SNSUN

I'm going with radical changes in formation. Desperate times, desperate measures. McCarthy Stephens Hoedt Bertrand JWP Hojbjerg Lemina Sims Boufal Carillo Gabbiadini In a 3-3-2-2 formation offering no width at all, Bertrand in a left-centre back position and us punting it up to Carillo and hoping others feed off the scraps. Well at least I'm thinking about changing things, Pellegrino will stick to his philosophy and we will lose. Or at best draw.

Smacks of when I did Computing GCSE with Mr Williams as teacher. He was completely useless, far too nice and had no authority because he was a bit weird. (He used to clean his ears out with a finger in class and wipe the wax on his cheek.) In the end a pupil stole his keys and locked him in a cupboard in his classroom, two lessons with different age ranges came and went with him banging on the door to be let out, before someone reported it to another teacher. Then one day, a kid in my class got beaten up in front of him, suffered an asthma attack and went to hospital. That was the day the headmaster started sitting in on his lessons to maintain order. He wasn't back the following term, and I failed computing GCSE.

2 huge points dropped. Now need 6 points from next 2 games...

A draw no good today, this is our most winnable game remaining. Win or bust today. Need to see an attacking line up similar to the WBA game.

That was my first ever Saints game, the 3-1 defeat to Reading with Souness storming in the pitch at the final whistle after two sendings off. (Slater and Benali?) I remember wrapping up well but I was so pleased to finally see my team live, I don't remember the cold. The coldest I remember is the Norwich game in the JPT, we drew 2-2 last minute and won on penalties, the year we won it.

That's the most I've ever celebrated a Spurs goal!

3 points or bust. Other teams around us picking up points worries me... but this is the biggest 6 pointer we have left. Victory almost condemns them to the relegation battle until the end of the season, and puts us on a "healthy" looking 30 points heading into our next 2 league fixtures of Newcastle and West Ham away. A draw against Stoke, especially at home, simply is not good enough. A loss would be nigh on catastrophic. We need to play an attacking team and really have a go at these. I shall be spunking a whole **** load of money on Stoke getting something from this game, and i hope I'm a fool parted from my money and Saints win. My line up... McC Cedric Stephens Hoedt Bertrand Lemina Romeu Sims Tadic Gabbiadini Carrillo Subs: Forster, Bednarek, Pied, Hojbjerg, JWP, Boufal, Long. No chance though. Redmond seemed to have a decent game today from what I saw, so I think he'll be involved somehow, though if Long is expected to be back for this one I'd rather have him on the bench.

Our last two managers have done the opposite of polishing a turd. Koeman polished the turd nicely, got it mostly gold and shiny. Puel came along, started polishing it badly and some brown started to show through. Pellegrino saw that brown, thought it was chocolate and kept polishing, eventually revealing a whole heap of shyte. There's still a tiny bit of gold there, we have to hope Pellegrino stops polishing it and that little bit of gold shines through for the rest of the season. Winning is a habit, let's hope going undefeated is too. After all 11 points from 11 games would see us safe and undefeated sees us win the cup. Hypothetically.

I'm another that would include players from the modern day as fitness is key. However it's a tricky question as there are so many from the past few years I'd prefer to the current lot, so I pick our better players and fit the others in around it. In the end I sacrificed Lallana for Wanyama for some extra midfield shield. Manager: Koeman, finished higher than anyone including Pochettino. GK: McCarthy. Had we still been playing Forster I'd have been tempted to bring in someone for this position but Alex seems to be doing ok. RB: Cedric. Clyne the obvious replacement but need players elsewhere. CB: VVD. Pre-tantrum. CB: Hoedt. Again could have chosen Alderweireld or Fonte or even Lovren but need more attacking replacements. LB: Bertrand. Luke Shaw is tempting but Bertrand good enough. DM: Lemina. Class. DM: Wanyama. Beast. RW: Mané. X-Factor. AM: Boufal. Creativity. LW: Tadic. Preferably Tadic when he signed. Str: Pellé. Height, holding ball up and could score. Tempted to have Lambert...

We are more likely to achieve safety than win the cup IMO as Wigan aside, we will most likely have to beat two of the top 6 to win the cup, which I don't see us doing under Pellegrino. But it is for that reason, beating two top 6 teams to win the cup, that I choose the cup win. It'd go on record forever, and we have a decent enough set up that we can probably bounce back from relegation fairly quickly. If we get safety, I think we'll have learned from the mistakes of the last few years, sell some deadwood, sack Pellegrino, bring in a decent manager and rebuild. Surely the cluster**** of mistakes can't continue... I don't think we'll achieve either safety or the cup, though I still hold out a tiny bit of hope for both, but I choose the cup win.

We're the underdogs against Wigan so hopefully a cupset is on the cards! Seriously I watched most of the second half of that game, and the missus and I both screamed when Grigg scored. A very solid defensive performance from Wigan. I wonder whether the chairman would rather have had a replay for the money at the Etihad, but I'm sure everyone is glad they got through, and now they get to face us instead! Yes it's a banana skin, but I'd much rather be playing Wigan than City to get into the semi-final.

What a great little tool that is. I was pretty harsh with our results but we still finish 14th on 37 points which is a surprise. The order from 10th down is Watford, Bournemouth, West Ham, Huddersfield, Saints, Newcastle, Stoke, Swansea, Palace, Brighton, WBA. Palace and Brighton on 32 points and WBA on 26! If i knew 32 points was the safety mark I'd be a lot more confident! Thats not the order I'd put the teams though, I think Brighton are good enough to stay up, we're bad enough to go down, and Huddersfield will be a lot closer, or in, the relegation zone too. It does show that WBA are almost definitely ****ed, and we need the big teams to consistently beat our rivals, which hasn't been happening lately.

Need one more goal from either side to win some dosh... Still this was a free shot game and 2-0 isn’t terrible for our goal difference. It’s the next 5 games that are vitally important.

Missing chances, can’t be doing that...

West Ham winning 2-0 And Swansea score, that's the worst score for us so far. Need a Burnley equaliser now and for the Stoke game to remain a draw. Bad day otherwise...

Ideally the perfect results for today would be Draw (or Everton home win as a second choice) Draw Burnley away win (draw wouldn't be a catastrophe) Draw. Lots of draws today then! (Fingers crossed!) Definitely need the home sides (bar Everton) to avoid wins.

Scored for Fulham

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!