gio1saints

Already did that a while back. 😎. It’s a bit closing the door after horse has bolted though. Timing and the decisive use of exclusive insight is critical. I think maybe the comms chains got too long. It’s entirely possible that by the time SMS becomes Land of the Giants that there’s a newer approach that renders that old hat. We need to be on the right (UP!) side of the cycle. It’s clear we have been on the wrong ( DOWN) side in last three years.

It might be if I can find a way to monetise that assessment. Otherwise, yes, it’s simply self congratulating - a concept, perhaps, you may be familiar with?

It’s no joke and Spors is widely known to favour such an approach. We should not be surprised to see the average height of the saints squad rise over the next twelve-eighteen months. Im tempted to work it out as of now and bookmark it to look again in 12-18mths. I’d bet it goes up. NB reason 12-18mths is because there will be a time lag between unloading shorter players and recruiting taller ones which may not be immediately evident - plus the possibility of promotion where it’s been widely seen that saints have lacked physicality v many/most other EPL teams and that’s been an influential factor. Height helps with that. So expect further string athletes recruitment if we get promoted as well. It’s NOT about being able to play football that’s the first thing we need to sort out at Saints. If we cannot compete physically, and EARN the right to play our football, we will get beat each week or struggle against allegedly inferior teams. I’m not saying I like it- but that’s what path I see saints going.

Nice spot and well described. My recollection is that in 2021/22 we - and many in the football biz - were still somewhat in awe of the mysterious “black room “ from whence undervalued players from all around the world came to improve us, and themselves, - then get sold at a profit. Today the “ black room” myth has been dispelled and it’s called data analysts and every club is doing it and doing it professionally. My current theory is we just maybe we were slightly ahead of the data learning curve before they all caught up-and started doing it themselves, and better. That relatively no competition exercise turned into the usual market dominated by the cleverest and the wealthiest. That’s not us ATM, btw 😁

Are you sure? Did Ryan get an 40% pay rise from our promotion? He joined when we were in the Championship and I thought it was on a free - but he got more bigger bucks weekly than if we had to pay a fee obviously. What if that means RF does not get a pay cut cos he was joined on a free? Might be one if not highest paid player in squad?

WRT our attack next season : I do not see us having BOTH Archer AND Armstrong. AA likely goal tally and defensive work rate will be better so I prefer AA and hope we get a decent fee for CA. I also do NOT see TP playing Championship football next season. Back to Turkey methinks. I DO see RS being in the squad and trying to get some form from somewhere - but if he’s not scoring by Xmas he’s got to be loaned or sold. That leaves Jay Robinson who is raw and will not start, Tyler who is also still raw and we will not get £100m or even £50m or even £30m for, IMO, his last 6/7 anonymous matches have not gone unnoticed - so If he IS sold for say £25m then I’d expect a massive sell on clause. Then that leaves Sam E - who I think will be sold, Ryan Fraser who I think we will retain if he takes a pay cut and Kameldeen who I also think will be sold. We will need plenty basically.

THB, JB and JS have more experience combined than any other back three in the Championship. If we are going to blood a bunch of new players, including a goalie , I think it would make sense to retain SOME experience in the squad even if they don’t always start. Defensive solidity above all else seems to be the primary objective of the current management and I cannot see it changing much next year. Look at Burnley if you want to see where being miserly in defensive can get you in that league. THB will probably leave in any case so that leaves just two. We’ve got two younger ones lined up of course and perhaps Shea may also be an option ( though he seems a shoe in for CM) but experience IS valuable and ditching it because they not cutting it at EPL level is cutting your nose to spite your face.

