Gloucester Saint

With the transfer window closing, Stephens, AA, Smallbone and Aribo need a break until November or so, prioritise Fernandes, Lesley, Archer, cameos from Lallana. Ramsdale-THB- Bednarek need to build an understanding. If any positives come out of a dire display and result, the end of the poxy slow passing triangles at the back would be a good one. We’re a promoted via 4th FFS, defend properly, look to find Flynn/Lesley/Fernandes at the first available opportunity or sometimes to mix it up and beat the press look for BBD/Cornet/Archer early and get a couple of the CMs driving with Flynn or Lesley holding.

Only because we’d already long since conceded the midfield by leaving Flynn on his own against their strong and athletic units by selecting Aribo who is not really box to box and Smallbone who has the frame of a 16 year old lad.

Having had a taste of Fernandes, Lesley and Archer at Cardiff with their willingness to be positive and take risks (20 slow passes in front of your opponents is not brave - WGS called it propaganda football), even with that caveat of their second XI, I agree, but the manager has to be reminded by SR that they backed him, gave him what he asked for, so those incomings need to start subject to form and fitness. Smallbone was never the right pick against their midfield today who are strong and athletic and it needed to be Will OR Aribo not both if he really must pick one of them. As for Stephens, same, it’s whether he drops THB or Jan to fit him in if he must.

Not advocating sacking him, but he is seriously out of his depth tactically. He needs help, and his coaching staff are all as dogmatic as he is. Good man manager and communicator but I’d question whether Brentford were scouted properly as Will Smallbone is 10st dripping wet and against their midfield was asking for trouble. Aribo doesn’t have the movement to break their lines. Downes covered their flaws last season but has he own battles to win now in the PL and can’t carry them too. The pissing around at the back has to go or Russell does. The next home game needs to be a slow handclap from the fans when it starts up, then it’ll soon stop. Win the ball, get on the half turn and take it forward. Passing but moving the ball at a better tempo. That’s what the likes of Fernandes and Lesley are there for. Finally, we’ve got a small but quite mobile front line, play to their strengths with through balls and occasionally look to go over the press and early to them. Help them a bit. If Martin wants to play the slow crap then use Onachu and throw crosses in and attack the second ball after a slow build up.

Leaving Downes and Aribo to do all of the work in the middle is insanity. Because Brentford away is not the game for Will Smallbone until he’s hit the gym, he will bullied out of it within the first 25 minutes and the game could be gone. Only hope is that Brentford struggle to take their chances, and/or Ramsdale has a stormer, and we can bring our new signings on in the last 30 to move their midfield around (which is what we should be doing from the outset) and nick it. Did the club actually scout Brentford?

Hence why Will is struggling. Drew Surman is a good example for him on how to build a bit more physical presence without trying to be Papa Bouba Diop to go with his technical ability and going on to be a PL regular for quite a few years.

I think we will get some more back with the Turkish and possibly Saudi windows, and I didn’t realise the Dutch window was open until Monday. Ipswich have bought some players at the right age too with potential but can’t afford too many Sulemanas/Carillos or they need one or two Lavias to cushion them under the current PSR framework.

I’ve far better things to be doing than trawling through your anti-vax and conspiracy theories/chemtrails drivel which is very closely aligned with Q Anon and Trump’s base. But for someone who doesn’t support Trump you are making quite the fuss. I’m clear as to why I post on this thread - I can’t stand Trump and the world will be a safer place once he loses again in November. Seeing as you don’t support him it doesn’t matter whether I think you support him or not. I want Harris to win.

As long as we move the ball quicker, the style can work but it has to have the right players to be effective. I can see the rationale behind the Fernandes signing now and a midfield of him, Flynn and Lesley with Will and Aribo for competition will probably suit it better and help beat the press which Russell has struggled with a bit. With the front line we now have, there’s times when we need to mix it up and hit the likes of BBD, AA, Cornet and Archer quicker. Russell did it well towards the end of the season and those players need through balls as they play on the shoulder of defenders. If it can be the element of surprise, even better as it doesn’t allow opponents to get set in the way Newcastle and Forest have thus far.

Probably wanted to move Edozie out on loan as a finishing school as he’s not been the same since Jack Stacey crunched him and ropey/rusty displays so far this term. Silly boy, several promotion-chasing Champ clubs and gets entangled in the mess of Rangers. I think Cornet will still go through, and Samuel gets options for loan in Belgium or Goztepe. He needs to be playing every week more or less somewhere to get that end product consistently, not PL level yet.

