Nordic Saint

That awful run under Puel when we lost 6 out of 7 league games was when Ward-Prowse was playing 90 minutes regularly. The good run at the start of that season was when he wasn't starting. The more minutes he plays, the worse we seem to get. The last 5 Premier League games Ward-Prowse played an hour or more in were: Newcastle 3 Saints 0 Arsenal 3 Saints 2 Saints 2 Chelsea 3 Everton 2 Saints 1 Man City 6 Saints 1

Even more useless at it than than Ward-Prowse? Over the years we have wasted so many scoring opportunities from free-kicks around the opposition penalty area because Ward-Prowse took them and kicked them a yard high and wide of the goal. On the rare occasion he does get one on target, he has such a weak shot that it's easily saved. These were from positions that a real dead-ball specialist, like Lambert or Le Tissier, regularly scored from.

Can't really fault our team for effort. They appeared to play to the limits of their ability although they tired towards the end. The referee was terrible but if he had got the major decisions right, in spot of the Austin goal, we might well have lost, as Watford would have had a penalty, but more importantly, Bertrand would have got a 2nd yellow and we'd have been reduced to ten men. Even with all 11 out there, we were getting overrun by Watford in the final ten minutes. My reaction when Ward-Prowse comes on as a sub is, now we're going to let the other team's midfield take control of the game, as that's what usually seems to happen when he appears. He is a player who divides opinion and I know he has some fans on here but with the impact he has on games, I'd rather see him come on for the opposition than for us. Gabbiadini and Yoshida both had very good games and should start regularly.

I think it's been proven now that both you and your slightly more intelligent mate mate Always do, sweetheart https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?59242-Les-Reed-Out-protest

The few final remnants of the Reedites on here, like you, Always, Micky and C.B. Fry, who still want to credit our recruitment success during our successful phase to Reed rather than Mitchell have been proven to be total dickheads by what's happened since Reed replaced Mitchell with Wee Ross. Get over it. We are Saints fans, always have been, always will be, we are not fans of some ***t once voted the worst manager in the history of the OP Premier League... GET OVER IT.

Yes, and the same RB Leipzig team which is above Celtic in their Europa League group table and is currently 4th in their national league. If only we could have done that well...

Shaw was very unhappy when Reed sacked Dodd and Williams. In the end, Reed got rid of just about everyone who was doing a good job at the club, after taking credit for their work, and the emperor was left with no clothes. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/10843902/Luke-Shaw-dismayed-as-Southampton-sack-academy-coaches-Jason-Dodd-and-Paul-Williams.html

Talking of Mitchell, his RB Leipzig side won 3-0 away to Hertha Berlin at the weekend to move up to 4th place in the Bundesliga. The team featured the three players he signed in the summer: Mukiele, Saracchi and Cunha, and one of them, the teenage striker, Matheus Cunha, scored.

I think he was talking about next season. If we are relegated, anybody we have left who is any good will be sold in the summer. Blackburn, who were promoted from League One last season, are above Stoke and Swansea in the Championship this season. Overall, there is not much to choose between teams promoted from League One and those relegated from the Premier League when their paths cross in the Championship. It depends how much they strengthen in the summer. We can only hope we get drawn against Pompey in the FA Cup this season, like they did against us in their final season in the Premier League.

This does even more: 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 36 pts 2018/19 26-30 pts ??

All of our goalkeepers would look better if they could escape the coaching of Dave Watson. As England coach, he wrecked Joe Hart's career and at Saints he has done the same for Fraser Forster and now he seems to have got to work on Alex McCarthy.

Statues of Les and Ralph?

4th best team on the south coast? Have we ever been that before in our history? The other three all seem to have ambitious owners who are prepared to invest, as well as good managers. Brighton's owner. Tony Bloom, for example, paid for Brighton's new stadium out of his own pocket and contributes to their transfer kitty every season, as you can see from their accounts where 'owner's contributions' are listed.

