Gloucester Saint

This is the key partnership left, Reddy can bat and Jadeja is a genuine all-rounder. Stokes is going to injure himself with this amount of overs.

Definitely the case with wasps. Although the local Fieldfare population has an actual superpower in eating a lot of the wasps which were hogging our plum trees which are fruiting heavily.

Hence the recent interviews with him about being excited about working for Still. Unless someone pays silly money in January he will be with us for 25/26 I’d have thought. Emphasis to get Bednarek off the books now, low release fee or not, as well as ABK, because we don’t need Jan, THB, ABK, Wood, Edwards, the young French centre back and now Quarshie.

I’m not against de-regulation where needed but this was lethal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8zjk5yx8wo

I agree that if can be both and not an either/or, we don’t necessarily need 25 Papa Bouba Diops but the spine of the team is weak as alcohol free cider, hence the first two signings are big units.

Just listened to that, the city’s schools haven’t improved. That’s a comment on the lad who posted the recording, not the player who probably was just enjoying a Saturday night in pre-season.

You need to have more of the first two when you have less of the last three, and had the first two give you more of the last one. See WGS teams 2001-3.

David Lee got some, Speedie someone IIRC at home to Boro got on the pitch from the lower East and swung at him (which would have been front page now but barely in the match reports next day back then). Dowie got a bit but then Dixon was so woeful and Dowie hit some form it turned around. Stuart Ripley was never Mr Popular.

Will Still doesn’t think they are as fit as they should be and he’s working with them every day. My observation, and it’s no more than that, is that the fitness wasn’t optimum in 22/23 for the PL, it didn’t get any worse in 23/24 and the extra quality we possessed off the bench meant we had a spell of scoring late winners. Last season, even you’ve got to to admit the fitness and conditioning was well below PL level, we looked like pub players even taking into account the gulf in quality. Martin himself has stated since on Sky that the physicality and intensity surprised him.

Oh dear, what can the (dark) matter be?

With the caveat that it locks Still into 4-5-1 because he can’t tackle or track back effectively because of physical development, broadly agree. He’s got a very good first touch, can score goals and good forward passer, as evidenced by Wembley. He’s an 8 or bust. His weakness is even at this level, you cannot play him in a central two. Not if you want two strikers which I have an impression Still might by August. So you either build around him in a 4-5-1 or move him on with 12 months left on his deal. He will never be Declan Rice or Kante, but I’d hoped the penny might drop and he’d have got on the protein shakes and hit the weights during June to compete a bit more as JWP did under Ralph.

He was too inconsistent - if I’m being generous - to have won the play offs. McCarthy made a huge difference, I’m not a fan of his either, but it was night and day the contrast. Gavin never gets low to James’s shot at Wembley, he conceded those most weeks for two years, even you’ve got to admit that. He might be like Bart, shaky with the odd good game as a youngster, and make a Championship career regularly in his 30s after improving in League 1.

Oh yeah, it goes back to later in Ralph’s time. He was very hot on fitness earlier on but got ground down by the lack of investment and then the investment when it finally came going on children from Manchester. We saw the lack of resilience after the Leicester away win and after Adams’s sitter at Wolves. They weren’t fit physically or mentally which is why we reverted to long balls because they couldn’t sustain the press for more than a few minutes. That, and Romeu had gone, and pivotal to organising it on the pitch, and Lavia could only play circa 20-25 games. Got worse under Martin and I don’t think Juric or Rusk thought they could do a Poch and institute double session mid-season given a few player episodes like Flynn Downes and others. If you’re a 32 year fresh faced manager whose Ligue 1 teams have been top of the energy standings I can see why you’d be bemused.

Again, I’m surprised Jan hasn’t gone already with such a low release fee, and Roma bid over that in January. Mind you, football clubs are so disorganised in transfer windows that it shouldn’t be a surprise. I reckon ABK will go very late in the window for 4-5 Euro.

Sounds like one or both want to move on to me. AA probably has a bit more of a market out of the two albeit still quite niche. If we’d need to subsidise most of BBD’s wages on loan somewhere we might as well keep him and hope he improves when fitter. Interesting comments by Still yesterday post-Eastleigh that he’s not been impressed by the standard of fitness. We suspected it was a holiday camp under Martin and before that even if we’re honest.

McCarthy is just about still but Gavin never has been and there’s no argument with the volume of data despite a minority of fans refusing to acknowledge what is right in front of them. Funnily enough there’s now revisionism that Martin’s tactics were to blame and he will be alright in a Still defence. No, he won’t. And Martin picked him for his distribution not his goalkeeping. His spell at Liege was mixed at best. Needs a loan in League 1 where’s more comfortable and maybe back up in final year of his deal. https://www.southamptonfc.news/opinion/one-alarming-statistic-shows-why-russell-martin-must-upgrade-key-southampton-position/ https://forum.ybig.ie/gavin-bazunu_topic57765_page111.html https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/we-need-southampton-urged-to-upgrade-on-gavin-bazunu-after-disaster-of-a-loan-spell/

Aribo when he goes will add further to the funds for that part of the pitch. What’s surprised me is Bednarek still being at the club with an alleged relegation release clause of only £6m. Roma supposedly bid a couple million more than that only in January.

Only a year left though and has a market. Clearly not signing a new deal and allegedly one of the higher earners.

He will get tested defensively far more than today, as will Sugawara but they didn’t half bring some energy and willingness to get forward and put deliveries in compared with the first half with Taylor and Bree.

Taylor didn’t play well today but you’re forgetting just how poor Manning was last time out. Watch the Brum away, Leicester away and some of the other highlights and you’ll see what I mean. Agree Wellington should be first choice based on the cameos last season.

Taylor, Wellington, Manning. We don’t need three so there’s an odd one out somewhere. Manning got lots of assists at Swansea but looked as dreadful going forward as defensively under the same manager here strangely.

RoI international though….does Russell want that sectarian hassle?

I’d like to see him try, especially NYC. Plenty of resources to take him and MAGA on militarily. It’ll be the usual 🌮 instead.

All four of the above, plus almost certainly Aribo. Quite likely to be Edozie and AA as well.

I can see why she was so popular https://www.threads.com/@chrisoneill2020/post/DJKhaGbix9l/fiona-richmond-and-udo-kier-in-the-house-on-straw-hill-aka-exposé-1975-a-film-by