Like the Cornet loan signing if that comes through, had a stormer against us in October 2021 for Burnley. OK, had an injury but a while ago now and needs/wants to play. Surely shirt number 99? But we’ll pass on the flake as we’ve already got Ross Stewart.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-grave-soldiers-arlington-b2602463.html?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=embed2 and it gets worse https://x.com/kylegriffin1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1829159590740558125|twgr^dd28cc2c0f358bf519bf3cd90cb83e9def4927ef|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2Flive%2F2024%2Faug%2F29%2Ftrump-kamala-harris-interview-poll-election-latest-updates%3FfilterKeyEvents%3Dfalsepage%3Dwith3Ablock-66d082798f08b036ea3f4f8f https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/29/donald-trump-kamala-harris-sexist-post https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/harris-trump-news-cnn-interview-updates-b2603937.html

https://jacobin.com/2023/04/trickle-down-economics-arthur-laffer-wealth-inequality-ronald-reagan-margaret-thatcher It also blew the North Sea oil receipts. Nothing compared to Truss’s inept attempts though at Laffer theory (Thatcher and Lawson were highly intelligent people even if I didn’t agree with them on some things, but did on others eg trades union reforms. Truss is as thick as mince) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/27/liz-truss-considered-scrapping-cancer-treatment-on-the-nhs/ Kwarteng pushed her nicely under the 🚌 by saying he wasn’t in the room when this was discussed but it’s quite likely that it was discussed. So basically confirming it’s the truth but distancing himself. Can’t blame him after how Truss treated him. Although the cancer patients in my family would have fared a lot worse had Truss, Matthew Sinclair, Mark Littlewood and the IEA had their way. If you get cancer - go away so Liz buy a higher grade of coke to snort (allegedly) or a billionaire friend of the Tufton St crowd buy another mansion portfolio to let to Russian oligarchs. Whatever Starmer and Reeves do in the autumn, I might not like it but it will never come close to Truss and the IEA. Even Boris would have thought that was a shit idea let alone Cameron/Osborne.

Three very attractive goals, two by us and one thunderous, pure strike from them. Enjoying this so far.

They beat my local team in the first round (sorry to be MLG) and since the opening day horror show they’ve drawn at home to Hull and again at in-form QPR with 10 men most of the game and tonight’s opponents are top of the league. So getting better but Rooney needs that first league win now.

Russell Martin is alright with me, as are Dragan and Kraft but I just can’t stand Rasmus Ankerson. I’ve had to work with his sort and bypass them so I can work around their ‘ideas’ becuase none of them ever function in practice. Realist is the accurate term - have a look at the 2022/23 transfer dealings and manager merry go around and resulting bill, which still hobbles the club. Bloated squad with little quality is where spreadsheet jockeys take you. And recruitment was bad enough 2016-22 as well with Reed/Wilson/Semmens squandering loads. Gao was appalling as an owner but what they were given they wasted and let Ralph down. Martin needs a decent centre forward for £25-30m, which he could have had between the potential fee on this dud from Brazil and Archer. At least Russell is getting one I suppose which is more than Ralph got, even if the reviews sound like Lyanco’s were from Torino. Pay peanuts, and you know what you get….this will be with the Carrillo and TP debacles around £70m without signing on fees, wages and agent costs. If we did that in our workplaces….

That’s going to end well then, the kid who made Phil Giles’s tea at Brentford and filled in some spreadsheets, and thinks that entitles him to take 50% of the credit. Rasmus knows bugger all about football, even Rupert Lowe knew more! Ok, Danish league I’m sure someone will point but even Les Reed’s comedy midget had some initial success at Rangers before getting found out. Not so easy in the bigger leagues where being a spreadsheet jockey is no help. Exactly the type of fucked up strategy from 2022/23 - quantity over any quality and shitloads pissed up the wall crippling the club financially and on PSR. Anyone who thought Nathan Jones was a suitable manager shouldn’t be allowed any involvement with SFC. What the hell Dragan is doing letting him anywhere near the club again? Please, either sell the club now or bring in a DoF with a top flight bigger league pedigree (latter is my preference as I don’t mind SR per se and I like the other two clubs in the group, I just think Rasmus is out of his depth).

Some of the Everton fans took their defeat at Spurs worse https://fanbanter.co.uk/video-emerges-of-everton-fans-abusing-their-own-players-after-arriving-back-from-tottenham-defeat/ The video should come with subtitles but none available unfortunately. PS - Did I see Mason Holgate later on in that clip? Maybe I’m getting older and it’s just me but seeing blokes my age standing at a busy train station calling people a cunt is a bit tragic to my mind? Let’s see what this week brings but the style and patterns of play will need to vary a lot more than Saturday to be competitive.