1. I attend every home match and keep a tally of how many half and half scarves ( for me, this is a definitive recognisable criteria of a tourist visitor) I see in a little note pad, in pencil in case I need update it. I also add those who do not know where they are going in places i know are ST seats. This, to me, is also a recognisable criteria. 2. One qualification I personally have aside from my scientific approach - albeit in a variable data sample - is my attending every home match and generally doing a stroll around ground before shuffling along to Northam. I feel this gives me something of an advantage than if I were, say, to sit in The Unity until 7 mins before kick off then half jog up to the ground. 3. My third way of working it out is good old people watching. That, and a high degree of intuition of who is and who is not a first timer to St. Mary’s. My observational abilities are professional in that regard. 4. Occasionally, I will act as a Tour guide to seemingly lost St Mary’s visitors. I approach them casually like and kindly offer directions. I usually send them to the Cruise ships and The Titanic exhibition. Never get any complaints. Other than that @Matthew Le God I guess it’s just a personal opinion. 😁

Considering how many tourists were there I thought it was easily Saints fans best home singing performance of the season. The team acknowledging that at the end was NOT celebrating a point like that tosser Sutton said calling them and us “Losers “ but rather it was the team saying “Thank You” to the fans who made so much noise encouraging and supporting them through near 100 minutes DESPITE them being atrocious all season . All the players did what they had to do so MOTM for me was every Saints fan singing all match there on Saturday 🙌

I literally was in tears at full time. Thank you saints.

God. Our shooting practice is not good. Really not good. Why do they smash them over the bar? It’s not rugby.

Nah his media is shit. NB: never seen as many tourists at SMS in the what would be usually ST’s as today already. A good line in half n half shirts as well. Guess it’s the easiest match to sell on.

@Holmes_and_Watson I think you must be one of the genuinely nicest posters on here. And your views are pretty much spot on and often very incisive. You’re not an empty pot basically. My views, on the other hand , are sometimes whimsy sometimes serious, sometimes insightful sometimes way off the mark but always ultimately loyal to Saints. You, rightly, do not get much flak . I on the other hand, due to my sometimes provocative style and support for the right to have minority views on many Saints topics ( I have an instinctive reaction to bandwagons and scapegoating) do get incoming. Keep up your good input please. The rest of you- keep up the good input also please . Cannot make progress without it.. 😁

You don’t think Beyoncé would take the job? 😇. Tyler Swift may be a better option in which case. I can’t make up my mind. ps it’s a few hours before our get beaten by Man City occasion so I’m trying to put a smile on my face ahead of the grimaces from 3.00pm..😇 btw Saints are missing a trick not getting Mr. Line-Acre in the house.

😂Yes ok I understand. But I still reckon if Beyoncé applied for the job with her 312 Million followers SR would probably give her the gig! 😇

I did expect some reaction but I deliberately made it a bit outre in order to make the point. Social Meda is much much more important in manager recruitment than ever before. We’ve had players agents send vids out for years now so it’s a catch up exercise with the managers. It used to be cool if the manager could do a PowerPoint - now that’s old hat. Oh, and MLG - Ivan Juric I don’t know but NJ? All I heard before recruitment was his fabulous fabulous stats. Whoever was selling him did a great job..

But I’m told it’s nice to see some of our coaching team at Riverside Park walking the dog and taking in the sunshine before the big match. 😁

I understand City are staying at the place where the better teams tend to stay - HA BAR. Not surprising but I don’t think that we have beaten any team staying there this season. Ominous.

I’ve just realised. Once upon a time if you needed a new Manager you’d go and see who is the best most suitable you can attract/afford. You’d look at their results and have a chat see if they are alright. Get a reference or two. Today, the single biggest influencing factor in recruiting a new manager will probably be the new guys Social Media team. If he has invested wisely they will make him sound like the most in demand revered respected and “ must-have” manager around. Sound bites edited clips all the usual stuff. His football results are not what gets him the interview. His PR team are. And if he talks the right way and or has a big online following or player history in particular his past manager experience is irrelevant. Neville and Rooney are two recent examples but I’m getting a sense one or two of those being strongly connected with us have had major social media “ fluffing” - Rohl is one and we already recruited another before RM -arguably another - in the ill fated Nathan jones “one of the best coaches in Europe”.

He IS a very good player at that level granted but We’d need to sell at least 3-4 players before Sainz became a very necessary buy. Buying him today is a luxury but. Sargent, on the other hand, we need immediately before we’ve even sold. Season after season we’ve bought NOT A STRIKER …I hope we learn our lesson and bring at least TWO in.

