Gloucester Saint

Being reported that he wanted to bring Hamza Igamene on but he told Martin he was injured. This after a bid for him was turned down.

Best way is use fines and shout-outs in training for propaganda football and cowardice - ‘bottled it’, ‘weak dick’. Bally used a fines system for anyone smashing aimless over head height into the channels to rid the players of Branfoot behavoiour rapidly. High Viz worn at Staplewood for anyone persistently checking back and being ponderous.

And if Spors doesn’t pull his finger out this week and we lost at home to Pompey, he and Still will be touching cloth….

I couldn’t quite bring myself to post the Disney one 😂

Probably the bit about keeping TD and MF - TD was always going to bridge the TV money gap even with wage clauses, and MF will go. The MF money plus whatever we get for Aribo, Edozie, Smallbone, 100% of that needs to go on a quality 10, winger and CM who are standouts at this level and dictate matches if get near £50m. The other savings will pay for a loan winger and first team goalkeeper to challenge Bazunu.

Not just defensively, Stoke were sharper, quicker and cut us to ribbons on the break. Midfield they were so much better it was untrue as the away team. We looked so insipid and laboured on double their squad wage bill. We created some chances, and Robbo was unlucky with the double post, but far too much floaty diagonal crap with no focal point to aim them at. Starting players required on both wings, CM and 10 next week or the autos will fade away rapidly. GK - bearing in mind the OP - we do need a first team one to keep Bazunu on it and take over if he declines again, but it’s not as high a priority by the weekend as those four outfield positions to strengthen with standout first team quality.

I smell club plant there. The fan blaming for 8 years of grotesque mismanagement is a constant theme from these little log-ins who pop up from time to time.

That’s when you have to start taking a bath financially to write some wages and fees to clean the stables. In the mid-90s, Hurlock, Dixon and other large contracts didn’t disappear by magic - they were paid up and it allowed Bally space to run things with Lawrie so Branfoot’s old faces weren’t hanging around. Plenty more were subsidised to lower divisions eg Wood. And we were skint in the 1990s adapting the Dell in its final years to Taylor Report, and saving for new stadium. So no excuses for SR. Osvaldo had to be written off by Kat which cost a lot of money but had to be done. SR are obsessed with turning a profit on every transaction no matter how appalling the player/transaction. To use Glen De La Cour’s analogy, when you shit your pants as badly as Rasmus and Solak did, you need to pay out both for shitting them in the first place and for new pants. Welcome to top level elite sport boys.

Who was Saints manager at the time? Lawrie would have been hard to forget. If it was 1986/87, Nicholl was manager. Lost there August 1986 4-3 so that’s the other option. I was at the return game Feb 1987 which we also lost, Mark Dennis committed a horrific foul on Dale Gordon which only recieved a yellow but outraged their fans in the Archers cage. Would have been x10 red cards today!

Bit pointless if Welington is long-term surely?

Cry me a river. If the darlings don’t want pressure and scrutiny, play part-time and have a job, and mortgage alongside. What 90% of Saints fans say is that since 1966 we’ve only been outside of the top flight for 13 of 59 years, so 35-odd points in our last 76 top flight games is pathetic and totally unacceptable. Standards, focus and fitness need to increase exponentially or you will really not like what you are hearing at games. Palace, Brighton, Forest, West Ham - none of their fans would accept the state Saints are in. Leicester are experiencing similar - take a look at the protests against Jon Rudkin. Even in League 2, Michael Flynn is under pressure as Cheltenham boss after losing every league game so far. And this is sleepy Gloucestershire. Give Eastleigh or Basingstoke a whirl - no high bars or expectations. Just turn up and enjoy.

Taylor’s still here so he can play. Can’t do worse than Manning yesterday, Wrexham looks a flash in the pan.

It’s beyond strange that he’s funded Spors coming in, totally re-booted the scouting and recruitment, but nothing material seems to be changing in terms of playing personnel and giving manager what he needs, which we haven’t done since Koeman. Got to be Ankerson stirring it at SR board level.

