Lymington Saint

Just back. Looked like a change in formation to me, with a diamond in midfield allowing full backs to push up. Downes as the holding midfielder and Alcarez at the point as a false 9. With two up front in Armstrong and Sulemana. Team looked much better connected, without the huge gaps as in recent games. And they were mixing it up, going long sometimes. Defended well second half. Think that he might have stumbled on a formation that actually works.

Can't see him surviving. Just have no confidence that SR will appoint a manager who will at least get us hard to beat. They are trying to be too clever.

This season was always going to be bumpy. We all knew that and expectations of automatic promotion are unrealistic in my view. Huge turnover of players and not sure who would end up staying. But there are clearly problems with the way that we are playing that need to be addressed fast. Not sure that RM has the ability to adapt his system to fix them. The next few games are key. If we continue the way that we are then he will be gone fairly quickly. Then the owners will appoint another muppet and we will go through the whole cycle again.

Was just about to post something similar and you beat me to it. Goal 2 was well worked, but the others were dreadful. Goal 3 was a well directed free header and he had no one on him to put him off. Manning was at fault for goal 4 but it was 2 against 1. There was a Norwich player coming in behind him completely free. Defensively we were terrible. On the plus side I enjoyed the game far more than any last season. We do at least seem to have a way of playing, create chances and looks like the 11 starters will stay the season. Issue is how many of the other players will leave and who will be brought in. We need someone bigger than Armstrong up front who can hold the ball up and also be a target, and who isnt Tall Paul.

Happy days. Back when 606 phone ins were worth listening to. It's tedious now and I switch off - plastic fans phoning in to moan about refs, managers or who they should be buying/selling. Funniest phone call I remember from those days was from a Partick Thistle fan who ran to away games. When asked the furthest he had run, replied 'Queen of the South'. Dumfries - over 70 miles away. Took him 2 days to get there.

The consensus on this thread seems to be that we will finish 9th. Seems a good shout to me. If we finish just into the top half of the table and end the season with some consistency, then that will be progress. Can then kick on next season. Really don't expect any more than that.

If we had VAR in 1976 then all it would have done is stop Tommy Docherty from moaning about an offside goal afterwards. Bobby Stokes was a couple of yards onside, played on by Martin Buchan the United left back. Had he stepped up in line with the centre-backs then it would have been offside. Problem with VAR is not the use of technology but the way that it is managed. Too often the VAR team seem to overrule the ref on marginal calls. It should be limited to clear and obvious errors. Seem to remember that VAR was managed really well at the last world cup, but this might have been something to do with Pierluigi Collina managing the overall process and everyone being scared of him.