Patches O Houlihan

The question was why didn't he start the season in the team? - not why hasn't he played recently

Speaks really well. Will be gutted if he leaves before we’ve seen the best of him.

He has little time left on his contract and older. So there’s an argument it’s better to build a team for the Prem with younger players. BUT - Sports Republic also get the benefit of adding value to those young players and so will sell them off before we really see the benefit… Also if the plan was to sell him he might have done easier training for the last few weeks of preseason to avoid a badly timed injury. So might not have been fully up to speed fitness wise.

Have you ever been parachuted into a disfunctional team as a manager and had to turn around the workplace mentality? I have. It was one of the hardest things I’ve achieved in my career - but they were only a team of 3, and had only been together 4 months. Imagining that he could turn around Saints whilst being asked probing questions by the press for 20-40 minutes per week without ever mentioning anything that happened prior to June is quite a big ask

We haven't seen movement like this to make a header this season

There's our Stewart replacement. McCarthy Mads Wood Quarshie Manning Jander Downes Fellows Scienza Armstrong Bazunu

Armstrong / Archer / Scienza / Jander / Matsuki / Jelert are all short players - when everyone is clamouring for a 'strong spine' this might be the reason why he hasn't featured more. Azaz, Fellows and Flynn Downes are all bigger players and Jander/Charles seemed to do a pretty good job together.

The problem with only buying <23 potential is that the good ones get sold quickly and the crap ones hang around. The only senior ‘leadership’ players are former manager favourites, or journeymen. We don’t have a Fonte or Romeu right now. I’m also wondering if the bid/offer spread is more favourable for lightweight small technical players than for big solid bruisers: Would explain why we have been Son In Law FC for ten years.

Someone on here just after the end of the window suggested that he was a Will Still pick - SR had bought their ‘investments’, Still couldn’t see a match winner and was persuasive enough to push the deal through. I don’t know the source for this. He definitely seems to be the type to take responsibility, roll his sleeves up and get stuck in - but because he is talented it is often very positive. Have loved watching him since I was first told we were just watching another Steve de Ridder video against shit oppo.

Ralph's style works when you have a pre-season to train it, and nearly all the league will play attacking football against you. But that's not the case right now - particularly if he triggered a recovery of sorts. Also the players are clearly in a shit state, and it would seem that Ralph led a very divided changing room based on interviews that have come out in the last year or so. I would rather remember the good times I think

Fuck off Saints. That was absolute wank. [with the exception of 5 seconds from Leo] Shit Attacking. Shit Defending. Shit personnel management this morning. Woeful choices of subs. Another top player out for a period by being asked to be a one man team, and now Wely has a suspension from Bobby Madley being a CU next Tuesday. Absolute bollocks, and what is so hard to take is that none of this had to happen. Fucking Sports Republic deciding to tear up everything 6 months after they arrived and re-invent a triangular fucking wheel.

Not impressed with Edwards - pushed their lad as he shot. If he goes down ref blows for a pen

Because Edwards seems to be hopeless right now with the ball at his feet. He's been an accident waiting to happen throughout that first half - and for most of the last few weeks

Not hard - Downs

I had you down as smarter than that

You don't think he has more concerning things to worry about; like wrestling back control of the conglomerate that finances everything...

Azaz is playing Jander's position. Same formation as last few games. Welly a bit crook so not starting. Mads in for Jelert because of his muscular injury. Quashie back in now he's fit, ahead of THB.

We provided a ball in behind - he took it unnecessarily wide and then kicked it directly into the keeper's chest. Twice a season he strikes a ball well with a short backlift from 10 yards out and we think "Oh maybe he isn't shit after all" But not being shit is about consistency. Arma is consistent - Can't do it at PL level. Can't play on his own in the middle. Needs a hatful of chances to score. BUT if he gets those chances in the Championship he does score, and he's doing it again this season.

Whilst it has been a complete shit show I do think our players started the season fitter than they did after either of Russ's two pre-seasons. So there is the potential for the team to be able to play Ralf's style. I don't think we'll go that way though; it's not fashionable enough. Klopp was made to look stupid by 'pool winning at a canter after he left. Now Pep is playing with balls into a big man up front. The crucial rules for Sports Republic seem to be: Do they interview well? Will they do what we tell them to do? Does the style sound like flavour of the month? Are we likely to quadruple our investment with a sale in 24 months? What they don't look for is: Competent and experienced at the role required Proven track record at doing it Leadership, winning mentality and the kind of personality that puts noses out of joint, but ultimately creates a dressing room where you don't want to let standards drop and let the side down. Big fucking scary bastards

AI: Yes, there is a professional connection between Southampton’s current Director of Football Johannes Spors and former Saints manager Ralf Hasenhüttl — primarily through their shared history at RB Leipzig. Background at RB Leipzig Johannes Spors worked at RB Leipzig as a head of scouting and recruitment during the mid-2010s, a time when Ralf Hasenhüttl was appointed Leipzig manager (in 2016) and led them to a second-place Bundesliga finish in their debut top-flight season. Their roles overlapped directly, with Spors involved in player identification and squad planning, while Hasenhüttl managed on-field performance. This collaboration established a shared foundation in high-pressing, data-driven football operations that both men became associated with later in their careers. Ongoing professional synergy Spors’s later appointments at Genoa, Vitesse, and now Southampton reflect the same Red Bull-inspired football model — emphasizing youthful recruitment, tactical energy, and a clear vertical structure between sporting director and coach. Hasenhüttl, during his subsequent Southampton tenure, applied a near-identical philosophy, which the club’s media and fan networks later described as aligned with Spors’s outlook. Significance of the connection When Spors joined Southampton in early 2025, local coverage described him as Hasenhüttl’s former colleague and “a trusted name from that era,” suggesting the board valued his alignment with Hasenhüttl’s football vision — pressing intensity, development focus, and structured recruitment. Supporters and journalists noted that Spors’s arrival represented a return to the kind of strategic direction that underpinned Hasenhüttl’s most successful period at St Mary’s. In short, Johannes Spors and Ralf Hasenhüttl share a meaningful professional history from RB Leipzig, bound by a similar footballing philosophy. Their time together there shaped both men’s subsequent approaches — and Spors’s 2025 appointment at Southampton was widely interpreted as an attempt to revive the organizational and tactical principles first established during Hasenhüttl’s tenure.

Maybe he's up all night breast feeding his nipper

This is bollocks. What's the point of supporting a football team without a striker worth the name. But maybe we have a jinx too; We keep getting balls coming back off the woodwork in recent games and their third clips in off the post. Loads of 50/50 incidents seem to have fallen for our opponents and gone against us - not just this week.

According to the BBC article about Rohl's appointment to Rangers he has managed less than 100 professional games. Still might be relatively inexperienced, but he has overseen 35% more as manager ~135. Granted Rohl had more and higher quality experience as an assistant