Ted Bates Statue

He turned down Brentford, not the other way around. Really doesn't seem to care for the limelight.

I get what you're saying although I think apathy will surely set in around Xmas when everyone's wallets feel the pinch. A 3rd round FA Cup match against Palace or Liverpool will not get most supporters out of the house. To me, it's mad that it would take even that long but I guess others have more patience. Also, the players will raise their performances enough during this upcoming tough run of games to give signs of improvement and glimmers of hope, while delivering fuck-all in terms of actual points towards survival. It's standard relegation team fare. They need to think about their summer moves, after all.

He won't be so cheerful when he realises there's no communion wine

I was thinking about giving Minsk's thread a miss this season as it doesn't deserve to be sullied by our current form. Says a lot that we are comparing ourselves to Derby in this thread but that's not the fault of us fans. In our last PL season, 12 points out of our 25-point total came from Leicester and Chelsea. Happy times!

It's hard enough keeping track of managerial comings and goings that I can scarcely be bothered to keep up, but didn't Cooper get the call from Leicester back in the summer?

I have heard similar being said about us. Utter storm in a teacup. If anything, shows Liverpool get away with awful behaviour that is left totally unpunished.

"The West Ham Story" It's been going on for years

Blinded by the idea that donkey's years ago, he used to manage Man City and he got Stoke into the top 10 repeatedly while having to rely on dross like Begovic, Moses, Crouch, Shaqiri, Arnautovic. I'd think Pearson, Adkins and Puel are well ahead of him in the very hypothetical queue to manage us again.

It's just someone flicking the floodlights on and off loads of times. Seems a bit outdated really, considering I remember being genuinely impressed by laser shows in the 90s. I like the comments though: Having said that, they beat Leeds that evening so it must have helped. Whatever gets everyone riled up.

Next fixtures look interesting - our next matches are against two of the three sides above us with games in hand. Not to count chickens before they hatch, but if all goes well we could be top of the table by mid-November. Smart money says we won't, but we can hope.

Jesus Christ, Redslo you know NOTHING about poor performance. I wish I was redslo.

This basically sums it up for me. The feeling that the club has joined this league insufficiently prepared insofar that we are dead on arrival. Bloody hell, Luton gave it their all last year but we can't even scrape two points together by All Saints Day. And we are still leaky against Championship sides as we have seen in the EFL Cup.

Not to comment on individual posters but this thread is about our next manager FFS If you want to desperately tell everyone that he looks a bit like a lego man and you hate him, or conversely to claim he is going to lead us to footballing salvation then you need to find the correct thread.

He's taken a lot of criticism for having done nothing in his sub appearance but my understanding is that Will Smallbone was injured soon after he came on last weekend. Unfortunately as all five substitutions had been made, the only choice was for him to remain on the pitch. Maybe Lallana might have been better option but I think he's taking a lot of flak for the crime of having been unlucky.

Any love for Tall Paul this week? I don't think I have ever commented about him before, but my stance until recently was that we had three managers look at him including Nathan Jones who signed him, and none of them thought he was a genuine option up front in the PL so I had written him off. But it sounds like he had another decent cameo appearance so I expect he will be starting games for us before long.

Even the magic dossier is too good for us now. It's being harnessed by England these days.

This is you, but you don't know it yet

I remember people frothing at the mouth when Sven joined, but they all shut up after we smashed Germany away. Nobody over here seems to mind Grealish and Rice ditching Ireland to play for England. Speaking of Martin I find it mad that he played for Scotland but he actually admits that one of his biggest football memories growing up was supporting England in Euro 96.

I liked the one after Newcastle of RM threatening Adam Lallana. Suspect it will take on an extra dimension when he turns out to be our replacement manager.

Exactly. Performance in the league is basically unofficial seeding for cup competitions. Forget about winning cups if you're in a lower division or hoping to avoid relegation, but once you break the top 10 and you don't slip up before the quarter finals, then you have a chance of doing something that will be remembered for generations. It's no coincidence that both cup finals in the last 25 years came when we finished in the top 10 and I still think of how big those missed opportunities were when we failed to reach even a semi-final under Pochettino or Koeman. It's been a long time since I felt we could beat anyone on our day.

I was thinking the same and was wondering why he didn't show up on the Saintsplayers website. @beatlesaint has the correct answer, Zhu Yifei won a competition as did Swanborough for the RM XI. https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/penalties-decide-eight-goal-extravaganza

Hughes made Hasenhuttl look like Jurgen Klopp. Hopefully our appointment will be more along the lines of Ralph, Poch, Pearson or Burley in terms of getting us closer to safety. Also, Claude Puel is available 😉

The question is, who is he being replaced with

Managers are like flies on shit for a PL club on the lookout for a new broom. The trouble is we are shit and as you say, not sure that we're attractive enough for someone decent to give us the lift we need.