CSA96

To be fair, a lot of people at the time found Nigel Adkins pretty condescending, patronising and very much all sunshine and rainbows - and I say that as someone who did, and does, really like Adkins.

https://www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/11095/12975102/stoke-city-0-1-southampton-stuart-armstrong-free-kick-seals-win-for-saints

Yeah, yeah… I know we won 3-1, are unbeaten in six, have taken 14 of the last 18 points available and are up to 4th in the table (without our key summer signing kicking a ball yet) But did you see that prick Martin celebrating with the fans at FT? Get him out

Well, he was definitely proven to be prolific in those 13 games, by virtue of scoring 10 goals It was more an overall reference to his record of 40 in 81 for Sunderland, but I take your point.

Yes, I have a season ticket and have been away this season too. Our football is fine, there are not many teams who I am looking at in this division and thinking 'wow, I wish we played like them' to be honest. Yes, it's not got enough cutting edge at times (a lot of times) but then I expected no different without a striker with physical presence and goalscoring reliability. It's why I wasn't too worried about the Ché Adams chat when the window was open. Fingers crossed Ross Stewart can fill that void, because we really miss that type of forward. We are playing decent-to-good Championship football, in the Championship, against Championship/L1 level oppo. We hired a decent-to-good Championship manager - TBC just how far along that scale he is. It's exactly what I expected at this stage. We are in the mix but are not playing our best stuff yet, except for a couple of patches. We are trying to reverse four years of losing more than we win and the club being left to drift as an organisation and I think we have made a pretty decent start (if not overly impressive to-date). We are now winning more than we lose - which I am enjoying - and it does feel like we are turning a corner, albeit perhaps too slowly for some. Totally agree re: clean sheets though. One clean sheet at the end of October is nowhere near good enough, especially with ambitions of promotion.

You and me both. The negativity of the past four seasons or so has turned large parts of this place into incredibly bitter and negative enclaves. Think it's a fair point on there being more 'screw him' energy than 'we're in a decent-to-good league position but haven't moved through the gears frequently enough yet' for some reason. If we're so intolerably shit, yet are still 5th, unbeaten in five and still don't have our main summer signing (who happens to be a proven, prolific goalscorer) fit yet, then I can suck that up. And I feel like there has been improvement... but clearly plenty do not.

Did Russell Martin pork your missus or something? You've properly got it in for him Last week you were after him because he celebrated a 96th minute away win by going to the fans, this week it's because he wants the team to stop falling behind in games, rather than trying to routinely dig themselves out of holes. If he didn't give that comment and instead said he wants to focus on having a plan for going behind, your response would presumably be something like 'How about you have a plan that means we don't go behind in the first place?" Incredibly boring.

We really do have some miserable cunts on here. I don't even think he does any hand waving, that was Ralph? Martin just walks over, punches the air and claps the fans, then leaves. Imagine being so fucking glum that you whinge about your own manager acknowledging and celebrating the away support after a win up the other end of the country with all the travel bollocks we had to go through today

Surprised he took that job, tbh - obviously backs himself but working for Chansiri can't be that appealing

Harding played in half the games and Fox was constantly caught upfield and out of position (a bit like Manning). Great going forward, sure. I'd agree with the summary, though I don't think Fox was ever excellent. He was good though.

Bit like Dan Harding / Danny Fox, then?

Win this one and we should be in the playoffs off the back of a three-game winning run as the international break comes. Home clean sheet would be a wonderful way to round off the past week. Pretty sure Martin said they're targeting having Ross Stewart available after this international break too. How timely that could be

Russell Martin to Sky on fixing the recent issues: "I've been kicking myself, but maybe we came here and tried to run before we could walk." Nail on head. Fair play.

FT: Stoke 0-1 Saints

Congratulations to Darren Mowbray for his part in today’s win

Yes that’s exactly it, I think literally everything at the club is being well-run 👍🏻 We’ve lost four games and after hysterically moaning on for days on end across various threads, you’re now turning your pitchfork on a recruitment guy who has been at the club for just under 12 weeks Not entirely sure if you were expecting him to single-handedly turn us into a talent factory in such a short amount of time, but it’s been obvious since the beginning of forever that the person who leads the scouting network is not solely responsible for transfers at any club, let alone when they’re at a club they joined midway through a summer where plans were already in place and large-scale turnover was in the pipeline And if you did believe that he was solely responsible for the recruitment, then I don’t understand why signing UK players would be an immediate negative, nor do I understand why we’d be casting final judgements on players who have not even been around long enough to make 10 appearances for the club. In fact, many of them are yet to play five games for Saints Recruitment personnel are and should be judged across windows and seasons, not days and weeks But if it helps you feel better, you’re of course more than welcome to keep finding things to piss your pants about on a daily basis

People really are desperate to whine about literally everything right now

Full answer from Martin on Alcaraz: I see the players every day. Charly is young, he doesn't speak the language much, if at all. We're asking him to play in a style with a lot of structure. He knows there's things he has to do better. I said it to Gilly, I knew that I would get criticised for not bringing him on, but it's about who you can trust at this moment in time. You're either all in with the team or you're not. At the minute, Charly needs to come over to that side really. It's been a difficult time for him. He's lost Willy, he's lost Lyanco - those were his two best mates in the group. He's a young man, he's miles away from his home. He's had some difficult news about his dad too. All of that is going on, but people don't see it or understand it. At some point, he will be on the pitch for us and he will be fantastic but now is not the right time for him, while this team is struggling.

No, get Warnock in

I’ll take that over being ludicrously unlucky to be 1-0 down. Or lucky to only be 1-0 down

https://x.com/liamtribb/status/1703840092433867169?s=46&t=f0hgNyKSvvOD5qjGLJhsXQ

RM has just said in his presser that Kamaldeen's red card has been successfully appealed, he can play in this one

Martin's press conf: - Bednarek 'touch and go' but trained today - Harwood-Bellis only trained with group a few days but ready if needed - Sulemana will be in the matchday squad