment team, £100 million will just buy a bunch of useless inury-prone players, most of whom will be goal shy left wingers, that we'll be struggling to get rid of a year or two later.

Amorim has brought his own coaches with him. RvN has said he wants to manage a Premier League club. This is our one chance to get him before another Premier League vacancy arises. Obviously, his long-term ambition will be to manage Man United, but that's not going to happen for at least another couple of years.

I don't see how we can go on like this for many more months, limping towards a record low points total with fans and players becoming increasingly demoralised. The longer we leave it, the harder it's going to be to find a replacement. Even Russell Martin himself would probably prefer to be paid off now, with his £12 mill stash, rather than later.

We'd probably be better off with Dark Munster, rather than Ankersen, choosing our next manager.

It's interesting to re-read how this thread began. It's not as if most fans didn't know what Martin would be like: tippy tappy possession in our own half with no end product whilst conceding lots of goals. The first few pages have it all pretty well covered, starting with the OP from LegalEagle. The promotion came as a bit of a surprise, but we finished 9 points off the automatic promotion places, which in many seasons would have seen us no higher than upper mid-table. When Jones came we seemed to be aiming to become the new Luton and when Martin came that aspiration only changed slightly, to the new Swansea. Even though they were "quirky" appointments, they were both clearly mediocre managers. Charlie Wayman Members 7.5k Posted 16 May, 2023 Hear, bloody hear! A predictable disaster entirely avoidable by not starting threads on him that those idiots upstairs might interpret as him being the fans choice. Don't add oxygen to a fire! Brissysaint Subscribed Users 181 Posted 16 May, 2023 I’d honestly rather if we barely had possession so I don’t have to see these idiots do fuck all with it Dman Subscribed Users 3.3k Posted 18 May, 2023 (edited) If we appoint Martin it’ll be a lot of sidewards passes, loads of possession, look tidy but little to no end product, we’ll get hit on the counter and draw / lose as many as we win. It’ll be a disaster. aintforever Subscribed Users 15.1k Posted 18 May, 2023 I'm a little bit worried about the idea of choosing a manager based on their average percentage possession stats. Leicester won the Prem with something like 40% possession, who gives a fuck what the possession stats are, it's only results that matter. Fitzhugh Fella Subscribed Users 6.3k Posted 19 May, 2023 I must admit I’m not a fan of watching defenders tip tapping the ball around their own half just for the sake of being in possession.

The possession game has been well and truly found out this season and so has Russell Martin. We need a manager who coaches high speed counter-attacking, with shots at goal, not possession, as the main objective. If we continue to play the possession game this season and next, we are just going to continue losing.

He's 48 now and I've seen little evidence of him being "utterly shite" as a coach or manager with the Netherlands, PSV or Man United. In fact, his record as a manager with PSV and Man United looks anything but shite: W 36 D 11 L 8

Ruud van Nistelrooy

Hoddle's just said Galatasaray have had 28 shots at the Spurs' goal so far, 20 of which have come from Spurs players giving the ball away. English teams are being found out in Europe this year with their tippy tappy playing out from the back. It no longer works, not even for the top teams. They're just gifting goals to the opposition. Surely, it's time to stop it. Hopefully, our manager takes note.

It's a shame Kalvin Phillips can't play for all of our relegation rivals: Kalvin Phillips sinks to new lows and costs side priceless win Ipswich boss left fuming as Kalvin Phillips sinks to new lows and costs side priceless win

Our best buy of the summer, by far. He did more than anyone to win us those 3 points today.

I really like the new stadium layout. It's given us a proper home end at last and hidden the away fans away in a corner, where the acoustics are worst.

I don't know how low the standards of the Icelandic league are nowadays but, you're right, he might end up somewhere like that.

We certainly collected some dross this summer, several of them players who play in the same position: wide left. It's patently obvious that our recruitment team don't know what they're doing. A cursory glance at Cornet's games over the last couple of years should have told them he wouldn't be good enough. But, they seem to think that the incredible manager and coaches we have here will miraculously revive the careers of washed up players like Cornet, who other Premier League clubs, with their inferior managers and coaches, couldn't. Maybe our incredible manager convinced them that he could. Let's face it, he must have been heavily involved in the decision to bring them here.

I assume you mean a Championship future.

When he dies by the sword? The Romans used to find that sort of thing quite entertaining.

That Ipswich point is certainly not to be sneered at. It's the only one we've got from our opening 9 games, which means we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief as we're on course for 4 points at the end of the season rather than none.

We want 9

I thought I'd instil some optimism into the thread. This is our 2nd best chance of a league victory all season, after Ipswich at home. Of course, if we don't win this one, there's always the cup.