Saint Albert

This exactly. There’s simply no reason to hope for a loss. Pellegrino has survived a horrible string of results and performances. There is no reason to think that if the players lay another egg against Fulham, he’ll get the boot.

I found Ralph’s draft pledges for the new owner held down by a hockey puck paper weight on Ralph’s desk. They really ought to help Mr. Gao fit in with the corporate culture at Saints’ head office as they look at the club’s problems problem from 40 thousand feet and employ some blue sky thinking to help get us out of this mess. The draft pledges are as follows... Pledge 1: I will do nothing over a prolonged period of time in the face of an urgent need for action and will simply hope that things will work out by themselves. That ought to fix things. Pledge 2: I will blame Virgil van Dijk for everything. Pledge 3: If people laugh at me when I apply Pledge 2, I will blame Puel instead. That ought to do the trick. Pledge 4: I will visit a tattooist and pay him to emblazon the words “We are a small club” prominently on my skin, right under my “single digits” tattoo. When anyone asks me why things are going wrong, I will simply bare my new tattoo. Pledge 5: I will tell myself repeatedly every morning after I’ve brushed my teeth That Premier League football really is just like hockey.

Walcott coming on in the 88th minute for Arsenal against Chelsea.

This is the source of the Gaitan rumours that the English newspapers seem to using... https://as.com/futbol/2017/12/28/primera/1514497822_106908.html

Gaitan’s name is coming up again, albeit in the Sun... https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/5259208/everton-west-ham-southampton-eyeing-atletico-madrid-nicolas-gaitan/

According to this, we had the 9th highest wage bill among present PL clubs in 2016-17 with £94M: https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/877950/Premier-League-wage-bills-2016-17-sportgalleries Looking at the previous year’s list, our wage bill increased year on year over 2015-16 by £9M.

That might have been our biggest problem last year, although I believe we have one of the highest squad wage bills outside the top 6. The biggest problem is convincing players to come to a club in a relegation struggle, showing no signs of improvement, with a manager that any reasonable outsider would consider is a lame duck. It does not make us an attractive proposition. The club have really screwed things to the point of recalcitrance by persisting with Pellegrino this late into the season.

If I was Gao, I would ask my DOF to hire a different manager. Also, I would suggest the club bring in loans in the January transfer window rather than outright purchases.

After today’s second half performance, Kureger’s comments concerning Pellegrino seem desperately unfortunate. I hope that this is simply the dreaded vote of confidence that people tend to laugh about, and that Reed does not hold off firing Pellegrino on the grounds he does not want to make his boss look like an idiot. That being said, Pellegrino has already managed several terrible performances, and survived.

We’re sounding out Celtic’s Sviatchenko according to this... http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-transfer-news/celtic-stopper-jozo-simunovic-burnley-11777462

Assuming we can now attract decent reinforcements in the transfer window, I don’t want Pellegrino anywhere near them. He simply cannot string two decent performances together. He can’t even string two average performances together.

FT 1-2 A terrible result against a team we should have beaten. I’d say that Pellegrino has to go, but he appears to be bulletproof. At least Long broke his duck.

Lots of empty seats. Pellegrino is not the only one who seems resigned.

“Dear Mr. Goa: What the ****? Sincerely A Saints supporter.”

Pellegrino just cannot seeem to string two decent performances together on the bounce.

I hear the “You’re getting sacked in the morning” chant coming from the stands.

What a poor, poor second half by the home team, against a side that should be knackered after running around after City and getting a day’s less rest.

Gabbiadini, Davis and Redmond came on. Lemina stays on the bench.

1-2. Long range curled shot finds the corner. The boos are ringing out.

Redmond on for Tadic.

Gabbiadini on for Hoj.

Lots of ball watching. Benteke may have come back from an offside position to set up MacArthur for the goal. JWP off for Davis.

1-1

Davis and Lemina are coming on by the looks of it. Tadic off for Davis according to the commentators.

Good low save McCarthy.