Gao was sold a vision by Kat of a profitable business, where players were brought in cheaply and sold for huge profits every year. But, she knew the cupboard was almost bare. She also knew that the people who'd found those players had left. The only reason the van Dijk sale was delayed was because Gao wasn't going to part with his borrowed cash if any more players were sold before the money went into Kat's account. Gao's main business. Lander Sports Development, is not doing well and is only worth a fraction of what it once was. He is going to really struggle to repay that loan. If you look at the Forbe's rich list of the wealthiest people in China, you won't find him anywhere near it. The only thing poor, old Gao is really guilty of is being gullible and allowing Kat to con him out of all that money. There are probably people who post on this board who have more spare cash than he does at the moment. These are the 400 richest people in China. It's a pity we couldn't have got one of them as an owner: https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2017/11/15/chinas-richest-2017-the-full-list-of-400-billionaires/#1bab339a296b

You really don't know anything, do you? Gao is NOT one of the wealthiest men in China. His business is in trouble and he is in debt. The Wolves owner is one of the wealthiest men in China but Gao is nowhere near. As for Hughes starting Man City's rebirth, he was sacked by them in 2009 https://www.forbes.com/china-billionaires/list/ Are you Les Reed in disguise?

It is getting close to dire straits now. Most good managers will understandably steer clear of us. A punt on one of the lower league English managers who's always wanted a shot at the big time, like Paul Cook, Nigel Clough or Chris Wilder might be an option. I'm not saying any one of them is one of the best managers in the world but they would be better than Hughes. Or, there are still plenty of good managers around the world who would find Premier League wages immensely attractive, like Rubi, Dieter Hecking and Christophe Galtiernot, but you'd expect Ross and Les not to find one of them. Someone like Pardew would be more likely with them, and he would merely continue what Hughes is doing. Until Les Reed and Ross Wilson are replaced by someone useful like Paul Mitchell, our club's decline is not going to be reversed and more useless managers, coaches and players will be brought in.

Perhaps I was being a tad overoptimistic. Results under Hughes really are much worse than they were under Pellegrino. With just 1 win and 7 points from 11 games, we are currently on course for only 25 points this season. Les & Ross have decimated our club. Meanwhile, Paul Mitchell's RB Leipzig are 4th in the Bundesliga with only 1 defeat in their first 10 games.

Le Tissier has just been discussing Saints' struggles on Gillette Soccer Saturday and when asked how confident he was that the squad would be strengthened in January, replied, "Not very... there's not much money there, which is why we got Ings on loan." There will be even less next year if we get relegated so the club is going to struggle to pay the players' wages. There aren't many players in our squad we could even get a decent transfer fee for.

And now he looks much better under Hughes. In fact, he's probably 2nd only to Hojbjerg as our player of the season so far.

In Jack Stephens and Christoph Klarer we have two central defenders far better than the ones Ross and Les have wasted the van Dijk and Fonte transfer fees on: Vestergaard, Gardos et al. The point is we still have a few talented players left at the club and I think that if they were played regularly in the first team, they would give us fans players to identify with. It's just unfortunate that a lot of the useless dross the club has wasted tens of millions of pounds on gets in the way of that.

Obviously he can't do it all on his own but he has been one of the few bright spots this season. We have kept clean sheets in 5 out of the last 7 games he's played in, including the final two last season: the 1-0 win at Swansea Swansea and the 0-1 defeat to Man City, when we were unlucky not to keep a clean sheet.

He can't tackle so he wouldn't be half decent there. He probably looks good in training, where the pace is slower and the games are less competitive. I'm certainly in favour of our Academy products being given a chance and persevering with Stephens, for example, finally seems to have paid off but I'd rather see Hesketh or Sims in our team ahead of Ward-Prowse. He's had his chance and they offer a bit more in terms of pace, skill and competitiveness.

Kelvin Davis's Premier League record is incredibly bad. He has a lower percentage of clean sheets than just about any other keeper in the history of the league, having only kept 8, 1 every 6.6 games, and he was voted into the worst Sunderland XI of all-time. In contrast, Fraser Forster has kept 38, 1 every 2.79 games.

Another great goal from Hesketh tonight, v Nott. Forest.

This is our fourth consecutive season of decline in the league. Is there any evidence that the people currently running the club can turn that around? 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 36 pts 2018/19 28-32 pts ?? (and even that's being optimistic as we currently have 7 points from 10 games, which over a season would give us a total of 26-27 pts.} On a positive note there are 4 teams below us with even fewer points. So, Huddersfield, Cardiff and one from Saints, Fulham and Newcastle look the likely relegation candidates. The bookies have Burnley in the mix too. A change of manager and coaches plus players bought in the January transfer window could be the deciding factors.