coalman

Call me crazy but shouldn't any sane manager recruitment strategy involve not hiring Lampard?

In fairness to the height discussion. There are well known managers who like to pack their sides with big physical players - Mourinho for example. And this season it felt like men against boys at times as our players failed to handle the physical demands of the league. Admittedly, dogmatically choosing to play a high risk no reward brand of walking football may also have been a contributing factor to that. Followed by a 5 at the back no central midfield or sometimes attackers or whatever the fuck that was when Juric took over. Perhaps another way of looking at might be to recruit the best players we can and have a manager pragmatic enough to get the best out of them. That would be a step forward from scatter gun recruitment and dogmatic insistence on a rigid system no matter what. And like many things all roads seem to lead back to the omnishambles that is Sport Republic's recruitment strategy. A pretty good barometer for how shit our recruitment has been is how many of the players we bought over the last few years are even getting game time. Not to mention the manager churn. Fix our recruitment and we still have the problem that our supposed great training midweek doesn't translate into playing football at weekends. Focusing on a single thing is exactly the kind of weak thinking and looking for simple answers to complex problems that's led us into this mess. Other than our social media team's willingness to troll it feels like no part of the football club is functioning effectively.

Would you rather have Pochettino or Koeman? Or Jones, Martin, Juric or Selles? Much as it breaks my heart when our manager gets poached at least they've done something worthy of getting poached.

You're saying that like it's a choice. Why can't he be both?

It doesn't matter how much you spend if you spend unwisely.

One might also argue that the reason we're in this death dive is due to "loyalists like Jack" and our inability to recruit better. I'd also question whether he's here because of his love for Saints rather than because he can't find anywhere better to go.

Let's hope we're not planning to play a back three in the Championship. Jack as a squad player is ok. Jack as a captain is madness. Your captain is who new players look to for the standards you want to set. I would hope we're looking to change the culture in the team after this season and the new manager, whoever it is, can recognise that.

All our centre backs share the same faults. They are poor positionally, have a tendency to ball watch and are easily outmuscled by teams played fast counter attacks. Into that mix we've comprehensively coached into them (and the whole team) the tendency to give the ball away in stupid positions. Ralph, spotted the problem and shipped Bednarek and Stephens out on loan where Bournemouth and Villa both saw little point in playing them regularly. And that's the problem - they are decent backups to have on the bench and if paired with a good centre back they'll do ok. Building a team around them and making one of them captain was madness and highlights the mind boggling recruitment that Sport Republic have overseen since they took over. THB's price tag is extremely flattering and his judgement is highly questionable - coming out and saying that Martin's system was working but the fans were too dumb to understand shows a lack of footballing and emotional intelligence on many levels.

That might have been because we weren't doing Russell Martin's poundshop City tribute act.

Like being financed by a middle east prince and cheating on FFP is good for the game? Y'all failed to score against Saints, suck it up.

People doubted this team had what it takes but I think that today shows the naysayers were wrong. Not only did Saints get to safety with 2 whole games remaining but did so against Pep Guardiola's Man City. You have to think that after scoring only 1 goal in 2 league games against Southampton this season that Pep's journey at City will be coming to an end.

Don't worry, we'll coach those last 30 passes out of the team before the end of the season.

Man City only just got over the complacency from playing us under Martin. Pep will be bricking it. Haaland on the other hand will be licking his lips.

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Surely we should be calling these "Saints vs Other Team mismatch thread" these days?

I'm pretty sure the players already abandoned this match.

This delay suits us. We've always been at our best just after the restart.

And as a reward you get to give us money for Jack Stephens, Will Smallbone, Gavin Bazunu and a few others. It's like having a guaranteed high possession Championship promotion bundle. We won't even ask for compensation.

You have to think that Dragan is getting increasingly less willing to throw more cash into the Rasmus money pit without getting anything back. If Dragan selling Saints results in Rasmus no longer making football decisions then it may be no bad thing. Though saying that I wouldn't put it past Sport Republic to fuck that up and make things worse as well.

SR need to choose a manager they can commit to for a period of time (or until Spurs poach them). Future planning is knowing who you're going to look at next but if the list is of the quality of the last 4 appointments we're going to struggle. Russell Martin, for all his faults, was the closest we've got to someone we might stick with. The downside was he simply wasn't ready for the Premier League and had zero intention of adapting or being pragmatic. Since SR came in, it's been a horror show of poor recruitment both at manager and player level. This summer we'll begin to get an idea whether Spors might be the answer to this though next year whatever we do will be somewhat flattered by the league we're playing in.

Oh look, five at the back. Stephens as captain. Stewart ready to tear up the Prem. Hoora-meh

I reckon that we'll be level on points with them by the 9th/10th August.

Potter Out

We've turned the corner this time for sure.

Ross Stewart hattrick to take us past Derby