westmidlandsaint

Great post @Francis1947. I totally get where you are coming from too. I have never gone into that start of a game wanting a defeat but there have been times during games (especially under Nathan Jones) where the game has gone and I've thought maybe if we conceded another 3 or 4 the manager surely wouldn't survive this!! I was close to that point Monday. I do believe the 2nd half masked the damage to a certain degree. Martin baffles me, I want to like him and obviously want him to do well and i'll always thank him for giving me Wembley experience with my son and seeing the pure joy on his face at full-time. However, Mondays team was a step too far. Starting with no strikers, you're not Pep and we're not City/Barcelona and don't have the quality of players who can interchange positions like that for it to be able to work. 5 strikers on the bench because "he wanted to be aggressive and attacking with his subs" pointless when you're 3-0 down. I manage my sons U15's if I turned up on a Sunday morning and said "we're playing without strikers today lads" I would get all sorts of flack from parents and players. He seems to have a good relationship with the players, thats certainly the narrative of the clubs media department but at the same time they dont seem to be playing for him at the moment, more like rolling over and dying on monday. As i said on another thread if he's not willing to change his philosophies he's got to go, because there's only one way we'll be heading,. Do I trust the board to make the right replacement decision......i dont think i do

I do actually quite like RM but I remember saying to my son last year that if we do get promoted and we continue to play the way we do with no plan we'll be slaughtered in the Prem. I was thinking this would be against the likes of City, Arsenal & Liverpool not bloody Bournemouth. The insistence of playing one way and not learning our lesson, last night teams selection of playing without strikers!! does he think he's Pep? this has annoyed me now to the point I think if we want a slim chance of staying up we need to change now. I'm not sure i trust the board to make the right call in terms of replacement which is another matter.

So 2 days ago people were calling the club out for signing an injury prone keeper and mocking our medicals, now Bijlow has failed his medical people are calling the club out for not signing him 🤔

But we also don't know he's "EPL Quality" because he's never played that level. It would have made me nervous as hell to pay £20m+ for him. £25m rising to £30m is a big risk. Not saying he isn't "EPL Quality" just that we don't know..

SSN reporting we are "in big" for Ramsdale on loan

Purple Gloves - Purple colours worn by Roman Emperors = Roma + Goalie Gloves = Goalkeeper from Roma = Rui Patricio Is this how this thing works?

That's interesting living in the west midlands all the Baggies fans I know were banging on about him for most of the season. Fickle now he might be going. Not sure he's what we need tho!

I see The Sun has us linked to Ramsdale. Shame it's the sun as probably just lazy journalism

Apparently the goalkeeper shirt is the 4th version - first 3 rejected by the league.

I received a text earlier saying that "1-0 to the Saints Foundation, out to stifle West Brom long throw even before the game"

Congratulations Nathan Tella. And to think he could have gone back to Burnley!!

Damn i thought I was going to get kudos for being the first in the know but looking back @CB Fry beat me by 5 hours. At least my source didnt leave me with egg on on my face

As mentioned a while ago I'd heard it was Puma and I'm still hearing it is going to be Puma from my source who seems fairly confident.

No it'll be Puma

I too was told the Hummel contract looked likely was being terminated a year early. I was told that Puma were front runners but that was a little while ago (before Birmingham game) my source however did say it wasn't a done deal so things may have changed I haven't spoken to him since.

I'd heard from within the club that this is Hummels last season and it was looking likely that Puma would be replacing Hummel

I get that a new player might get injured too, however likelihood is a new player would have a 3, 4 or 5 year contract so they'll still play for the club again where-as Adams wouldn't. There would (hopefully) be more to come and still a potential re-sale value. I'm not saying that I believe this is what we should be doing, just sharing a different angle.

Whoever thought Che Adams leaving could be so divisive. Its got me torn I must admit. I dont mind Che he's not produced consistently over his time with us but I certainly do think he'll get goals in the Championship. However, if he won't sign a new contract then I can understand the club cashing in. Yes, I get that the £15m won't be anything near the money we could get if he fires us back to the Prem, on the other-hand he may do his ACL next week be out for the season make no further contribution and walk-away for free next summer and the club miss out on £15m. Maybe thats a gamble the club aren't willing to take.

Bit random but I was talking about tomorrows game with a Norwich supporting friend tonight who does a lot of work with the Norwich foundation. I mentioned a potential incoming from Swansea he has a few links at other clubs including Swansea so he said he'd ask if his Swansea contact had heard anything. His contact at Swansea says he's 99% sure the player coming our way is Piroe not Grimes. Not sure how in the know the person is or isn't but thought I'd pass info on.

After offering £110m for Caicedo and the player looking likely to reject Liverpool when they ultimately come back and offer the £50m asking price for Lavia do you think we'll say asking price has increased? or do we think as soon as £50m is offered we'll accept?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12387155/Crystal-Palace-relegated-pair-Alex-McCarthy-Daniel-Iversen-goalkeeper-crisis-Vicente-Guaita-REFUSES-Roy-Hodgson.html McCarthy to Palace - yes please

Hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel with this result will be Martin being able to show that some of these fringe players need shipping out and he needs to be able to bring in some fresh faces

And it's been cancelled due to waterlogged pitch

https://www.thesportsbank.net/football/southampton/fc-away-kit/ Apologies if that has already been posted

This. Why play players bought in in January when you can continue playing the players that have got us in the shit in the first place. Sport Republic took a lot it flack last year (rightly so in some areas) but they did dip their hands in their pockets and as much as some are saying the signings were shit were they all really given a chance?