Chez

Reed and Matt Crocker being linked to the now vacant Technical Director post at the FA https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46440109

there certainly are, but that's irrelevant when it comes to Saints winning games of football. What matters is how many starting midfielders in the Premiership are better than him right now? In my opinion it a lot of them. By the way, you can put together a pretty **** Premiership side from players with a lot of England U21 caps (many in the top 10 most capped players), the odd senior cap and plenty of Premiership games: Scott Carson 20 U21 aps/4 Sr caps Keiran Richardson 12 U21 caps, 8 Sr caps Michael Mancienne 30 U21 caps Steven Taylor 20 U21 caps/1 B cap Carl Jenkinson 14 U21 caps/1 Sr cap JWP 31 U21 caps/1 Sr cap Chalabah 40 U21 caps/1 Sr cap Huddlestone 33 caps/4 Sr caps Redmond 38 U21 Caps/1 Sr Cap Saido Berahino 11 U21 caps/4 Sr Caps Burundi Francis Jeffers 16 U21 caps/1 Sr Cap

are there no other managers called Hughes?

The squad he inherited is ****, so he can only take so much blame. I struggle to see how the next fella will get a tune out of this lot.

We have won once against them in 12 games home and away since our return to the top flight. There has been a few years when I thought we had a good to chance to win away at Spurs. The FA cup game in 1990 was one, the game that helped get Hoddle the sack another and anything seemed possible in 2003 and 2014. But if you are honest, getting some luck and sneaking a draw is not exactly an unusual outlook for Saints fans.

more than we got from Everton for Koeman, that's for sure. more than the extra we would have had to pay Koeman, that's for sure.

he also turned down more money from West Ham to stay with us at that time, as I recall, all be it I think he had a very young family at the time and probably didn't want to up sticks. Very little loyalty in football these days. That's about as good as it gets and for that I am grateful. He got a lot of stick during his career at Saints, but he, like many of the players in that squad, played a huge role in getting us promoted from the Championship. How many penalty saves that season? Maybe not the best keeper we have ever had, but players from that squad are `legends' in the loosest sense of the word and forever appreciated. None of that has any bearing on his management ability, but I hope he brings all kinds of luck with him and we sneak a point against Spurs.

Thank **** for that, however, with this squad of players, anyone coming in has a tough job to keep us up.

Nope. This is last year's figures. Probably higher now. I have suggested that our wage bill is too high for a long time now. The parachute payment is £40m. A 50% reduction in wages still leaves us short and who is to say that relegation clauses are 50% drops?

ballbags. Decent save from their keeper. Gunn seemed to move around two much prior to their spot kicks and wasn't `set' right when he needed to be. Not clever.

VAR never seems to take into account like deliberate. It just looks at whether ball hits hand, if yes, then handball. It's ********. It will no doubt help us in the future too.

http://www.usagoals.me/c/football/2832344/1/leicester-city-vs-southampton-live-stream/

Gunn Cedric Vestergaard Yoshida Bertrand Redmond PEH Lemina Elyounoussi Gabbiadini Obefemi Got to get that back four sorted. Might be time for a 442, maybe.

maybe they worry it could get worse if they do sack him? Which it could you know. I wonder how much he will cost to pay off? Let's say £10m (which is probably way too high). If we kept Hughes and spent that saved money on (or put it towards) a new CB instead would we better off than sacking him and not having a new CB? yeah, I know the answer to that. Just thought I'd put it out there.

The partnership conceded 27 goals in 17 games. Not sure if that is bad or alright. I am also not sure you can always point the finger at CBs of even defenders for goals conceded. It really is up to the team to defend well. However, I seem to recall there were several occasions when I thought Stephens lack of dominance in the air led directly to goals conceded. I like him as a player, especially with the ball, I just need to see a nastier and physically stronger player that rag dolls forwards not the other way round. Yoshida is another that gets beaten in the air far too much at vital times. Again there are good points to his game, but he just is not a top class CB - and there lies the problem. We don't have ANY top class players. Good players yes, really exceptional talent...nope. Without it you better have brilliant tactics, team spirit, workrate, fitness, understanding...

I said this to a friend at the game. It's not always about one glaring mistake, its just lots of little things that all dd up. Actually our issue is that every player in the side just lacks that little bit of quality that we once had. Because of that little things, that often go unnoticed, such as an imperfect first touch, slightly under weighted pass or slightly slower speed of thought all add up to reduce the number of chances we create or increase the opportunities for our opponents. It's all very subtle, but when combined just adds up to a bang average side. Without a talisman get out of jail card like MLT you don't score enough goals, concede too many and lose games. when the side is so average any mistakes by manager or players show up massively. I am not sure Hughes is making loads of mistakes, but he isn't able to conceal them through his tactics. I wonder if any manager would keep this side up? Not without new blood at the back or the right combination of CB's and full backs found somehow.

Dyce the other way...still sounds like an upgrade to me.

to who? We could not give Forster away this summer. No one will pay a fee for these players in January. Even shopping them out on loan we will have to pay a huge chunk of their wages, as we are with Carrilo and Boufal. It could take three years (if we somehow survive) to flush this much **** out of the system. This summer was the last chance, but at this moment in time we appear to have failed to address our issues at the back. Maybe in time...

yes, it was personnel, during the summer, especially at the back, but we signed Vestagaard and he has been deemed not good enough by Hughes to mark a relatively stationary striker like Mitrovic.

the fact he was a donkey slow fourth or fifth choice CB for Denmark never inspired me. OK for championship, but at this level you need pace AND power.

enjoyed your post. Very good summary. You are right about Hoedt. Some of his distribution is top class as does help us offensively and you certainly do see his mistakes more than others due to who he is etc. Individually and collectively the back four make too many mistakes and are not strong enough. They don't get the right protection in front of them. In my eyes the side plays decent football, but there is a lack of quality throughout that really is noticeable against decent teams.

works hard, wins the ball back, then overhits the crossfield ball straight into the stand. There is good and bad from him in equal measure in the course of one passage of play. Can't fault his commitment, but as you say, overall average ad 11 average players equals trouble at this level. I honestly struggle to see how we will survive.

you are banking on players leaving though. Five years deals and monstrous wages don't encourage players to depart

it wont be. Financially we will be ****ed. Our wage bll is what £120m? £40m parachute payment wont cover that. A very good chance of another meltdown and ten years or more of ****eness. We need to stay up by our teeth and hope the next transfer window is amazing, followed by another and another.

that is our problem. Several **** transfer windows in a row leading to a squad full of utter dross. Unfortunately it's impossible to shift players once you have signed them to massive contracts. The scouting system at the club seems broken. We also don't seem to have the connections we need to get gems like Alderwiereld