Matthew Le God

This is all kinds of crazy. Saints would have significantly more money if they stay up and the value of the club as an asset wouldn't plummet. The 'parachute money' is just a lot less TV money than we would get if we stayed up.

Rafa Benitez managing Saints = fighting for upper mid table Rafa Benitez managing Newcastle = reasonable chance of staying up Mauricio Pellegrino managing Saints = struggling to stay up Mauricio Pellegrino managing Newcastle = relegated

Because it is a possibility that is overlooked. It may well not be true, but it is jumping to conclusions to think it is solely down to Krueger and/or Reed. Then why hasn't Gao acted and sacked him? No idea, but do we know that it isn't the case?

How do you both know for certain Gao hasn't vetoed a sacking of Pellegrino? If that is the case (and I'm not saying it definitely is) then it would be out of Reed & Krueger's hands.

To say it once in a thread is perhaps understandable, to repeat it multiple times throughout every match thread warrants a broken record comparison.

All from this thread...

I'd prefer Puel over Pellegrino aswell, but they were still right to sack Puel. He should have done a better job than he did, the problem was they replaced Puel with the wrong man.

They are now...

No

I think he may possibly have just been left out of the match-day 18 at the weekend for the Stoke game. We have more than 18 players, so some have to miss out each week even if they are deemed fit enough to play.

I'll ask again... based on what evidence? A feeling you've plucked from mid air?

And as I've already pointed out to you... Newcastle have the 18th worst home record this season in the Premier League! So Newcastle's home atmosphere isn't helping them get home points from a significant sample of 14 out of 19 home games!

What does that have to do with the question I asked you? (btw St James Park is in Exeter... not Newcastle )

The team he listed is intended to be a three centre back system, how can Bertrand be both a centre back and a wing back at the same time?

He is a nasty piece of work, but to label him a sh!te footballer is wrong. He is a very creative and incisive passer of the ball and it would be good for us to not have him play at the weekend.

If he wins the cup and keeps us up he'd still deserve the sack. He has overseen an absolute mess of a 29 game league campaign so far. To win the cup he'd have beaten... Fulham, Watford, West Brom, Wigan and probably 2 of Spurs, Man Utd & Chelsea. One League 1 team, one Championship team, two not so great PL teams and two very good Premier League teams. Winning our second major trophy would be great of course, but a 6 game cup run isn't enough to patch over the disastrous bread & butter of the league campaign. It is a real struggle to see any redeeming features from how Pellegrino has set Saints up this season. If he remains in charge next season it is hard to see him having a better league season as he is out of his depth.

What makes you think I said anything remotely approaching that in my post? I'd obviously prefer that not to be the case and had we been playing at St Mary's we would have VAR for the quarter final.

That is flawed because VAR is not a new rule... it is a tool that means existing rules are more likely to be applied. Saints and Wigan have no advantage over each other and are playing under the exact same rules of the sport as the other 3 quarter finals.

Sims and Boufal as wingbacks is asking for disaster.

Alex Crook is completely clueless as to the working of any professional club, he has shown now for years that he lacks contacts within clubs. I asked him to link to an article of his that wasn't predated by someone else and came true and he struggled badly. He is a 'copy and paste journalist'...

Playing Devil's advocate... Hull the day before Silva - 3 points from safety Hull at the end of season - 6 points from safety

How about judge a manager on his merits and ability rather than rule the majority of the world population out for not being British?

Of course it has potential flaws as it is hard to give statistics for how good the resulting flick on was. But I've seen Saints fans claim he wins 'nothing in the air'... which is clearly nonsense. I'm Tyler Durden!

Who?

What evidence do you have to support that? 18th for home record after 14 out of 19 home games is a pretty damning statistic!