Given we have Sam E, Kameldeen and Ryan Fraser already at Left Wing not including Jay Robinson or Tyler who can both play there I’d say the vertically challenged Sainz is not what we need. At all. And bear in mind AA can and probably will play inside left as well as inside right up front. So who would be best to play with AA? My vote is for Josh Sargent who fits a #9 shaped gap we will have when TP inevitably leaves and is competition though probably an immediate starter in that role vs. RS. So of the two Norwich players it’s clear which id have. £15m -£18m should do it.

Please all his detractors: Jack does not need to be good enough to play against Mo Salah or Cole Palmer next season. He only needs to be good enough for the Championship players he is facing next year to get into Saints 1st team squad. Is he good enough to help nullify the Preston’s or Swanseas attackers for example? It’s a totally different and lower skill level required. And he will be more than fine there. Plus he’s the biggest voice we have in a silent team. What we do need is a goal scorer. Am I convinced by Archer and RS? No. Am I convinced AA is not past it after 3 goals in 16 at WBA? No. Am I convinced TP is staying? No. Sulemana? No. Will Sam E come back and tear it up? Unlikely. Will Tyler be around? Maybe. No. But we need some goal scorers - not resurrection jobs like BBD and that West Ham South coast holiday project we took in with Mr Cornet out of desperation. Oh for a Rickie Lambert! PS. I’ve a sneaky suspicion Patrick Bamford will be a Saint shortly..

I still think it will be Rohl because of the synergies noted by @Saint Fan CaM. The reason thats important is because it shortens the acclimatisation process you always get with a new Manager. My point is I think we were lucky that it worked with, relatively speaking, non synergetic RM. New Manager - and Saints - start with advantages if there are synergies, no doubt. FWIW - I don’t see Saints giving ANY New manager more than a dozen or so matches next season before they decide to sack him ~ if we are not on over 20 points. Which, with my pessimist saints hat on means that whoever we recruit now will most likely not be Manager in January anyway! And that the January choice, in all likelihood, should be the one we pick now! That suggests to me NOT to pick Danny Rohl ( despite the synergies and their advantages, because he would still need great luck, imo, to get the team on 2pts/match after a dozen games ) - but rather get someone with more experience.. Still think it will be him but suggest it probably wont be him in Jan. So the other guy- THATS the guy we should pick now.

We will “train well” again this week then probably get hammered by Man City. A lot of supporters concur that Saints are noticeably less fit than the opposition, most of the time. We have also been noticeable slower both physically and mentally than our opposition. We have also been noticeably unwilling to go all out to win 50-50 challenges and invariably get out jumped for headers. Our passing is noticeably less crisp than the opposition and our shooting …well I should say our absence of shooting on target, tells its own story. Our inability to mark, often from straightforward positions like set pieces has also been noticeable. I just wonder - and it begs the question - what exactly is the “ training well” line that all three managements have used as a default pre match interview line? This delusion has been going on under three successive manager/ coaching teams now this season? It’s clearly NOT. “ training well”. Training SHOULD BE : Training in improving stamina or how to run faster, or how to jump higher, or how to concentrate better, or how to defend set pieces better or how not to get outmuscled off the ball or how to shoot and score more often or how to tackle like your job is on the line more than the last match. It SHOULD be detailed specifics on the next opponents and required tactics and strategy accordingly. Nobe of this happens to anything like the necessary standard this season. So why do we still get fed this pointless nonsense on “ trained well”. I wish they’d retire that phrase until it means something.

An overused phrase from all the managers we’ve had this season is “ trained well”. Rusk used the phrase to describe Wellington today. Given we get beat most every week i make the connection that what successive managers at SFC have called “ trained well” is actually bollocks. Somebody ought to tell players and the managers that what they are doing is the opposite of “ training well”. My definition of trained well is when, following that training, the team performs well, and wins. If the training is rubbish then the performance will be as well. So, I have no hopes for the last three matches until I hear that the new manager thinks that the training is and has been shite that the sports science is and has been shite and turns the place upside down to start again.