Toussaint

I know it’s a joke, but what else can he say, other than clichés and platitudes ? He knows more than we do how bad we are top to bottom. He has a responsibility to comment after matches, he can hardly call the manager, his team mates and the club hierarchy out can he? I can’t see him staying much longer, and before anyone says it, he hasn’t suddenly turned crap, his goals kept us up last season, this season he has an impossible task with the dross around him and Ralph losing the plot.

It’s a hard question, keeping it Saintsy probably means I’ve never heard of them or am only vaguely aware of them. On that basis I’ll take whatever the current versions of Pele and Mane are, plus the current version of David Armstrong, ie a tough “box to box” driving midfielder. They must be around, we just need to abandon the principle that we need to by players whose values are potentially going to increase, we may need to go old and hungry.

Why?

Lyanco, but he won’t play much unless he establishes himself in a Romeu role. Stu, agreed, but seems to be out of favour, have a feeling he may leave. CC if he played regularly. No standouts now Romeu that has sadly gone.

Regardless of that it’s still a big cash cow.

That’s ultimately what will work, especially in corporate.

Maybe they are? It’s a genuine concern of mine that a parachute payment maybe a more attractive proposition than a big January spend, which may still result in being relegated. I still have no idea what SR are all about.

To be fair the atmosphere only turned when Bazunu threw one in his own net, again. Although I do agree, the toxicity will make it impossible at home. If we do improve, it will be away from home, where the support is always much better.

100% he is Rasmus’s proxy manager, no established manager would come here under those terms.

Is he shite or just thinking wtf have I done coming here? I don’t think he is shite, at least not with regard to ability, maybe attitude?

Initially I though the World Cup break was a godsend, but in reality it went the other way, all he saw was who shone in training and low key friendlies, he didn’t know what we do, now he does. The break was completely mismanaged, as has been everything else.

I’d have been happy with Dyche, but my suspicion is that any manager we hired would be a proxy manager for Rasmus Hipster-son, Dyche wouldn’t have worn that, nor would any other self respecting top tier manager, which is probably why we went the route we did.

I think itk football people would see past JWP’s current malaise.

Those, yes, but also JWP, people have very short memories with regard to his contributions over the last few seasons and to me, what we are seeing now, is the manifestation of a very unhappy player.

Just to bring the mood down a bit, has anyone considered some of our better players may leave in January? They can’t be enjoying this anymore than we are, some will have aspirations to move onto better things better Including international selections etc which will be seriously hampered by our current situation and seriously threatened if / when we are relegated.

Do SR actually care if we go down? Maybe the lure of the parachute payment is more attractive than the risk of attempting to spend our way out of trouble?

I don’t know, it’s all clouded with emotion and blind optimism. Rationality goes out of the window when supporting your team is a life long passion, possibly even more so if it’s your hometown club. I gave it 8, because I probably hoped it was an eight. seems ridiculous in hindsight.

We’ll agree to differ on that one.

Pretty sure it was his role to find a buyer.

There would more justification for a Semmens out thread, he is totally responsible for the position we find ourselves in, he has presided over this whole decline. Moneyball is on him, sports republic is on him, the transfer window debacle is on him I could go on, and on, but I don’t want this to taint any more of my Christmas break.

I firmly believe so.

I don’t know if you get to see him in the flesh? He’s an extremely lazy git in my opinion with average talent. I can see why people may think he has something, but having watched him closely I have no time for him.

It was only a reference to the 20 years ago part of the original post. Just checked out the 98 squad, we had some match winners and characters in that squad… MLT, Beatts, Claus, Monkou, Mardsen, Dodd, and so on… I don’t believe we have the comparable match winners and strong characters in this bunch. I’m hoping between NJ and the transfer window that changes.

16

I don't knock your positivity, but in those "great escape seasons" we had game changing players and we had players with character. This is the worst all round Saints team i can recall. See below for our squad 20 years ago No. Pos. Name League FA Cup League Cup Total Discipline Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals Apps Goals 1 GK Paul Jones 13+1 0 1+1 0 0 0 14+2 0 0 0 2 DF Jason Dodd 13+2 0 1+1 0 2 0 16+3 0 1 0 3 DF Wayne Bridge 34 1 4 0 2 0 40 1 6 0 4 MF Chris Marsden 30 1 6+1 1 2 1 38+1 3 11 0 5 DF Claus Lundekvam 33 0 6 0 2 0 41 0 0 0 6 DF Paul Williams 10+2 0 1 0 0 0 11+2 0 3 1 7 MF Andrei Kanchelskis 0+1 0 0 0 0+1 0 0+2 0 0 0 8 MF Matthew Oakley 28+3 0 7 2 2 0 40 2 2 0 9 FW James Beattie 35+3 23 7 1 2 0 44+3 24 6 0 10 FW Kevin Davies 1+8 1 0+4 1 0 0 1+12 2 0 0 11 DF Michael Svensson 33+1 2 7 1 2 1 42+1 4 5 1 12 MF Anders Svensson 26+7 2 6+1 2 1 0 33+8 4 3 0 13 GK Neil Moss 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 GK Antti Niemi 25 0 6 0 2 0 33 0 0 0 15 DF Francis Benali 2 0 2 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 16 MF Mark Draper 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 FW Marian Pahars 5+4 1 0 0 0+1 0 5+5 1 2 1 18 MF Rory Delap 22+2 0 3+1 0 1+1 0 26+4 0 2 0 19 DF Danny Higginbotham 3+6 0 1 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 DF Marcus Hall 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 20 MF David Prutton 9+3 0 0 0 0 0 9+3 0 2 0 MF Tahar El Khalej 0+1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 21 FW Jo Tessem 9+18 2 2+5 2 0+1 0 11+24 4 0 0 22 MF Federico Arias 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 23 MF Arron Davies 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 25 DF Garry Monk 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 26 MF Imants Bleidelis 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 27 GK Scott Bevan 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 28 GK Alan Blayney 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 MF Fabrice Fernandes 35+2 3 5+2 0 1 1 41+4 4 4 0 30 FW Scott McDonald 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 32 DF Chris Baird 1+2 0 1 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 33 DF Paul Telfer 26+6 0 6 0 1 0 33+6 0 4 0 34 FW Agustín Delgado 2+4 1 0 0 1 1 3+4 2 0 0 35 MF Cléber Chalá 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 36 FW Brett Ormerod 22+9 5 5+2 1 1 3 28+11 9 4 0