Midfield_General

Beat West Ham 4-0 at the Dell on opening day 1988 too. Paul Rideout’s debut and he scored two.

Threw away a really winnable opening game by getting it totally tactically wrong in the first half. Scienza is the best left winger in the league. Why on earth would you move him out of that position, especially to accommodate a very unknown quantity so far in Dobbin? Then a series of stupid individual errors, Stephens reverting to type and a lovely missed sitter at the end to top it off. A totally self-inflicted defeat against a bang average side with a shit keeper who we barely tested. Really frustrating.

Well, that was a wake-up call. Out-pressed, out-muscled, a defensive shambles and playing two up top has left us short in midfield. The shape is all wrong. Since when do we play 4-4-2 with Leo as second striker? Have we done it in pre-season? Seems a very odd choice. Add in two awful individual defensive errors and Stephens looking like he hasn't realised he's playing in a football match and it's a pretty sobering way to start a season where we absolutely need to get off to a flyer.

So much to like and so much to learn from if they show some humility

I think it’s fair to say they haven’t exactly taken to Macca either. So weird for Martin to sign him and make him first choice when he knows so well that he has literally none of the attributes that he needs for his system. https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/139673-alex-mccarthy-joins-on-deal-to-2028/page/7/#comments

“We were nowhere near good enough with the ball” Maybe because you’re asking third division centre halves to spray passes like prime Beckenbauer and they obviously aren’t good enough to do it you absolute buffoon

Cup tied. Brooks too.

Also has the physical presence of a puff of scented pink mist

They’ve just found out the designer shopping outlet doesn’t open until 2053

A historic moment as the first visitors arrive at St Mary’s Monkey Chicken Petting Zoo Parkway

A Stu Armstrong type who can carry the ball and get us up the pitch would be nice

Larin's so good at it, hopefully he can help Mubama develop in this area if so

Presumably Le God was an influence

Quite excited by this signing. Looks to have all the attributes, been scoring in pre-season, looks like he'll suit the way we play, should have a point to prove, and Man City rate him enough that they want him back. That'll do for me. Hope he gets some minutes on Sunday. (And it sounds from that interview like his name's pronounced 'divine', so he should fit in well as a Saint.)

Average cost: £15m per km for the most basic system such as those built in developing nations. On top of the hundreds of millions any development would already need. I hope someone buys BBD soon, it sounds like Dragan's going to need the money.

The spectacular waterfront development will end up being a Bella Italia and an All Bar One and they'll both close after a year because people only ever went to them every other Saturday afternoon or Tuesday nights from 6-7.45pm. (And a thriving monkey petting zoo obvs)

Not really in this instance, because those plans as published don’t include the regeneration of most of the rest of the industrial estates that surround the rest of the stadium, and a load of shitty industrial estates with a strip of development down the water on one side still leaves you with a load of shitty industrial estates. Town Quay was in a nicer part of town, closer to the city centre and had a working passenger ferry terminal that naturally attracted volumes of people before and after they travelled and could also ship people straight into the development from the waterside and the Isle of Wight, and it still failed. To buy the land and do the scale of redevelopment that would actually make the St Mary’s area worth travelling to from town for anyone not just going there for the football on a match day would take hundreds and hundreds of millions and about 25 years. As a comparison, the 67 acre King’s Cross development and regeneration in London took 20 years, cost £3 billion and wasn’t being managed by divs like Southampton City Council.

True

How did Downs get on in the Eintracht Braunschweig friendly? He scored, so presumably he must have done something, even if it was against poor opposition. Can anyone who saw it say whether he looked like he'd actually improved at all?

There's no way we'll get rid of all three of BBD, Downs and Archer. Ideal scenario for me is that we punt BBD and Downs* and keep Archer. Then the CF pecking / rotation order for the lone striker in a 4-2-3-1 goes: Larin as first choice, Mubama as his replacement off the bench or rotated, then Archer as the back-up reserve if one of them gets injured. Then if all else fails Dobbin or Azaz step in as 4th choice false nine, but that seems pretty unlikely. Archer's not a world beater but he's about as good as you can reasonably expect to get for 3rd choice CF at Championship level. Also, if Mubama is another unit, Archer as an option preferring to play more off the shoulder does (in theory at least) let us mix it up a bit if plan A's not working. He proved last season he can do a job on the left as well if absolutely necessary, so all in all he's a decent lower level squad option. For the sake of £3m or whatever they were asking for Archer, it seems a no brainer to keep him ahead of BBD or Downs who both look like they would contribute basically nothing in any position. Archer at least might do something. (*Easier said than done, obviously)

I wonder if Charles joining Fulham makes Harrison Reed surplus to requirements. Only played a few games for them last season and must be way down the pecking order now.

45,001

Do you think we'd regularly fill a stadium with a minimum capacity of 45,000?

Get half-term Phil on it and who knows, it could be as much of a success as the city’s last waterfront commercial, leisure and entertainment hotspot, Town Quay. Except even further away from town and in the middle of a dilapidated industrial estate. It can’t fail!

I hope Parsons is given a key role in this project, then it will definitely be a huge success. You need to get your best men on these things.