Gloucester Saint

Also see Pozzos and Watford - except when you fail to bounce back one time.

I can’t get as worked up these days I’m afraid, but I agree the causal issues and viruses lie here and Russell Martin and Nathan Jones were the symptoms. To make their model work, they need both a new main investor along with Dragan firstly, you can’t do multi-club properly without £3-5BN in potential capital IMO. Secondly, yes, Rasmus is a glorified scout managing databases and it’s becoming clear who really did the day to day leadership at Brentford, and who took the spotlight instead. He’s great at his own PR but based on what we’ve experienced, dreadful in practice. If they can get more financial clout behind them, then I can see a Moyes or bigger with the contacts seeing it as a good leadership opportunity as the tracksuit appeal wanes.

Understand the frustration but not the homophobia.

Only by a minority - Alpine and a handful of others. I can only speak for myself - I loved 2012-16, and 2009-12 rebuilding, bits of 2016/17 as well, 2017 was awful with Pellegrino the sleeping tablets king, but some brighter patches under Ralph early on, project re-start and two-thirds of 2021/22 until the West Ham cup game and whatever went on behind the scenes. And it ignores the 70s and 80s - a trophy, should have been more, European runs, signing top players. And the 90s and early 00s battling v the odds, new stadium, WGS and Cup Final.

I think he’s quite happy with his Hollywood assignment. That bloke always lands on all 4 paws.

Agree in principle but I don’t think Martin is a personality that would cope with it. We tried this with Ralph in SR’s first summer and that didn’t work. We just need a more experienced and organised hand whilst SR sort out Rasmus’s future and the whole direction of their group as they are a rudderless mess in need of even more top level football leadership than Saints are. They probably need another major investor with Dragan who is a bit more ruthless and to walk the basics before they try to run with more business nous and capital behind them.

SR are in last chance saloon with our fans as much as Russell Martin is/was. They need to finally convince us they are taking our club seriously by appointing a sporting director with top leagues experience who focuses on sorting out Saints as a football business over the next five years with an ambitious first team manager, so we are least back to where they found us. That will help the other two clubs in the group too if Saints are doing better. Rasmus isn’t up to it as much as Martin isn’t. There is far more to it than player trading although considering that’s meant to be Rasmus’s forte, it’s been atrocious from SR throughout. High volume, low value, high losses mostly bar Lavia. No more experiments now - proven names or sell up and go. A bigger investor alongside Dragan who is more demanding and driven would help with the model they want to implement. Say £5bn to Dragan’s £2bn.

We’ve been renovating a doer-upper in the Cotswolds over the last 18 months and whilst we’ve dealt with some excellent trades, we’ve also dealt with some of the types described here. Brexit hasn’t helped by eliminating some of the harder working competition. Invoice and 7 days very reasonable for that size job. Our roof job was back roof and new flat roof which is a far bigger job I admit, but IIRC it was similar set up. If you were really happy with the standard and could pay them earlier then that can help for future jobs. Question I ask is if you are happy with the work? Sometimes when they rush you for payment as our sparkies are, you need to look closely at what they’ve done. I’ve had their work independently assessed. Whilst overall deemed safe, they are still awaiting their second instalment from me three months on until we have wall channels fully made good and a bathroom shaver unit which doesn’t trip the main circuit. They can get as stroppy as they like but they will do the job first consistently to the standards their professional body, the job specification and I expect.

Cost less than Sulemana - but Leicester don’t have the deadweight transfer acumen of Rasmus Ankerson. Not about Saints not being able to compete, Leicester are a same sized club but just far better in the transfer market even with the Rodgers era bloopers eg Vestergaard gift to us. We spent £15m on Shea Charles when they signed Harry Winks - also go figure. They’ve had shockers too which relegated them, but they try to go with quality as well as quantity and 20 signings where 8-9 better ones suffice.

He can’t really say anything else can he? Not unless if he wants to unemployable in the future or mess up his compensation package/break clause. I very much doubt Dragan is happy about the situation nor that Martin will be in post within a few days.

Their manager has a bit of Pochettino circa 2013/14 about him. Not sure why Foley wasn’t in Semmens viewfinder when Gao was selling, far more switched on about the football industry than SR will ever be. Apart from Semmens being a total smug and complacent plank. Fitted well with SFC post-2016 then.

