qwertyell

You don't think there were mitigating circumstances for some of the selection decisions? Like, for example, there being no other credible options down the left than Manning, due to Welington being suspended and Jelert and Fraser injured. Playing Fellows at RWB isn't ideal, but the only alternative is Roerslev who gives nothing going forward (and not much going backwards, frankly). Armstrong up front never works, but everyone else is injured or American. So what are you going to do? Someone's got to play there. Bazunu over McCarthy is just a coin flip between a shit keeper who is okay with his feet and a shit keeper who isn't. Makes no real difference. I don't believe anyone seriously thought the new interim coach was about to spring a tactical revolution after working with the squad for two days. Sticking with broadly the same structure that they've been used to for months is a perfectly pragmatic short term approach: we need points coming in while the board figure out their next masterstroke appointment that will definitely herald the return of the good times. To that end, Tonda got the job done, with an unbalanced squad riddled with injuries and their confidence on the floor. What's the point in bashing him for that? What else were you expecting?

Sure. Why not? SR might as well tear off the final piece of their mask and reveal just how much contempt they have for the supporters. Sooner it's done, the sooner we can smoke these pricks out.

Haven't read it, but I've seen his teams. Backwards, sideways propaganda ball, keeping it as far away from their own attacking players as much as possible. Fuck that.

If that's true then he's even more incompetent than I thought, having signed Azaz and Downs, who have the combined intensity of an old people's home during a cold snap. You can't press if even one player phones it in - the whole system falls apart.

An anagram of Caked Rotten. Also Created Knot. Noted Tacker. Is that a hint to some sort of Tika-Taka philosophy? Kent Art Deco. The man's got architectural taste, perhaps? Can't Deter K.O. doesn't auger well for cup competitions, though. I don't know if this helps or not.

Didn't we used to get linked to Carlos Carvahal here and there a few years ago? I might have imagined that. He's out of work, knows the league, experienced etc.

Out of the frying pan into the useless possession stats anti-football ex-Pompey shitwad. Super.

Saints 3-3 Sheffield United, under Branfoot. What started as a bit of a grumble outside the stadium spread like wildfire down the street until the police lined up and slow walked us away. I'd taken a sickie off work to catch the game. The post match scenes were on the local news. As was my stupid face, in amongst the rabble - which my manager watching on TV duly noted. Got an absolute bollocking on Monday. Good times.

His statistics were decent. But you can't take them with you when you move clubs (Downs' 10 goals last season are worth fuck all to us now, for example). His attributes are garbage. Weak, slow, no work rate, drifts around on the periphery of games. We were told this by people that watched him week in, week out. But we still signed him - presumably because we don't scout anymore, just look at spreadsheets while patting ourselves on the back for being so modern.

Obviously they should be higher, given the amount of resources at our disposal relative to the league, but reputations don't pay the bills for long in sport - if you stand still you get overtaken. Entitlement doesn't win you many games. We're 20th in the Championship because the players/management/ownership in the here and now haven't proven themselves to be any better than 20th in the Championship. It makes no difference at all who did what, where, and how, in this league or that league, one, two, or three years ago. There are no legacy points on offer. I hope the penny drops for some of them that their stock within the game that they once worked so hard to build up is presently in total free fall. I hope they shape up. And soon. But I'm not holding my breath.

No. It's just another facet that is failing to live up to it's billing. But theoretically that's what we're supposed to be doing. "But if I had to describe [my teams] in one word, the best one I've found is proactive. I want my teams to be proactive in everything we do. That involves pressing a lot, and I ask a huge amount from the players. They have to run. One of my key phrases is 'defensive effort is non-negotiable'. If we can all attack, we can all defend -and we do it as a unit." https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11688/13406817/the-will-still-philosophy-southampton-boss-on-entertainment-proactivity-the-seven-minute-rule

But does that make him a good fit for us? Boro (and Plymouth) fans warned that he was a luxury player who barely strolls about out of possession and drifts through games. Will Still - supposedly - wants us to press with big energy, which would make Azaz absolutely the wrong profile of player to sign. The press collapses entirely if not everyone commits to it. I've no idea if Azaz is anything special or not, but he didn't achieve anything with Boro (in fact, they seem to be a better team without him), and sure as shit hasn't shown anything with us that would suggest we should exempt him from basic tactical duties because he's too bloody amazing to muck in with everyone else. Far from convinced he'll prove to be a successful signing.

Don't care that he played for Pompey. Do care that he's a philosophy nonce whose Wolves team wouldn't even attack in the last five minutes of games they were losing in because they first had to pass the ball slowly sideways and backwards in their own half to no effect while the opposition chilled out on the edge of their own area, wondering if they'll ever have to defend an easier three points. These anti-football cunts should be dying out, not getting new job offers.

But we were constantly told that it's impossible for promoted clubs to compete in the premier league now, and we should be grateful just to be invited for a season. We've been so deprived of basic sporting competence that we've gaslit ourselves into believing it can't exist. This club's a fucking clown show any way you shape it.

Specialist American to help Downs settle in by shooting guns, wang on about jesus, and mainline high fructose corn syrup.

Thierry Small, who we gave away, is a guaranteed scorer.

She joined in April. Downs joined in July. Perhaps she should've piped up at the time. Anyone can be a good talent spotter after the event.

QPR's young player of the year two years running. That's a guarantee of quality. Or, at least, so we were told this summer when Ronnie Edwards inherited the title.

This is his 5th season at Saints. He's only not been absolute garbage in one of them. It's a quality issue, not a form issue.

Sure. But we paid £15m for him on account of having scored 21 goals the previous season. Going the first two thirds of the season without so much as a goal, no-one was suggesting "this has been a successful signing" on the basis of some solid hold up play. He was absolutely useless at the thing with signed him for. Initially. Sadly, a common trait with the majority of our attacking signings across the last decade. Downs is, so far, just a continuation of that trend.

I mean, he's managed 136 games across three countries. He's not that inexperienced. Russell Martin had managed 179 when he took over here; Pochettino 161. Maybe, all excuses aside, he's just not the right fit for a club with all kinds of deep-seated problems at this moment in time.

Che Adams didn't score his first goal for Saints until March (or the equivalent of March - it was actually July due to the Covid shutdown). He managed a respectable 9 goals the following season. Adam Armstrong scored on his debut but then only three times more across two seasons. And then he bagged 21 in the Championship.

What use would Brighton have for him? Sort out the recycling?

We don't play tiki-taka. Hoofi-hacka, perhaps.

All feels a bit Pellegrino again, where we just limp on week after week, hoping it's all going to click at some stage, in spite of it never really looking likely. It's not totally incompetent, but at the same time, what are the positive signs to cling onto? He doesn't know his best players, best formation, best tactical approach. Hope to proven wrong, but it doesn't feel like we're a good fit for a young manager just finding his feet in the game. We've got too many deeply ingrained problems to deal with for that.