Chez

Very loud and clear chant of "sports Republic get out of our club"

Two old fellas in front of me clapped the side off. Fuck me. Had to bite my tongue. Not sure I can last another 45 without exploding. Here we go....

An own goal?

Get THB off. He's fucking shit. Wing backs must attack or they might as well be full backs. They offer us nothing. Jander is a ghost. Aziz similar. Downes at least is busy. It's as bad as I've seen for a long time. Get Robinson and Fellows on. I wouldn't say no to Aribo too. Horrible.

Aziz loses it. Zero effort to get back and win it. Lazy fucking cunt.

Utter shite. Manning to no one. THB sells him short with a terrible pass and they should score. They do score....shite.

Woods distribution is woeful. THB no better. The wing backs are just full backs. They dont offer anything going forward. We are playing five at the back. Shite.

They have seen a weakness - the diagonal over THB. Completely done there.

At SMS today. Early thoughts. THB is so slow. We lack intensity and bite in the middle. Where is the desire? Scienza and Armstrong look bright. Back five look clueless with the ball.

I take your point, but if we'd signed McBernie this summer, I think there would have been a fair bit of discontent on this forum. He's had a good start to the season, but we are talking about a 29 year old that scored 3 goals in 34 games for las palmas last season and 26 goals in 134 appearances for sheff united. No one was calling for McBernie this summer, so mentioning him now seems a bit unfair. No argument that Downs has not worked out, so far, so any other striker would have been preferable, but let's suggest McBernie was a consideration...we had to aim higher than him. Shame we didn't manage it.

I wonder, did anyone at Sports Republic bother to ask if he was actually any good at FM?

Were Stephens and THB a strength of that promotion side? I didn't think they were bad, but it was obvious to me that THB lacked pace and it was only the failure of opponents to take advance of our mistakes that didn't expose his limitations. Not sure THB is great in the air. Stephens is competent at this level, but does he ever dominate a big forward. I've never lambasted him, but when a cross comes in he never seems to be in the right position to win headers. Wood was pretty poor for Swansea in the championship in his two final seasons there and I didn't see a PL player when he got the odd chance, despite a few liking what they saw. Not sure what the consensus is on him right now - I've not watched the last few games live, so am not able to give an opinion. I don't care what Edwards did at QPR. He has looked very lightweight for a CB to me. He has been bullied by big centre backs. First and foremost a CB must wins headers. He doesn't do that. Quarshie has the attributes we need. His ability with the ball leaves a lot to be desired. I can't see him stepping up to the PL, but maybe his limitations are manageable in the championship. He has a mistake in him, but which of a CBs doesn't?

I listened to the second half on the radio. Was Downs booed when he came on by the Saints fans? It certainly sounded like it and Blackmore picked up on it too.

I'm with you. All those CBs. There must be a paring that works supported by good fullback play and a tenacious midfield that protects them. Not sure how we can play both Fellows and Armstrong unless we go 4-4-2. If we do that, how do you fit in Azaz? If we play 4-4-2, who partners Amstrong? I am not sure how to solve that issue...and nor does Still, hence he's going with one up top (Archer instead of Downs), Armstrong instead of Fellows, and Azaz misses out.

I agree, especially in the Prem. It also became a necessity to have lots of bodies to fill the space opposing teams would exploit. That was because we didn't provide very good cover in front of the CBs. The full backs didn't help much either, no losing the ball cheaply or a failure to dominate midfield etc... You'd think think some of those issues would be negated by lessor opposition having gone down, but there seems to be a genuine lack of confidence in the CBs and back four as a whole. Do we have two CBs that combined can do the job? A lack of strength in the air has been an issue for some. Making mistakes with ball at feet an issue for several. Poor positional play and lack of anticipation another thing of concern. Still has chopped and changed/given everyone a go. He has to find the right partnership and run with it. Quarshie's injury may not have helped here of course.

The three league games prior to Saturday seemed to be 4 at the back, or does the BBC website have that wrong? I noticed Quarshie didn't even make the bench, yet started the game before. Was he injured or dropped ?

You are preaching to the converted here, as I have a season ticket and venture to some of the local aways too (Horndean was terrible on Tuesday night if you didn't go). One day I will introduce myself as a fellow Saint creeksider. If you could possibly play "I'll be your saint" by Adorable at half time on Tuesday night against Westfield, that would be much appreciated. Take it easy.

He says we need to turns draws into wins. Without giving the game away to Swansea, it would have been nice to hear how we are going to do that. What have they actually been working on over the last two weeks? What kind of adjustments might we see etc.. how is Stewart going to be replaced in the next three months...

I wonder how many professional players are actually disruptive? In what form does that manifest? If players have effectively gone on strike to force a move, then I can see it being very difficult to accept the player back into the fold, but if they simply said they wanted out and didn't get a move for whatever, reason, you'd think both player and manager would be able to move on. Perhaps they have and the players just don't seem better than what we have to Still?

Once the parachute payments disappear, it becomes very difficult. In the seasons immediately after you are managing a huge hole in your finances. If you manage to navigate that nightmare, then you probably find yourself with a squad of very average players, making a promotion challenge, well, challenging. As Coventry have shown so far this season, you can still be very competitive on a smaller budget if you get things right, but it's a damn sight harder getting it right if you have a £45m parachute payment on your back pocket to pay 'better" quality players.

Good point. The club might say that it's five or six months since his last injury cleared up, so at some point you have to treat the player like anyone else. If we had Downes pushing for the spot then maybe they'd of rested him, but his failure to shine has seemingly forced Still's hand to play him (either that or no one thought about the risk).

Yes, he played as much, if not more than anyone during the preseason games. He played in one of the hour long Brighton preseason games (the last game before Wrexham), he got 20 minutes against Espanyol, played half the game (as everyone did) against Castellon, played one of the hour-long Valencienes games (as everyone did), played one of the hour-long Gillingham games, played a half (as most did) of the first preseason games against Eastleigh. I think his previous injury was also a hamstring issue. That had cleared up by end of February, his general fitness then had to be improved in March and then he was available from the start of April and played in the last 8 games last season.

You are seriously suggesting we give Quarshie a run out at centre forward?

Armstrong and Archer up the middle on their own just doesn't work, so if Stewart is going to miss games we have a problem. We either gives Downs more games and hope that faith is rewarded or...well, I am not sure what the alternative is to be honest. Didn't see the game yesterday - did we play 4 or 5 at the back. BBC website says four, but seen some posters referencing wingbacks. Can you confirm?

not quite sure where I stood at the time, but many suggested in the summer that we needed to reboot and create a side that would not only get us up but give us half a chance of staying up if we did. None of these strikers would be any use in the PL. Agyemanng was certainly an alternative option to Downs. Not sure he has set the world on fire yet either.