SKD

Long and JWP off - Sims and Austin on for me at half time. Play on the front foot, close from the front and put their back 4 under some real pressure

Poor half really. Yes there has been an up in effort and fight, but we’ve pretty much been camped in our half for the whole game. Need to take the game to them second half if we want to have a chance of winning this one. They’re worse than us at the back and haven’t really been tested. Had this been a puel side, he would have been slaughtered

Always one looking to blame Tadic. Been our best player today.

JWP watching the ball and failing to track the run of Welbeck. 2 shocking goals to concede

Got a good feeling about this one, after last week I think Hughes will get a response and we'll nick a draw. Our biggest weakness is the long ball / cross in between out full back and CB's (Cedric and Stephens in particular), I don't think Arsenal will play that way. McCarthy Cedric Yoshida Hoedt Bertrand Lemina Romeu Sims Davis (if fit) or JWP Boufal Austin

Eddie Howe took over Bournemouth when they were in L2 (correct me if I'm wrong on that). He knows the club extremely well and has done very well to get the best out of what he has (spent a fortune on the way as well, btw). Had B'mouth been in the championship, he wouldn't have been given the job. I'm not a massive fan of Howe anyway, I think he's pretty overrated and is just the right man at the right club (similar to NA with us). If/When he moves on, I'll bet my last penny that he wont be a success, like he wasn't at Burnley.

What the hell makes you think that? if anything, the next manager will have an even harder job that MP had. As demonstrated by Sunderland and earlier in the season Hull, if don't get it right you can find yourself dropping down to L1 pretty quickly. Many managers have succeeded in micky mouse leagues and couldn't hack it when they come to England.

Just what we need at CB, tbf!

Austin would be a massive loss. He's one of a few I would 100% keep, his goals could get us back - I think you can pretty much rule out Leicester as he won't go there if Claude is still their manager.

You do realise that giving a young manager a chance somewhere is exactly what got us in this mess. Appointing an unknown quaintly (who let's be honest has been managing in a noddy league), could very easily lead to a second relegation. Potter reminds me very much of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before he was 'given a chance'.... look how that ended up. Potter would be a massive risk and one that I'd rather someone else (like WBA) took. Ultimately who ever comes in is going to need to pretty much rebuild the whole squad. They are going to need to tell Les who and what they need (not the other way round as it currently seems). It'll be a similar situation to when Koeman came, we need a strong personality and one that will instantly have respect from the players. The reality is we need to take a step back to move forwards and for me that is solidity.. IMO our position is similar to Villa when they went down.

Positives of Relegation It will give us the chance to rebuild and hopefully we can get some likeable, committed players (something like the last squad we had in the championship). It'll hopefully give the likes of Targett, Reed & Sims the platform to kick on (like Lallana, Morgan, Fonte did)... Hopefully we (the fans) can regain some affiliation with the club. Cheaper tickets and hopefully a more enjoyable experience. Plenty of good away games. Less attractive to Chinese / American tourists. Positives of our current situation Cup semi final. Most have now seen through Reed and our current board. Hopefully Kat and this Chinese crook will lose some money. If I'm honest, over the last couple of years I have fallen out of love with the game and I'm actually looking forward to the championship. Bring it on.

Agree - He's been inconsistent, at best, but is clearly one of our most talented players. IMO, he has to start the remaining games to give us a chance - He's not the best at getting stuck in, but to his credit he works hard for a 'flair player'

Christ, we haven't fallen that far yet... Have we?

Is he good enough for the championship though? imo, he's not.

With the recent international break, there has been a bit of L1 football on the TV. I wouldn't mind us taking a punt on Bradley Dack or Nick Powell if I'm honest. Also thought that Wigan RB looked alright when they played us - for that level, very good going forward.

With relegation currently looking all but confirmed, who would you appoint to lead the ship and ensure we 'don't do a Sunderland'? Personally I hope we go for someone who knows English football, has experience managing in the championship and knows exactly how he wants to play and what players he wants / needs for that. I really hope we don't take another gamble on a cheap European, like Puel or Pellegrino as that could be a disaster. For me, target should be consolidation next season with a view of building a squad for promotion the following one. There is / might be an argument to keep Hughes, but imo it would be better to have a fresh start (with a complete new set of coaching staff), whatever division we are in. We should have a pretty healthy budget for players / wages so in theory we should be able to pinch whoever we want, from that division. My first choice would be Jokanovic (if Fulham don't go up) - Looks like he knows how to get teams out of that division. Although I suspect a few PL teams may be interested i.e West Ham. I also wouldn't mind any of: Rowett Wilder Neil Lennon Alex Neil Mark Warburton Neil Warnock (short term - again if Cardiff don't go up or if he doesn't want to go with them) Nigel Pearson Michael Appleton (dare I say it) If we do go left field, I would mind seeing us go for Vieira (not sure how realistic that is now) and wouldn't even mind us giving Erwin a punt (knows the club, will have respect from players and was pretty influential when Ronald was here). Many will say Graham Potter, but I hope we stay away. Done a great job where he is, but don't think he is experienced enough, imo.