No, I think he meant before that. 2013/14 IIRC, I was at the home game where Osvaldo and Lambert scored, latter a free kick. Ian Holloway was manager, actually a mutual consent departure and Pulis came in and kept them up. Don't know if it was 0 from 10 but was as bad as now after they also won the play off final. The first four games was De Boer in 17/18 when Palace and Saints were considering him and Pellegrino. What a choice 🤪

Getting relegated with double digit points though would be sending the club into free fall. Whereas getting over 20 points from here with somebody with a modicum of organisation would at least give some hope going into next term. The season died at 5pm today in a competitive sense but we can enjoy a few decent moments in what remains by making a positive change now, even if it’s a month later than it ought to have been professionally-speaking. Also, gates would plummet before the end of the season and the atmosphere would be very toxic from those who did still attend. Look at how we struggled to get sponsors under Branfoot and later on Lowe. Replacing the manager is an obvious decision for someone with an ounce of commercial acumen. The even better follow-up is a Director of Football for SR with Saints focus mainly to start with.

If that is true then it shows how out of their depth SR actually are. Martin Fucking Semmens again selected this shower. I don’t know why Dragan doesn’t just set fire to tens of millions of pounds on a Scottish island like the KLF did rather than tortuously throw it away constantly via Rasmus, Kraft, Russell Martin and other clueless cretins. If I was him, I’d try for a former top level manager who fancies a director role, bit of overseas travel and understands how medium-large football clubs work, and give Rasmus the heave-ho, if he can.

He can’t sit there and say ‘Rasmus warned me we must win the Leicester game or I’m gone’ tbf. More likely to be Dragan saying it, must be fed up with Rasmus and Russell and really ought to be parting company with both on Monday morning. The player trading has been dreadful again, 5 or 6 too many deals when two more Ramsdale level signings of quality were needed. Better value on PSR too.

We said that in 22/23 though, get the next appointment right finally and can see us being top 6, a lot of those players are proven in that league. The parachute payments give you a huge advantage. Rasmus must not be part of that process though, experienced top league football professionals only making that decision. He’s proven his judgement to be very poor consistently with anything SFC-related.

My sense is the former e.g. upper Championship/parachute players fit, but not 17th and above PL fit. To genuinely compete this season, we needed WGS/Adkins/Pochettino/Koeman/early Ralph fit, and the numbers and outcomes clearly indicate we are nowhere near that.

The amount of late goals conceded is not an accident. In the same way we were that bit fitter and scored a lot of late goals last season.

I don’t think he’d join as head coach and can’t blame him. Replacing Rasmus as Head of Football at SR might be different though, as long as Rasmus can be parked at Goztepe and kept away from Saints on a permanent basis.

Too true. Years beyond getting cross about it as well. Club has been rudderless since Ronald left with a lack of drive and a complacent ‘we know better than you’ attitude to both supporters and pundits alike. Well, look at the league table again tossers. I doubt they will learn though, Rasmus will appoint Michael Flynn from Cheltenham or someone from the Bulgarian fourth division who likes the same vape flavour as him to be distinctive.

I like some of the things they do but it has to correspond with the outfit you represent. And that outfit has been complacent, sloppy, self-satisfied, lacking drive and direction, thinking it knows better than everyone else and taking its fanbase for granted ever since Ronald left.

As someone else posted, it’ll be like WGS when he took over and was appalled at how unfit the squad was.

The Pochettino double training sessions need to come back.

Agree with all of that MLG - not paying attention to those small but important details at Staplewood has cost him two home wins, 4 points. That’s without the stupid playing out error at Newcastle, Bournemouth tactics with Tyler as lone striker, self-confessed Forest and Brentford tactical disasters. However, Rasmus has also made omnishambles mistakes. Dragan needs an experienced top leagues DoF to pull the strings at SR, be in charge of the SR board with Dragan and get the core football businesses right, starting with Saints. Start with the first teams and then the infrastructure. The player trading smart sheets and moneyball strategies can come again once Saints are re-established as a regular PL outfit again in a few season’s time. Otherwise Rasmus will just keep gambling and hoping to fluke an appointment and the odd transfer. TEDTalks do not make a DoF.

I sense some irony/gallows humour…