saint michael

No challenge in the middle

Who signed Downs. What did they see

Far too slow.

Don’t worry he will only need prem experience for 1 season

Key player attribute don’t you know

6ft tall is he going to be tall enough

We have already had chance of him but he was asking for a lot so we are waiting to see if the Beatles want the gig

Yeah funny that Russel. Might there be a common factor in causing the pain?

I recognise that it’s the business model. I believe that when it first started many years ago having a decent team that could be competitive was also part of the business model. I don’t believe it can be anymore even if they wanted it to. Increased cost of recruiting/ replacing, and as you say the self employed nature of footballers with no affinity to any club and driven by their own agenda is here to stay and getting worse. if you look at Bournemouth Brentford and Brighton they are already on that slippery slope. A few mistakes and they hit the same slope we are on, with no getting back. Wolves have already started on it

Like you say there are casms that are growing between prem and others on the pitch but also now off the pitch in player purchases. Brentford about to pay around £43m for Bournemouth guy. Makes the ability for us to keep anyone with potential impossible. Matter of time before someone desperate meets a fair price that saints agree. We then go on the next cycle. Heaven help us if we go up. Seeing how Sunderland do will be a real barometer.

He is playing according to bbc

Whose Al is it one of his coaches?

I didn’t realise that the season ticket and fan contribution was around 50% of revenue. Thought it was implied years ago as much less important. Was Parsons making that point as a consequence of relegation? The thoughts of doubling the revenue is interesting to as unlikely if based on football and saints brand because of poor performance. So sounds like it is based on increased revenues from infrastructure or non football based investments. If so club debt will likely become a much bigger issue or finding another investor willing to bring funding in. feels like they are trying to do much more longer term stuff. I hope they realise the importance of the delivery of the shorter term targets.

Wow. That’s a big call when they have some massive ones behind them

Will be interesting if he does play Bazunu if the new gk coach and system makes a difference. He is still young and developing. Scares the shyte out of me when a shit on target at the moment though

I wonder if Gassama was one of our scouted players when Martin was here

If they have the money and believe they can sell the players it’s a cash flow issue. If they don’t believe they can shift the players sitting tight makes sense till shifting some. Situation feels a bit confused when saying they want players. I think boss said in interview that we would only bring couple in till shifting unwanted players. Big question is are they missing out on the desired targets with this strategy.

I still can’t get used to the constant churn of players that seems to happen every year. Each season change feels much more revolution than evolution. I would like to really get hold of a great nucleus of players that we can build and develop. To do this means we don’t sell anyone that shows any sign of being decent and the younger set we buy we develop over a couple of seasons without writing them off early. Itmust be almost as impossible for a manager of saints with constant churn as it is for us saints fans watching and hoping the shit cycle ends

I think we solved that one last year about the away fans. Give them a great day out and 3 points and we are doing our best this year by extending Jacks contract and by putting Bazuna back in goal

If we signed him I think we would give it a go…

Every manager we’ve had seems to have to go through the same learnings about skills and capability of this group. The fans already know and we see the rehash of the same performances

Same ingredients produce the same results. Chef will not make a difference on his own

Martin did say at the fans forum that if he didn’t have Bazunu he would recommend buying him. Let’s hope he’s true to his word

I don’t think I said they have to be for this year only. So you believe that the purchases made so far are for the prem? My point is that the mindset of recruitment should not be only to search for these type of players who are on a very steep learning curve ie be able to perform now and be able to do it at prem level if we get there?