SNSUN

We've been linked with Norwich's Maddison, Bristol City's Reid and Fulham's Sessegnon and Fredericks so i wouldn't exactly say we're not actively looking...

My predos and I'm being overly positive after yesterday... Southampton v Liverpool - we'll get beat but in an entertaining free scoring game - 4-2 loss Burnley v Southampton - tight cagey affair against a well set up side - 1-1 Southampton v Stoke City - Another must win game. We will do just enough. - 2-1 Win Newcastle United v Southampton - Coming off the back of a decent result, the wind will be in our sails - 2-0 win Swansea City v Southampton - A two game winning streak for Saints? What madness is this! Pellegrino to panic and out a strange side out that only gets us a draw - 1-1 West Ham United v Southampton - West Ham will be up for this at home, and surely we can't get points from 5 fixtures in a row... can we? - 2-0 loss Arsenal v Southampton - Attacking Arsenal too much for us - 3-0 loss Southampton v Chelsea - Potentially could get a point here but I've overly optimistic so far given who our manager is, so we'll lose - 1-0 loss Leicester City v Southampton - We'll stop the 3 game run of losses with a hard fought draw. - 0-0 Southampton v AFC Bournemouth - Lovely Bournemouth effectively save us from relegation by rolling over - 3-1 win. Everton v Southampton - A final point to round off a poor season but with safety secured. 1-1. Southampton v Manchester City - Will be well on the beach but this will still be a defeat as they 'Harlem Globetrotter' our arses. - 3-1 loss. Ok, it's a bit Jekyll and Hyde but so has our season been. 13 points buys us safety and a lofty finish of 14th. Part of me still thinks we're going down under Pellegrino but he chose the right team yesterday and it paid off. We can only hope that continues. The Liverpool game is a free hit, there are 5 six-pointers and we need to win at least three of them IMO and nick the odd point from others.

He read my post! I'm the manager! OK JWP for Gabbiadini aside, but this is the first team that I've wanted to see for weeks. So on one hand, fair okay to Pellegrino for picking an attacking line up, but on the other hand, it should have been done weeks ago. At least he's given us a chance of winning today, which is more than we can hope for...

Just a little something for a debate: So the complete ineptitude of Pellegrino's continued reign (and a quiet night at work) was making me wonder whether a manager's playing position in their playing days made a difference to their managerial selves. This is the list of Saints managers since Ted Bates, bunched up into their playing day positions. (According to the gospel of Wikipedia) Goalkeeper: Adkins Defender: Chris Nicholl Ian Branfoot Dave Merrington Dave Jones George Burley Gorman + Dodd Pearson Poortvliet Wotte Pochettino Koeman (but let's be honest, he was more attacking than some strikers!) Midfield: Ball Souness Hoddle Gray Strachan Wigley Redknapp Bassett and Wise Pardew Wilkins Puel (though a defensive midfielder) Striker: None Hardly played football/went straight into coaching: McMenemy I think it's pretty interesting that we've never had a striker as a manager. We've had some goalscoring midfielders, Hoddle, Souness, Strachan, Ball and a goalscoring defender in Koeman, but that's about it. Do strikers just not make good managers? Ferguson was a striker and Klopp was a striker to name but two successful managers. What do you make of this? Or does playing position not come into how good a manager is?

Yes a loss would probably get rid of the manager, not that I'd put it past our board to stick by him, but for me, I really want to see a win against WBA. Even to the point that it buys Pellegrino time. Maybe we can lose 10-0 against Liverpool next week to get rid of him, but for this game I really want us to win. This is the round of fixtures where we could potentially get cut adrift, and we're running out of games. Certainly "winnable" games, if you can call ANY fixture winnable this season... It's hard to know what our best first team is because the manager himself doesn't have a clue, but I'd like to see an attacking as hell team against the Baggies, really go at them - if we're going down (which IMO we are under Pellegrino) at least we can do it fighting. I'd be playing something like: -----------------------McCarthy------------------------- Cedric----Stephens-------Hoedt-----------Bertrand--- ----------------Lemina-----Romeu---------------------- ----Gabbiadini--------Boufal-------------Tadic--------- ---------------------Carrillo----------------------------- SUBS: Forster, Yoshida, McQueen/Pied, Hojbjerg, JWP, Sims, Long. Sacrificing Davis for the more attacking Sims on the bench as Redmond seems to be massively out of favour. That, to me, looks like a good team. Which is why Pellegrino won't pick it. 4 points from the Brighton and WBA games was the very minimum we needed for survival IMO, although when I initially said that I'd had us winning the home game. That makes this match MASSIVE. This is probably the biggest game we've faced in years. Sturridge hattrick then...