Nope - crazy to think he went from not getting in a championship Middlesbrough team to one of the first names on our team sheet within a year/18 months. Sort of shows why we are in the mess we are.

Could the exact same not be said about Hoedt, who imo is naturally a better defender. He's also physically more suited to CB as well (not saying he's the answer, but he is better than Stephens). Agree that together they are a terrible partnership - I'd prefer Yoshida Hoedt as Yosh has the pace to cover for Hoedt.

Tidy player, good on the ball and okay at making last ditch tackles but overal is a terrible CB. Would probably do a bit better in CM if we go down, but ball watches, isn’t great at marking and lacks strength. Hoedt gets hammered on here, but he is a much better CB than Stephens. Easy to forget that they are both around 23/24, both would benefit from having a senior, ‘ball winning’ CB to play next to them.

Disagree. Boufal, Austin and even Tadic are match winners on their day... they’re just not consistent enough (Boufal doesn’t play enough imo).

Nothing to substantiate it? Have you not seen our dramatic down fall over the past 18 months. It’s a combination of poor management on and off the pitch. Agree that football goes in cycles, but as far as I’m concerned this (relegation) was something completely avoidable. You can’t argue that we’ve generally been poor in the transfer window since Mitchel left. If you don’t think there’s an issue with the running of the club and that it’s just ‘football cycles’ then more fool you, head in sand comes to mind.

Exactly the attitude that lets these cowboys run us into the ground... well done.

That is as I understand it as well. Reality is, Koeman's agent tried calling our bluff and both parties ended up losing out (well apart from his bank balance). Les and Koeman didn't get on, FWIW. It's easy to say in hindsight, but the amount we have since spent in appointing / sacking MP & Puel, we should have just paid what Koeman wanted to keep him. Basically a massive fuc* up by Les.

Had Puel stayed, they would have pretty much all left. Puel is an okay manager, he done an okay job. Tactically he was pretty sound (you could see how we would set up, defend deep try and hit teams on the counter, if that wasn't on try and keep the ball / play through the 3rds) and as you said, he is okay at developing players. Lets not forget that Puel did have one of the leagues best CB's for half the season. Unfortunately for Puel, communication was an issue, the dressing room didn't respect or like him and he didn't have the players to play his brand of football and entertain the fans in the same light (I'm taking a Vardy or Mahrez type) imo, the improvements in OR, JWP and MY were in spite of Puel rather than as a result of Puel's training (Generally getting more / consistent game time certainly helped JWP and MY). As above, sacking Puel was the right thing to do, the **** poor replacement (MP is a terrible manager, probably the worst I've seen at Saints) and keeping hold of said manager for so long wasn't. I'm convinced that if we had a 'Poch / Pep type' excellent man manager (obviously not them, but someone of that type) they would be able to get significantly more out of the players we currently have. It does however seem that there is a 'toxic' atmosphere at the club, at the moment though (starting at board room level) and I'm not sure whoever comes in will be able to change that quickly. Given how poor we are at CB, I feel like we need a 'defend from the front' attitude. Any team that is given the time to put a deep cross in between Cedric and Stephens who will just be watching the ball, will score.

Not really that sure what he done in the past to deserve the job in the first place (Huddersfield and their recruitment has actually improved since he has left), but he's another senior figure (appointed by Les) at the club who just simply up to the task and has played a massive part in our downfall. A prime example of replacing quality (Mitchell) with absolute sh!te, as we have seen throughout the club. His apparent lack of ability to seal major transfer deals (thinking back to recent January transfer windows) and inability to attract / spot a decent manager (no doubt had a big say in the appointments of Puel and MP) to me should be a sackable offence. Hopefully when we go down, Mr Gao will have a big restructure and Ross (as well as Les and Ralph) will be let go as part of that. Personally, I'd like to see 'Mr Black box', Paul Mitchel (I'm not saying he didn't / doesn't make bad decisions as well, but he's a dam lot better than Ross) come back, but in Les' role and let him pick the team under him. Unfortunately it won't happen and when Les does eventually step down, Ross will, unjustifiably, step into his shoes.... shame he didn't take the rangers job when offered it.