Sunnyside Saint

Talk of building a new squad for the Championship that can also compete in the Premier League I think is increasingly unrealistic. Perhaps unlike coming up through the lower echelons of the pyramid (i.e. as Ipswich just did, perhaps Wrexham) the Champ. to EPL gulf is widening and the last two seasons have shown that maybe promoted teams are now fundamentally not going to be good enough to compete. Though, interesting to see how this year's promoted teams get on to see if this is really becoming a trend. Perhaps the Forest approach will become the template, have a massive overhaul of the squad on promotion, hope you can get it to gel and survive in the first year and build from there. As we know, the recruitment game if you are an EPL club is entirely different to that of a Championship club. So is it the answer to just focus on building a team good enough to get promoted, ignore the medium/longer term, and accept that a total reset will be required for the following EPL season. If so, AA and other incumbents could still have a part to play in season 25/26?

Holy crap, is this how low we've sunk? Disappointed that Sully is not available. Surely we've bottomed out now?

As a decades long Saints fan it's gut wrenching to watch this team now. We're throwing away games playing this high risk low reward football in and around our own area. Yes, encourage the opposition to press, but it's barely apparent to me that we have the ability or much intention to break through the press with any kind of regularity. Why don't we play higher up the pitch? Mistakes happen so lets not make them in our own box at least we'll be punished for them less often. It's infuriating and incredibly boring to watch the ponderous way we play when we have the ball, this constant re-cycling when we do get into advanced positions - aargh! Where's the "bravery" then? Where's the risk taking in the oppositions third? It's almost like RM has only implemented half of his game plan, namely stop the opposition by playing keep-ball in our defensive third. How can we hope to win games with this lack of pressurizing the opposition goal?? It also seems we've totally disregarded our own coordinated press as a tactic. Surely the players can't be happy with what they are being asked to do. RM is making them look like chumps. Rant over!

Perhaps the club's view is that keeping RM in post and hoping things will finally 'click' or maybe that he can be cajoled into changing or at least tweaking his approach gives us a better chance than the cost and upheaval of replacing him and his staff. Yes it would likely require one step back to move forward under a new manager and coaching team who don't know the squad and would necessarily need to implement a different tactical approach, perhaps that one step back is considered too large to take now. There was a window to replace him, has it already closed?

Yes, that would be nice, but given what's happening you have to wonder if this is really top of the current priority list for SR's long-term mission to have a sustainable premier league football club. Perhaps we are not set up well enough for that right now? I'm not resurrecting the 'yo-yo' club theory but maybe SR are "comfortable with the situation" to coin a well-worn SFC phrase and are prepared to play the long game (not in a hoof-ball way)? I guess the length of RM's tenure will shine some light on SR's approach to their 'project'.

I'm flying in from Asia specifically for this game just to see David Brooks, he's my new fav. I'm so excited, can't wait. Whoo hoo!!