Ex Lion Tamer

So now you want a striker who doesn't ever make mistakes? You probably ought to go support Man City because your expectations are ridiculous

Great finish for the disallowed goal

So you want our two wingers to be scoring 10 each, and then presumably the strikers even more, perhaps 20 each? Is there any team in the league that has that sort of output across the front four?

I hope he does well but I couldn't find much evidence on their forum beyond him being "half decent" against Stanley. Seems like a bit of a non story

You have to go beyond stats though and look at pace, because slow players can easily hit a ceiling when they move up a level, whereas faster players can learn and adapt

Who is better: Adams or Ormerod? I think Adams, which means he can do a job for us

I don't think many people are saying he should be our lead striker next season. Just that he is a decent support striker for a club at our level

Indeed, he came back into the team after 10 months out and we suddenly kept 6 clean sheets in a row. People said it was luck then as well. https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2016-02-28/forster-sets-new-southampton-record The problems came later when he lost his confidence

The prices we can set for our players should fall in line with the market. So although someone like Ings might go for a low fee which makes us feel queasy, there will be tons of clubs in the Netherlands, France etc who have rough gems and are desperate to raise some cash, allowing us to pick up some bargains

I think you've made a big assumption

Why do you think that?

It's been said before on here, but I'll say it again. The guy had Covid. Even when you're over the sickness, your energy levels can be down for months afterwards. We saw with Armstrong that it can take a while to get back to the level needed for Premier League football

Or that their philosophy takes too much out of the players in a hectic fixture schedule. The similarities are striking, and I'd back both to bounce back next season

Assuming we can do enough to stay up this season, I'd still like to see Ralph have a go at next season with proper fullback cover and a less hectic fixture schedule. The good times have been good enough that we should show faith in him now. We're not close enough to the relegation zone that we need to pull the trigger yet.

I still think it's our system rather than a lack of "leadership" but there you go

Which game was that?

Sunderland didn't lose every match 8-0. Why did they capitulate in that game? Cattermole should have shouted at them to pull up their bootstraps and keep it at their usual 4-0

Sunderland lost 8-0 to us with Lee Cattermole in the midfield

Our pressing style makes our players over perform, but it also means that they get tired in the second half if they've been playing a lot of games, and that they struggle when they've only got 10 men. I'm not at all convinced our players are a bunch of pussies who can't hack it when they're losing

Everyone is assuming it was a financial decision. If it was then it helped to fund Minamino. But it might simply have been that Ralph knew he wasn't going to be able to trust Valery so he might as well leave and get some experience in a lower league

He wasn't good for Norwich. My Norwich mate warned me about him straight away, and initially had to eat his words when Redmond started quite well for us

Were we lacking a leader when we were the fifth best team in the league across 2020? We're struggling at the moment because we've had injuries and the players who are fit need a rest

Because we play a high intensity game and are in the middle of our most hectic fixture schedule ever?

I doubt Salisu would accept an extension on the same wages, but if he starts playing and showing quality that justifies an increase, then we should get on it

I don't know if this is a slip by Sky but the live blog refers to health problems as well as injury