SR just will not admit mistakes, especially if Ankerson signed them off. I’ve been critical of Spors but I wouldn’t blame him and/or Still if they walked assuming that the transfer window continues to be a shit show. Unfortunately Spors pissed on his own chips by signing those two fringe players from Germany added to an already bloated and poor squad. Great excuse for SR to not back him next week and use the Dibling money to extend Bazunu and other contracts like they did with Jack to their pets. The dogma about not losing face and admitting mistakes is killing SFC. Even in the 1990s, when we were skint, Askham and Lawrie had to write off big contracts for Hurlock, Dixon, Speedie, loads of others which hurt badly but needed doing. Kat with Osvaldo. You’ve got to clean the stables sometimes and take a few baths. Not nice but needs must to free up wages at scale and give the manager a compact and cohesive squad environment.

And that’s down to SR not biting the bullet as Kat had to with writing off Osvaldo. Sometimes in a business an investment goes wrong and you have to pay to fix it. SR just won’t do it. In fact, they’ve doubled down in many of them. Mind you, not sure Martin would get success at City - look at the horrific second goal yesterday caused by needless playing from the back. Horrible football and delighted to see it being undone.

We’d have lost 1-4 or 1-5 if that were the case against a physically strong and mobile Stoke midfield. Downes was struggling as it was to drive forwards and Shea had an off day. MF tried but mind clearly elsewhere, probably still our best performer even so. At Wrexham they have CM options like O’Brien to do the stuff he can’t, and no five at the back.

All joking aside, Parkinson uses a midfield heavy system, we aren’t going to. Will is very good in a central three, hopeless in a two, and Wrexham need someone at the top of that midfield to play people through and score a few. He is proven to do that, and the likes of O’Brien will do the dirty stuff that he physically can’t at the moment, although I strongly suspect Parky would have weight training and high protein diet on his first day to bulk up because he’s an attention to detail person. But it’s Nixon, and even Richard Nixon told the truth more than Alan does.

Far from the first time: Pellegrino - hired on the basis of bringing back Poch and Ronald’s pressing football when he’s a 4-5-1 shut-up-shop merchant at slow pace Jones - likes athletes and players with some bite and snap, not technical players, inherited an incredibly passive squad who were slower, smaller and more technical (and the summer 2022 signings didn’t suit Ralph either). He didn’t handle it well at all but some empathy. Martin - a squad not comfortable on the half-turn and even Pep is struggling to make that style work now on City’s astronomical budget, let alone Martin’s horrific start at Rangers Spors said it right first time that the stables needed a full cleansing but I suspect Solak and Ankerson have refused to authorise the fee and wage write-offs needed at SR board level to make that happen, because it would mean admitting failure. Whereas Brady has realised he has had to take a few painful losses to get Brum going forwards again.

Sadly it is Nixon but if remotely true rip their arm off.

If Still stays, I’d be very pointed if I were him towards the owners and question the lack of direction to protect my reputation. Nuno is doing a very fine job of that at Forest with an owner that is an even worse basket case than ours.

Agree with playing the strongest team available but prior to that, a bit of psychology and if I was Still I’d be saying at the presser that Aribo and Edozie are starting as they need minutes. No intention of playing in them in actuality but watch their agents scurry to complete moves they’ve been stalling for months over.

Rationally what you are saying makes perfect sense….but at the moment there is a huge amount missing. Confidence - clearly. But also physiologically trusting their instincts, not worrying about retaining possession or checking back like they did under Martin. Just digging into that muscle memory of what made them top level forwards in the first place and reading the game. Link up the play as you see it. Get shots off and work the keeper when there’s a space. Play people in when you think that’s a better option. If we are not bringing another striker in, and I don’t think we will, then it’s a different management approach to let AA, BBD and Archer play their natural games with hopefully wide areas and midfield transformed during the next week to enable that. Jeremy Snape was helpful under Adkins and Poch and I think some 1-1 psychology would help them move on from last season. Ditto Ross Stewart to start trusting his body.

And the biggest earner of the striker group. The only club I could see him going to is Boro and will they want to strengthen a promotion rival? Personally, to free up wages and space for a sorely needed new focal point (Downs won’t be that for at least a couple of years and a loan out or two) I’d gamble and let him go, for AA’s benefit as well. But I don’t think that’s what they’ll do.

His post-match comments were indirectly pointed at Spors and Solak, so if those two don’t co-operate next week, I suspect it’s interim manager Adam Lallana against the skates. Hope he is putting them both under some intense pressure and he should, his stock is good, theirs is rock bottom. I despise Harry Redknapp but he was a master manipulator with DoFs and boards. Need a bit of those dark arts right now to pull SR along by their noses.