Their keeper had a McCarthy moment for City’s second. McKenna and Martin are going to have to be more realistic about the PL, times to play and times to be pragmatic. As for Saints, should be 2-0 down so at least a positive that’s it’s still 0-0 but Martin has to change tactics here and go more direct at times to beat the press and turn their midfield and defence. Not every time of course but far too predictable and Nuno tactically giving him a lesson here. Hope Lesley ready soon as some physical presence badly needed.

For someone who doesn’t supposedly support the Orange mental defect who requires nappies, you are making a lot of noise that you don’t. But them empty vessels (and boy you are the emptiest on here) do make the most noise. Alternatively, even you’ve finally clocked that Biden standing down has scuppered Trump’s chances and like a Man U plastic getting shy on the cusp of another trophy less season ‘oh I never really supported them anyway’. Thou dost protest too much.

Nice one, Nic will be doing the same in November as the results come in across the states. Those guys are probably the sort of brain dead idiots who attend US golfing majors and shout ‘you’re the man’ at whoever is leading and ‘USA, USA’. No wonder the ‘Build the Wall’ and ‘Stop the Steal’ chants resonate with their tiny brains. Trump’s team are pulling their hair out with him - can’t stay focused except on being openly racist, which comes naturally for him and his base, less so outside of his core base, which is insufficient to win plus the drag anchor of JD Vance https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czrgp30j6z1o

A thoughtful post, in stark contrast to the cut and pastes, and cut and runs, from the OP. I also know educated and intelligent people, friends, colleagues who voted leave and were long-time opposed to the EU project. Less so family as several work in the motor trade and knew exactly what it would mean, none of it positive. I lived with two of them as students, friends then and now. They were less bothered about Maastricht, Lisbon Treaties, but much more concerned with sovereignty, the projection of English exceptionalism, fear of the Euro and not having our own army. Were their minds not already made up, the Turkey joining fib from Penny in the debates latched onto by Farage in the main campaign would have been a clincher. For others, it was concern over unskilled labour and strain on public services (research rebuts the latter). In Cornwall, simply not enough of the public could see the tangible benefits to their infrastructure that being an Objective 1 area made combined with the fact that there’s an anti-English strand in some of their local culture let alone seeing the benefits of an overseas body having a role in their county (even that’s a controversial word there!). The Tories cleaned us out there (Lib Dems) in 2015 but lost the lot last month as the Cornish can see they have been excluded from the Shared Prosperity Fund replacing many of the former EU regional funds. Over the border, seats such as Totnes (has Brixham in) went yellow on huge swings because the fishing communities could they they’d been misled too. Freedom of movement was an issue post-A8 expansion Poles were coming here prior to that. Where the frustration has built up on society’s fringes is that the freedom has been curbed for Western Europeans (‘good migration’) but replaced and increased from Asia and beyond. And it was always going to be the case that India (see May’s disastrous visit in 2016) and other major powers the UK was seeking trade deals from were going to be inclusive of some exchanges and mobility of peoples, professionals and dependents. The Leave campaign excluded this from the brochure. What a generation of politicians failed to do was promote the benefits of membership beyond the middle classes. The middle classes becoming more squeezed since the referendum by the economic damage caused has and was only going to mean a further decline in services for left-behind areas which were already very inflamed by the impact of austerity they saw as imposed by SE England and London. The real winners economically were Crispin Odey and the non-doms running the tabloids as they dodged the forthcoming EU money laundering rules which were due to come in. Family members from mainland EU were abused after the result (there were also plenty of not very bright people voting Leave and the profile was lower end GCSE overall) but they’ve had the last laugh as the skilled jobs have migrated with them.

With the Mara fee and a new keeper seemingly on the way, more chilled about this signing now. It leaves a loan space free to get the attacking midfielder or winger we need. Mateus looks a promising prospect, let’s hope he adapts and makes a good contribution this term and beyond. If he goes on to a top 6 outfit for big bucks then it’s a good bit of business. His use of the ball in tight spaces might help us particularly.

Atomic Badger are good. Played at our wedding many years ago but still active going by social media. They were very good on the night and when we watched them play originally. and quite versatile https://www.heroeswaterlooville.co.uk/whats-on/atomic-badger

Yes, would like to see this one go through. Otherwise we could be left with tears on our Bijlow.