SWLondon Saint

I said the same, it 100% looks like he's putting 'weak zones' or weak groups onto the pitch to see who else can still do a job, maybe even still make something happen and influence the game when other players are having a bad game or not available. Not even our revolving carousel of managers last season would have put AA-Fraser-BBD on behind a front man.

Looking at the team sheets, if the 2nd half central mid was Smallbone, Sesay, Aribo ahead that's going to put a huge amount of pressure on our team as it's simply not good enough in terms of ball winning or retention. While first half the 3 behind the striker look the weakest possible combo. Maybe it's an active attempt to put out weak combos to see how the rest of the team performs under pressure?

Haven't seen highlights yet, but if Archer was playing ahead of: AA - Fraser - BBD That pretty much looks like the problem right there.

Agree with the commentator criticism, that bloke is f***ing awful. Talk about commentator's curse as well, saying how amazing Kelly is right before the pen 😑

Thought they won that in spite of the manager - too slow to react, engine room of the side is all wrong. Italy were there for the taking the last 25-30 of regular time, they were nearly on top of their own keeper but the manager should have changed it a lot earlier.

Ramsey had a pretty decent season didn't he? That must be a PSR forced sale if true. If our finances are OK I could still see us demanding more for Fernandes...

Looks like Manning was obstructing a free kick, so yellow for him, obvious red for the kicker and yellow for the guy standing over Manning. Officials should be taken off duty if they only gave a yellow to the kicker.

Wow, looks like Cap'n Jack has been busier than we thought with his defensive coaching masterclasses on how to hair pull in the age of VAR...

I honestly thought this was just a piss take but just goes to show I should never underestimate Cap'n Jack's ability to hole the ship below the waterline... 😅

Sounds like a proper pre-season 👍🏼

Isn't the Gibbs-White move off or at least in contention so that could well be slowing it down? Also, I would bet if they want Fernandes, they'll want to pay something like £25m+bonuses, like they paid for Gibbs-White, but the problem is we probably want Lavia money - which I think is correct as he's an established PL player unlike Gibbs-White when they got him.

Robyn Cowan to me is just average as a commentator, fairly inoffensive. But whoever was co-commentator last night was complete rubbish, half the time they were just describing what had just happened and the other half just spouting gushing compliments about the England players, couldn't offer even restrained criticism.

She's clearly technically a level above most of the women, probably from playing with her brother and boys for so long when younger, but she does also seem to drift worryingly at a lot of points and seems a bit casual in possession. But then she also does some top drawer stuff, I remember one volleyed goal that any player male or female would've been proud of.

I reckon last year's defensive 'philosophy' was definitely just do whatever you feel like, including making quarter-arsed attempts to stop someone walking past you and shooting aka Small Willy style...

I thought the pens were bad but it seems quite a few shootouts down the years have ended at 1-1 after 5! https://www.rsssf.org/miscellaneous/penalties.html

Makes you wonder what the f*** they were told last year then?! Don't cross it or shoot?!?! 🤯

Wonder if the 1st half / 2nd half was a shot across the bows to the older squad members basically saying you lot need to shape up.

That's most of my 'players I don't want to see play for Saints again from last season' list, maybe Still started with the shite team?

What else is he going to say though, 'he's complete crap and we're crossing our fingers someone's dumb enough to take him off our hands'? That'll really help the sales team!

Like most of us, I'd love our top players to stay but I'm pessimistic about it. The reason it's taking a while is that they won't want to join another struggling team (not could they afford them!), but the teams in the middle of the Prem / upper end of European leagues who are realistic targets both ways are still being raided by the big guns, so the offers won't come in till that's all settled down.

Exactly how I feel. And what about accountability? As captain, getting sent off twice, leaving your teammates in the shit and also being banned for 9 games isn't the kind of behaviour I expect to see from a club captain. Not to mention all the goals we conceded by Jack playing brainless passes to people in no position to receive the ball. I'm convinced he was the 'trigger' for several other teams to press our players as they know he'll put someone in trouble with the ball.

Let's not forget that at the start of last season, some deluded muppet decided they'd rather have BBD and Fraser in the squad for that left wing position and send Edozie out on loan. So probably a bit unfair to say Edozie was considered 'not good enough' for the PL....

If you're going with just Still, surely it has to be...

He mainly plays 4-2-3-1 or one of the variations on it according to most sources - but more importantly he's adaptable and uses whatever formation fits the players he's had. Would be nice to have a manager who's pragmatic rather than a system obsessive...

By comparison, Birmingham spent over £15 million for Jay Stansfield last season after 13 goals in 37 apps in the Championship...