coalman

I dunno - I thought Edozie was coming into his own before getting taken out by Norwich. By the time he'd recovered we'd brought in Brooks and Rothwell and he was reduced to a bit part player.

Picking a single stat doesn't tell the whole story. From https://fbref.com/en/squads/33c895d4/2023-2024/Southampton-Stats - he got 5 assists and 2 goals from 895 minutes. Compare to Sam Edozie (6 goals and 3 assists from 1364 minutes) or Ryan Fraser (6 goals and 2 assists from 1633 minutes) which seems comparable to those two players. Then compare to Sulemana (0 goals and 3 assists from 950 minutes) and you have to pray that Atalanta's medical team are busy rubber stamping his transfer right now.

It was a bit beyond his debut. He started the first few matches well but by the time he was subbed off injured in the playoff final I remember being quite relieved as he'd fully bought into the Martin style of taking stupid risks in stupid areas and didn't seem all that keen on tackling back after he'd given the ball away.

Indeed

Fair play to the lad - he's not afraid to try things.

You'll want to watch the video from the first link too.

We're unlikely to see another player with this breadth of skills in a Saints shirt again https://www.skysports.com/football/video/19530/13260001/southampton-vs-liverpool-like-phil-neville-with-the-stepovers-saints-paul-onuachu-shows-off-skills

There were rare occasions he looked unplayable and truly unsettled opponents. Those were few and far between. English football was never going to be a match for the panickiest of panic signings at the end of the Jones era.

My head agrees with all of this and if I hadn't watched the 24/25 season I would be totally on board with it. Scar tissue everywhere these days.

"Look forward to" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Agree. Gemini (the model in question) has form for hallucination (making shit up). Though at least should give references to follow.

A problem gambler walking into a casino

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ce92zk757vlo Average revenue for a Championship team is apparently £22m. Wrexham come in at £26.7m for their first year back in the football league. So above average back then but less than parachute payments for year one of about £50m. That doesn't account for whatever commercial deals they've done since being promoted twice so it's likely their revenue has taken another jump. 4 years ago it was £1.1m. They're not going to have the worst finances of anyone in the division. How close they are to the bigger spending teams is unknown but you have to say that Reynolds and McElhenney have done an astonishing job in building the business and profile of the club.

That would be a breath of fresh air.

Right back atcha. So he was on the pitch. Hit one good pass and shouted for 45 minutes. Deal of the fucking century there, mate. Like I said I really hope he works out. If last season was a job interview for being a coach I'd be interested in what he did to get the job.

If we carry our defensive skills from this season over I'm not sure being injured is an impediment to scoring against us.

I think any coach from last season has to have question marks over them. Lallana included (and that's before his playing performances which were shocking - he certainly didn't showcase any leadership out on the pitch). Hearing that someone is a leader that brings experience is great but I really want to hear how he's a great coach who can improve players. I haven't heard the latter. And for the former I'd like to know how that leadership manifested itself. I would have hoped that anyone in any coaching position last season would have, at some point, started shouting that what we were doing was insane. The suicide high risk no reward football of Martin and then the midfield-less "heavy metal" football of Juric and the ambition free dirge of Rusk. All of those needed someone to put their hand up and say "hang on guys, this is fucking mental". Lallana is part of that. I sincerely hope that he works well under Still and brings something to the team because I don't think you can argue that we got out money's worth out of him last season.

Having watched Southampton last season I feel any game of football against 11 human beings is a tough fixture. Getting through a few games without the sensation of dread would be a nice start. Points would be something happened to other teams last year and a nice bonus.

Cousin of Paul M'Finger

I think whatever strategy you try only works if the people picking transfer targets are competent. Our problem isn't strategy - it's competence. Changing strategy while keeping the same incompetents running it results in the same outcomes. I remember working for a company that changed their project management methodology every year based on whatever book one of the project managers was reading at the time - then were repeatedly surprised nothing changed. The only hope on the horizon is we have a new group of people choosing transfer targets this time around so there's a chance of breaking the cycle. The downside is the people who chose those people are the same people who presided over the current omnishambles.

How about a nice game of chess?

Google AI is an LLM and all LLMs have a tendency to make stuff up which is inherent in how they work (LLMs just predict the next word in a sequence). In Google's case they link to the source material the AI used which is also using PageRank to determine credibility. However I would expect Capology to have authority over itself so the AI will just be repeating a version of what Capology says about itself.

It was pretty heartbreaking watching Downes get overrun every game this season. None of the three managers seemed to want to set up with a midfield that might be able to control the middle of the park. We got away with playing attacking midfielders in CDM roles in the Championship (just). One of the downsides of the 5 at the back we kept insisting on which left us light everywhere else. Then our ball watching central defenders and walking football midfielders would watch the attackers breaking from midfield sprint past them and score. Over and over again. I think we'd have seen a different player with the right people beside him.

Including Martin who continues talking about his time with Saints.

Thank you for reading that so I didn't have to. Also, sorry you spent time on such utter tosh.