James

Don’t remember too many times in the 90s where we got dragged in with a squad that was clearly better than 18th place. Fact is, we have gone from sixth and European football to a relegation battle inside 2 years, we’ve got a mid table side that can’t buy a win and a board that refuses to sack an incompetent manager. I was there through the 90s and Saints have been pretty rubbish for the majority of my life supporting them but this year is clearly different to what went before. We’ve been let down and mismanaged by a complacent board and an incredibly bad manager so it’s unsurprising people are angry about it. Nothing “snowflaky” about venting your frustration at people not doing their jobs properly and being so hesitant to actually act to change it.

An absolute disgrace.

I’m not willing to assume Les & Co are capable of engaging in any kind of forward planning or even rational assessment of what’s going on at the moment. If, and it’s a big if, we sack Pell I’d be willing to bet we go into the Brighton game with Kelvin in caretaker charge which is another utterly unthinkable situation. What a mess.

The only thing that gives me hope is the recent Telegraph article stating he’s under pressure. Must be sacked next week. It will probably scupper our transfer plans if we do sack him next week (which will be another totally unnecessary cock up by Les and the gang) but at this point, I’d take a new manager over any signings.

Long wouldn’t, the man doesn’t know how to score. Would be more than happy if we shipped him out regardless of the league we are in. Stealing a living as a striker.

If we offload Austin and retain Shane Long that will be absolute madness. If we go down and Austin is willing to stay we should do all in our power to keep him. Would be our best hope of bouncing straight back.

Not sure we’ve got the players for it tbh. Full blooded isn’t in the vocabulary of Tadic or Boufal.

There must be some more capable managers than Pell our there surely? I mean, we are not expecting premium, just someone with basic competence as a football manager, something our chump sorely lacks. Any of Hughes, Monk, Koeman (ok, unlikely), Jokanovic, O’Neil, Strachan would instantly be better than the current clown and surely we could attract one of them?

Wouldn’t rule out Reed selling him.

Not too late if we do it early next week. Brighton game is massive and a new manager bounce could give us the boost we need. To lose that game would be unthinkable but we easily could if we keep MP following a thrashing tomorrow. I’ve resigned myself to the fact we won’t change it now though, our board think they know better for whatever misguided reason and will retain someone who is statistically our worst ever permanent manager. Utter madness.

Without a doubt yes. We will finish bottom with MP IMO. Can’t see us winning another game under him.

Stoke showing what a change does for you. Sort it out Les.

Exactly - amateur negotiations from the club here really. So desperate to let everyone know we’d received a world record fee. Given we sold VVD before the window even opened it is outrageous, given our position, that we are going into the last week of the window without anyone secured (or even close by the sounds of it).

If he is available we should surely be looking at him - no doubt we will continue to shop in the bargain bin and bring in a reserve Monaco striker because our hopeless manager wants him. God, how depressing.

Bravo Saints, bravo. Seems that lessons aren’t being learnt at all levels. Will be a nightmare scenario if we are left with a lame duck Pellegrino and an un strengthened squad at the end of Jan but that’s what we all know will happen. Incompetence at its finest.

The worst thing about it is that our board aren’t even making basic decisions at the moment. No active steps to address our alarming slide have been taken and it just feels like the fans are being taken for mugs a bit. Clear we need a new manager and some new recruits but all we seem to be able to do is sell as quickly as possible and then take an age to recruit. There really was absolutely no need to announce the VVD deal so early in the window, if anything it’s weakened our position this window. The only benefit was that Gao got his hands on the cash as quickly as possible.

So, with 16 days of the window now gone and no recruits - how many do people realistically thing that we will bring in at this point? I think we will get this Carrilllo bloke on deadline day and that’ll be our lot despite all the PR BS early in the window. Too little too late.

I suppose he's concerned at whether he'd get a move to a club as good as Everton with a relegation on his CV. I agree that he would certainly be sold if we went down but its a question of who might want him at that point.

I'd also add turning down Manuel Pellegrini in the summer of 2006 at a time that he reportedly wanted to join us. We had an opportunity to leverage our position having finished sixth the season before but instead we sold all our goals and replaced our most successful manager with someone who the players hadn't heard of and didn't respect. Irrespective of his performances with Leicester since leaving us (obviously he looks good but we are at the stage of genuinely debating whether we'd rather have Paul Lambert in charge than Pellegrino) he was the wrong appointment at the wrong time for us.

Ah well, we probably have a Monaco reserve striker on the way, with a thoroughly average scoring record and who has been picked by a manager we all want shot of. There’s something to look forward to eh!?

I’m not sure our current manager is capable of implementing any kind of “approach” at all.

As soon as Les put out the message that we were still confident it was over.

Given that we’ve only got 2 fit strikers available to us and are only out of the relegation zone on goal difference I find it pretty surprising that any bottom half club would even consider letting anyone capable of getting goals in this league out of their sight to be honest. But this is Saints, we’re too good for players like Gabbi clearly.

Hardly surprising given our manager is it? Can only think in “like for like” terms. Heaven forbid we actually try something different given we haven’t won in the league since October - there’s a novel concept.

True incompetence if so but then again, given we haven’t sacked the awful Pellegrino, nothing would surprise me at the moment.