Gloucester Saint

Interesting, maybe with the US economy weaker under the tariffs they can’t afford their usual favourites such as Aruba let alone the higher end islands like St Lucia, Barbados and Antigua.

Wood is English not RoI which helps, as it rules out Martin wanting Smallbone, Baz or Manning. Wood has a high ceiling and quick for a centre back but he ball-watches and as we’ve seen with Jack it is not an easy fault to address.

The club have done their typical thing on here of staff and insiders of the leadership planting seeds on here ‘Gavin is highly rated by the club’ and the latest variant ‘he’s not ideal but fine for the Championship’ despite vast quantitative evidence to the contrary. We also saw them leaking against some departing players popular with the fans. Now the narrative spun is ‘see, people wetting themselves needlessly, look at the two friendlies’ and ‘we are not inviting as many shots at our goal’ (going by the astonishing 51 Rangers have yielded in three games they have a point on that one). Gavin didn’t have a bad pre-season in 2023 either but was terrible when the real stuff started. Watch those posters disappear under their rocks when he messes up in the derby and Still comes under massive pressure as a result. i hope Gavin proves us wrong but he objectively doesn’t have enough of the basics over a 46 game season to finish top 2. Yes, McCarthy’s contract (thanks again Russell) will expire next summer but we will have few funds to replace Ramsdale properly with the reduced parachutes.

Need at least one more central midfielder let alone the 10 and wide areas. Smallbone moving on for a modest fee I reckon, sporadic in pre-season, no sign of a new contract and Saints won’t want him leaving on a free. Good at the central midfield head of a 3-5-2 but if that’s not Still’s system best to move on for all parties.

I think he could be a Jack Cork type of player in the PL with better players around him but yes, in essence, why would the club take a loss of £8m on a proven top player for the division they are currently in? Rangers can’t afford the wages let alone the fee and Martin probably won’t be there that long. Plus, haven't Flynn and his partner had their first child? Not optimum for uprooting.

Similar to Saints v Rotherham nearly 2 years ago.

Well, he’s in the land of Braveheart now. When in Rome….

Smells like https://www.febreze.com/en-us

Fraser can’t seriously be ahead of Robinson for Wrexham. Ipswich away could understand Fraser featuring as more tracking back required.

Loads of those around here. In Cheltenham, they’ve had to put a sign up that Webbs garden centre is still open despite the seeming forever roadworks next to the racecourse.

We should be but we have to earn it on the pitch by working harder, hopefully the fitness work pays off. Their pre-season has been worse than ours but assume nothing. Club needs humility and realism game by game.

If we roll Wrexham 3-0 and get at least a point at Ipswich, the cigars can maybe make an appearance then. Certainly more prospect of doing so with the players on the pitch at the end today than the start. That gif sums the club up 2017-25 and drive, determination and ambition need to replace it. Earn the cigars and nice things.

Can occasionally be rash - like early on in Espanyol game - but agree that light years ahead of Manning who was poor even under Martin’s set up which had worked for him at Swansea.

Hopefully a few of the starters have played their way out of the club judging by the rest of their ‘efforts’ pre-season and last season. But that will cost some subsidisation on wages to get rid.

Stephens, Smallbone, Aribo and co will soon knock that out of him during training.

Week ahead in pre-season so that may be some of it. Mind you, I thought that when Oxford battered us last season….

Bree and Manning haven’t helped themselves today.

Pre-season to be fair but I suspect he wouldn’t mind moving on. Unless Ipswich come back in, which I doubt, can’t see where his market is.

Difficult to keep up with play when you have 11 toes…

Both - younger potential player, will have ups and downs.

Yep, if it’s going to be a 10th-18th place season of consolidation and freezing out some of the wankers in the squad, let’s at least have some players like Robinson, Sesay, Dipepa to give us some hope with the better older heads to support them.

Without the aid of TNT I can’t see it.

We’ve had a PL-type pre-season and Spanish sunshine to reward apathy and abject failure was typically tin-eared. Should have been Eastleigh, B Rovers, Crawley, Reading, Cardiff and Huddersfield. Tough, physical, competitive warm-ups to get ready for what’s to come.

This is what you get with ‘project signings’. We’ve got to re-set our expectations, top half would be good going.

Has done pretty well, at least showed some energy and moments of quality in the middle which we’ve been starved of as supporters. Basics of football really. Bit different to facing a very experienced operated in O’Brien next week though.