Nordic Saint

Some people don't seem to notice how much the world is changing around them- all the new houses, the extra cars on the roads etc - even though the massive increase in the country's population has been in the news quite a lot lately. When St Mary's was opened in 2001, Southampton's population, inside the city limits, was 219,000; it's now 257,000 and it's still growing fast. By the time any stadium expansion is completed, there will be at least 40,000 more people living in the city than there were when St Mary's was built. The population increase in the surrounding area has been even more dramatic and it's not going to stop. There are now nearly 2 million people living in Hampshire. Of course, the population is increasing in most of the country, which is why so many clubs are building bigger stadiums.

He hit that shot with incredible power. The whole net was shaking afterwards. It's interesting to watch the closeup of his shooting technique shown at the end of that video clip.

He scored the winner for Torino tonight with a shot from the halfway line. Lega Serie A on X: "Che Adams from the halfway line! You have to see it to believe it! 🤯 #EmpoliTorino 0-1 https://t.co/gMSJ7Xa2VV" / X Everything Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 on X: "🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚽️| 𝘾𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙙𝙖𝙢𝙨! WHAT A STRIKE! Talk about an introduction. Ché Adams, not long after coming on a subsitute, puts Torino in front with this strike from just inside the Empoli half! Fifth goal in Italian football for the Scotland striker https://t.co/vWa5MQqwsL" / X

It will inevitably happen in future, but obviously not next season and hopefully not in the Championship. Southampton's population within the city limits has increased by more than 30,000 since St Mary's was built, in the area around it by a lot more and it's still growing. Of course, that's true for most of the country, which is why so many clubs are building bigger stadiums. We'd still be playing at the Antelope Ground if we'd wanted to freeze time.

Put simply, the population of this country is increasing fast. The population of Southampton, inside the city limits, has increased by over 30,000 since St Mary's was built and is likely to increase by much more than that in future. The surrounding area has seen big increases in population too and new houses are being built on nearly every available green space around the city.

Whatever we do, we do not want another manager obsessed with possession football. The outdated possession game played in your own half is a suicidal tactic nowadays because every manager (except ours) knows how to beat it, even when it's played by top teams like Man City. To continue with it, as we are doing, is completely and utterly pointless. So the longer this 'project' is prolonged, the worse it will get.

Your club did very well to act quickly and appoint Ruud van Nistelrooy. What a massive lift for you all his arrival must be.

I agree and I expect he does too. He's probably more p!ssed off than we are that he hasn't been sacked yet. Obviously, he won't resign as he would miss out on millions, but he may do and say a few things to try to expedite his sacking.

Martin's tactics won't work next season. The last time we were in the Championship, most teams thought we had better quality players than them, showed us too much respect, sat back and let us build from the back without any pressure. We still finished 9 points off the automatic promotion places. Next season, every Championship manager will instruct their players to press us and pick off the passes we make in front of our goal, just like every Premier League manager does now.

You could use it nearly every time McCarthy plays.

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.