My answer goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. REED OUT. Keeping faith in a manager that's clearly out of his depth, addressing our goalscoring issues with a low-scoring striker (though I hope for his sake he does well in Saints colours), selling our best centre back without replacement, and failing to bring in anyone else in our most important transfer window in years. I don't think our transfer business has been that bad over the last couple of years, I blame Pellegrino first and foremost for the crap league position we find ourselves in, but Reed needs to go for sticking by him, and procrastinating in the transfer market. We are being relegated this season, it will take a massive upturn in form, almost European qualification form, to keep us up now (Something a new manager could achieve but our current manager won't). Let's start next season with a clean slate so we can push straight back for promotion.

2/10. I've just woken up after sleeping after a night shift and I'm not in the littlest bit surprised that we've had no incomings and the Promes deal is seemingly dead, leaving us scrabbling around for someone half decent who might actually want to join us. (Which will be nobody, if we do I'll name my first born after them!) Reed and Krueger et al will make out like it's a successful window because we broke our transfer record signing a striker to score the goals we've been missing all season, while bathing in a pile of cash they got for VVD. Utter ****ing ****. You can see for most of the season we've been heading for the drop, our manager is terrible, he doesn't know what our strongest team is, he's left talent on the bench for workhorses, makes subs too late, goes ultra defensive after going a goal up, and now it seems he's brought in a striker almost nobody thinks Is very good, and overlooked areas we really need strengthening in. It's demoralising being a Saints fan right now, not just because we're in a relegation battle, but because we can all see WHY we're in a relegation battle without anything being done to correct it, whilst the board are seemingly blind to it. Pellegrino should have gone in December (or even November after losing to Burnley), a new manager should have been brought in, and players should have been signed to give that manager a chance of giving us survival. We are going down, I don't think even a win tonight and against WBA will be enough judging our fixtures later in the season. It will not make pleasant viewing watching bigger teams pick and mix our better players. I really hope a miracle will happen and we stay up, but I can't see it.

We're struggled to score goals all season, signed a striker, and yet it doesn't feel like we've done nearly enough. We're in a relegation battle, we're second bottom, we've kept faith in a manager who for the most part has looked out of his depth all season, and we've signed one striker seemingly nobody thinks is good enough for our transfer record, whilst losing our best centre back in the process for a world-record fee without seemingly being willing to replace him. Not to mention loaning out a left back only to find ourselves short changed in that position. (But that's just bad luck:rolleyes:) We've not even been linked with many players recently . There was a brief link to Jullien, Fredericks and Walker-Peters, and the obvious putting-all-our-eggs-in-one-basket attempt at signing Promes, (which doesn't look like it will happen) but little else. I'm not holding my breath for deadline day, the Promes signing would at least instil a bit of faith and spirit in the fans though, so I really hope we can pull that one off. I don't like a match day on deadline day - it feels like a distraction!

Are we improving? So far this month we have been beaten by Palace, thrown away three points against Watford because our manager went defensive at 2-0 up, scraped through two cup ties in poor performances, and drawn at home against Spurs, perhaps the only reason you could say we're improving, but as we've seen this season we've drawn against big boys before and wasted the next game. We've not won a league game since Everton in November, and even they were in dire straits. I genuinely struggle to see much of an improvement under this manager and I fear for relegation. I really hope we can beat both Brighton and West Brom but even then we're far from safe, and I fear it just prolongs the inevitable. Not that I can see it happening... Unfortunately if we do get round to sacking our manager this season, it will be far too late.

The second time I'd seen Josh Sims play and he'd impressed me on both occasions. Great run and pass, (Something Redmond had failed to do in the 80 minutes previous...) and actually a decent touch and finish from Long. Always good to get one over on the Scousers.

This for me too, but with Boufal in for JWP and Tadic definitely rested for Sims or Hesketh. While I acknowledge and understand the sentiment about playing a strong team so they can gel, for me the FA Cup is an unnecessary distraction this season when we’re in a relegation battle. I’d rather rest the better players so they can avoid cards and injuries. I don’t mean throw the game and not look to win, the team above could still beat Watford on their day, just resting JWP, Tadic, Hojbjerg, Cedric, Bertrand, Hoedt and Romeu.

