Miltonaggro

Peter Taylor to Tonka’s Clough.

Mention in dispatches to the Watford number 8, Giorgi Chakvetadze, who was a handful all game, tricky powerful attacking midfielder. If we are in this league next season would be a great signing.

Enjoyed that. Game was professionally managed by the back four (Bree and Wellington superb), and won by the bravery of our two loan signings, Peretz (coming out to dive at feet) and Larin (with the Rickie Lambert debut special).

The ‘showreels’ that accompany Larin are quite worrying, as he doesn’t seem to do anything a forward should do particularly well. Hopefully a reverse De Ridder, if you will. Not expecting much, but he improves massively on Damion Downs if he can niggle and mix it with defenders, hold up play, and know roughly where to stand for crosses and set pieces. If he does that, the likes of Scienza and Azaz will be able to benefit. Feyenoord are managed by Van Persie and second in the league, so whilst he flopped on loan there, you’d like to think he must have something about him. Good luck Cyle, do the business and celebrate with a few beers and a kebab!

To have any chance of that project these days i think we’d have to already be established and competitive in the premier league, with the academy on par with 15-20 years ago. Hard to imagine the likes of Henderson or Bowen playing under Tonka.

Richard ‘Dick’ Dunn, the fighting Para. Ended up challenging Ali for the world title.

Cheers GS, that’s brilliant! If you watch the big match revisited on ITV (currently on another chronological rerun) you begin to notice a growing interest in Saints and McMenemy after the cup win, and the club starts to be featured much more in 77/78 and 78/79 into the heyday. The producers clearly saw Saints as odds on to provide entertainment and they were dead right. Few years ago Steve Williams (my favourite player back in the day) was interviewed and said that his memory of those sides was the team spirit, workrate and pure enjoyment of playing professional football - they would be relentless until the final whistle. Thus, not scared of anyone and happy to go toe to toe with any side. You watch these matches (nice clear footage on TBMR) and this really stands out, top pros in a final hurrah alongside young talent keen to learn from the maestros, giving it everything they’ve got for the shirt -nostalgia can be incredibly refreshing.

Alas for Phil, only CEO of one leg of the tripod...

Of course, every complex organisation has a few such specimens. The dupes who suggest that he's not been interfering are either naive or ignorant, perhaps both.

By now, we must assume that he is, TDM!

Of the two remaining 'co-founders' at takeover, Solak is the Chair (as majority shareholder) and Ankersen CEO of Sport Republic. An organisation which prides itself on existing as a 'group enterprise / project'. All other executive roles at the three clubs are ancillary to these two senior positions, which essentially have control and oversight. Ankersen appointed Spors, and described himself on the SFC website in the following terms: “brings to Saints extensive experience as a football executive, previously leading Brentford FC to promotion to the Premier League in 2020 as Co-Director of Football and overseeing the most successful period in Danish club FC Midtjylland’s history as Executive Chairman” Of course he's still involved with day to day football matters at Southampton!

A considered post. I saw us beating Stoke on their patch as a positive sign in terms of capability - they are above us and a good few Saints fans would have been happy with Robins as manager to replace Still. The hit and hope is that Tonda can keep the learning curve going, as the board are clearly gambling on Stewart's fitness and a loan forward who last scored double figures in 2020-21 in the Turkish league to close the gap towards the play offs.

It does in that we are apparently solvent and likely to be in this league come May, but nobody is paying what Solak & Co. would want, methinks.

At least we've got rid of the song for now.

He looks over the fucking moon!

Rasmus saw him on the beach in Magaluf!

Lest we forget...

We've been anal-ysing him for a number of days...

Not putting my faith on anyone on the Board, merely musing. It would be impossible for Cirque de Cunts to disappoint me any more than they have done already.

Yes, and it’s not Bundesliga 2!

Peretz shaking off some of the hamburg bench rust. Hell of a save.

People = Tonda?

He may, he may not. Fuck knows. That’s the point at this point.

My view is that Ankerson has been overseeing all appointments on the football side at director / coach level since the sacking of Hassenhutl. Of course there have been lots of percieved lines in the sand given how badly we have been run. The point now is whether Solak has had enough.

I thought when Still was sacked it was the last chance saloon in terms of Ankerson's influence. At that point he would be forced to climb down, show some ambition and deference and appoint a person in the mould of previously successful Saints managers, the likes of Carrick, Solskaer, Viera, having bypassed the likes of Cooper in the summer. But the ego failed him again, it always does with genuine narcissists. But there is perhaps one remaining last chance for our club - that Solak is giving this charlatan the final coils on the rope that will hang him, prior to a clearout and full reset / rebuild in the summer. I think Solak is friendly with some serious ex-football people via the golf course, certainly Souness and Stankovic, so maybe undertake some objective consultancy on the current debacle and way forward in the meantime. It seems incredible that a self-made man worth around £1.5 billion has not yet intervened, but people at that level in complex organisations and unfamiliar fields always like to defer expertise and responsibility. Things seem to have gone very quiet, and we will know in a few days if the taps have been turned off for this skip-fire of a season. Early summer is likely to be a Solak putsch, or a serious attempt to sell. On balance I would probably go for the former, just to see what the current owner is actually made of.