I got 19-1 in early November and laid just under £20 as a security bet. I never thought we'd be in the relegation zone in late January. I'm not cashing that out, my first born is due in June and as gutted as I'd be about Saints relegation, that money would come in handy! The Brighton game is massive for our season. IMO win and the confidence from the previous two games, and we could go on a run, however I still have us as being relegated - those last few fixtures could be our downfall. Hope I'm wrong.

A couple of sites/bookies had us linked with Bristol City's Bobby Reid at the start of the window. 14 goals this season, 24 years old. I wonder if this will gain legs now they're out of the league cup... Day 24 and still no signings. If we're sticking with Pellegrino, which is asking for trouble IMO, then he needs to be backed with signings in order for him to stand a shred of a chance. I can't believe we haven't brought anyone in yet. Getting the most interest for our £75 million from the bank! It'd be good for the fans to be able to applaud a new signing at St Mary's on Saturday.

Safety first for me - I hate Liverpool more than any other team but the sooner the relegation spots get filled up the better. I'm not going to say I want Liverpool to win tonight, more that I want Swansea to lose. (Nothing against Swansea of course!) If Swansea do win then what's done is done, then I can laugh about Liverpool's crapness. A draw would be OK too I suppose.

If we play like that against Brighton, and take our chances, we will win, and this point becomes even more important. We Need new signings though as we should have taken our chances and you can see how thin on the ground we are, especially up top. Need to strengthen the backbone: CB, AM, Str, but even just a striker would do. Good game. Decent point but only if we beat Brighton. Thought Tadic and Romeu had good games. FA Cup is a free game, 2 weeks to get new players in and settled. Make it so Reed.

Yep. It'll be gutting watching the team get ripped apart in the summer following relegation. This is one reason why I've turned against our manager more quickly than any since I supported Saints - we have a decent team, top 10 easy, but we're bang out of confidence due to odd tactics, players getting dropped after good performances, odd subs that usually appear too late, and constant rotation with players having no time to gel. We need a manager to come in, pick the best XI available and simply play them together as much as possible. Annoyingly we're looking good in attack this game, but the defence looks like it's crapping itself every time the ball goes near Kane. The second half will make for uncomfortable viewing, whatever happens!

I said that, got to take those chances. And Lemina's tame shot just now. We're Playing well but you know a Spurs goal next and we'll capitulate. Need to get our noses back in front. Attack is the best form of defence.

I said it on another thread earlier in the week - it's irrelevant who we appoint after sacking Pellegrino - the simple act of sacking him should be enough to kick the team up the arse.

The only way we will stay up is by 3 teams being crapper than us, and this season there is a lot of crapness in the Premier League. The only problem is nobody is SO crap that they're being cut adrift. It's ironic that for all the talk of relegation (and yes I still think we will be a third of the teams to go down unless the regime changes), a couple of wins, even a couple of crappy 1-0 back-to-the-wall-lucky-as-hell-other-team-on-an-off-day consecutive wins would see us up there in mid-table. It's hard to see that happening though! After throwing away the 2-0 against Watford, I'm now in the Dalek camp of taking 17th this season and building anew for next season. Any better than that would now be a remarkable achievement.

Looking for reasonable bets for this game to win a bit of money. Have settled on 5/2 odds for Spurs to score 3 or more goals. I think I'm in with a shout there! Quite simply if Spurs score first, then it's game over. We need to score first and then hope Pellegrino's patented "defend the lead" style holds out. I can't see it happening. 3-1 Spurs, and yes I would take a point now if it was offered. (I used to be so positive. Damn this season. Damn it to hell!)

The sacking alone will do the team good, his successor is irrelevant.

You can still get 11/2 on Saints getting relegated. I already have a bet on from earlier in the season as insurance, but that's still decent bearing in mind the fixtures we have left...

The Mickey Evans/ Marian Pahars equivalent signing that helps keep us up this season. He gets it. Hopefully. Currently slim pickings. (Not the Blazing Saddles actor.) Austin I guess.

Bingo. My reasons for wanting Pellegrino out more than any. Workhorses over talent. I'm all for rotation, but 25 games into the season and I still don't think he knows what his strongest team is.

Theo will tear up the Championship fo' sho'.