Midfield_General

Manning LWB surely in a 5-3-2 / 3-5-2 Archer Armstrong Fernandes Downes Lallana Manning KWP Stephens Bednarek THB Ramsdale

Or a return to the revolutionary horseshoe attack with a centre forward on each wing 🤞

Manning and Stephens starting and Dibling dropped. Righto.

Prediction - we'll come flying out of the traps, catch them cold, play some decent stuff and go in at half-time 1-0 or 2-0 up and looking comfortable. They'll change something at half-time, we won't react to it, it'll go to 1-2 and we'll start to wobble. We'll make substitutions that make us worse, it'll go to 2-2. We'll go to panic stations, fall to bits completely and either hang on for a desperate point or lose it in the 5th minute of injury time. Probably by not marking properly for a corner.

A.k.a. 'The Carabou Cafu' (c) someone else on here

I take it all back - I didn't realise you get an orange juice and lemonade and get to see some green paint. £300 well spent!

Just back from the game. Match report: At home, with a strong side out, playing the reserves of an awful side currently 19th in the Championship, we were very lucky not to lose, even after going 2-0 up. Even with 78% possession we were one desperate goal-line clearance away from a collapse and a humiliation. We play the absolute definition of propaganda football. Even against kids and dross we can't defend for shit, and we've coached some previously decent looking players into looking completely and utterly lost. We're shit, we're going to lose against Everton and Wolves, and we are absolutely doomed. I think that just about covers it. Night all.

Hard to articulate just how bad it is to concede against a side as poor as this tbh. Breathtaking.

See, I personally haven't got to that point yet. But then I'm just about to leave for St Mary's, so ask me again in about four hours.

Regardless of what any of us might want, and regardless of results, I don't think Martin is going anywhere until there's a credible option sounded out and lined up to replace him. And given that none of the current obvious names seem to be remotely interested, it doesn't sound like we're anywhere near that. So until a new name comes onto the scene who might be an improvement and who might actually want it, I think we're stuck in limbo. Unless it gets so bad that they just panic and take a punt on someone who'd basically take anything, like Lampard, and then we might as well all pack up and go home.

The Champ is littered with clubs who have got stuck down there though. Luton were in the Prem last year and by this point last season they had 5 times the number of points we've currently got. After 12 games back in the Championship they are currently in the relegation zone. Leeds probably thought they'd stroll back up. Sheffield United, West Brom, Watford, Norwich, Middlesbrough, Stoke - all comparable clubs to us, all had decent stints in the Prem, now having to scrap it out to try and get into the play-offs. Most of them will fail. This idea that it's not that big a deal to get relegated because we'll just get promoted again is madness. The Championship is a horrible league to get out of, and some might say we were bloody lucky to do it last time. There are absolutely no guarantees we'd do it again at the first time of asking, or indeed at all, especially when our recruitment is so hit-and-miss. Once you're down there, it can be permanent.

Bellen d'or more like

You make a point of mentioning Lego in pretty much every single post. So someone definitely seems to have a fetish, but I don't think it's Wilcox. No shame in that, this is a safe space.

Both of those could be added to the list too. Speedie had scored a reasonable number of goals everywhere he’d been before he got to us, including 23 in the top flight the previous season at Blackburn before being basically forced to join us against his will as part of the deal they agreed to get Shearer. Didn’t want to come, joined a struggling team under a poor manager and was a fairly nasty piece of work by all accounts who just caused problems because he didn’t want to be here. Only ever played ten games, put the nut on someone (Terry Hurlock?) on a team-building away day I think, was sent out on loan and that was that. Carried on scoring a few more later in his career at Leicester. Dixon I don’t remember much about but he’d been a legend at Chelsea for the previous 10 years, scoring 147 goals in 335 appearances. I think he had injury problems when he joined as I hardly remember him playing? Must have recovered though as he went on to score 19 in 75 for Luton and 9 in 31 for Millwall after he left so he wasn’t finished by any means when he left us.

Could give Rachel a run-out at left back And of course Cat in goal

It’s not that I was querying, it was the bit about the Stoke game being a bigger game than Everton or Wolves.

Martin: "We'll play the strongest team we have available. I think it's the most important game we've had this season." “Definitely won't be 11 changes. There will be some, I think, such is the nature of it and we have two big games after that. But this is the most important one, so we'll play the team that we feel is the most ready to win.” https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/martin-well-play-the-strongest-team-available I don't want to rag on him for absolutely everything, but in what world is an EFL Cup last 16 game against Stoke's reserves more important than the Everton and Wolves games?

£30m each for Stephens and Smallbone and I’d reluctantly let them go

ETH has just been sacked. HCDAJFU?

I think it’s a combination of things: 1. He only knows how to coach one system, so he doesn’t have any choice 2. He is stubborn with it, so probably wouldn’t change it even if he could because he doesn’t like to be seen to be bending to pressure from others 3. He wants a CV that shows that all his teams have the right possession-based stats in the right places, so that when the time comes it will impress teams bigger than us who want to play possession-based. So that regardless of whether he’s been sacked for the approach not translating into results with little old Saints, he can point at those stats at the next interview and say ‘See, if I can get a limited group like them to do it, imagine how effective it would be at a club like yours with more money for better players to implement it’. Football’s such a mental business that I have a feeling it will work too. It’s worked three times so far, as he’s moved upwards each time. (MK Dons > Swansea > Saints). I could see a decent-ish foreign team with European aspirations going for it. I absolutely agree that it’s all about him though. He literally said as much in his post-match interview after City. ‘I don’t want to stand and watch a style I don’t believe in’. That’s all about putting what he wants over what’s best for the club (which at this stage is points at all costs). It’s the definition of a vanity project.

Can you cunts carry on arguing please, it’s way more entertaining than the football’s been cheers x

Add in KWP, Sugawara, Downes and Ramsdale and I still maintain that there is enough quality in that core to compete. I think we’re weak at centre half generally but if that core gets picked every week, properly coached and managed there is enough ability there to pick up some points against the weaker sides. It’s how those resources are being deployed that’s the problem. But then we know that.

He can fuck off 'n all. Patronising twat.

Reminds me of that bit from I, Partridge when he's talking about whether it bothers him when people shout A-Ha at him in the street. "I don't mind. It's fine. It doesn't bother me at all. Honestly, I couldn't give a fucking shit."

In another season - one where we're doing alright - that would feel like a pretty decent result. Didn't fold after going a goal down early, defended pretty well (aside from the goal which was poor), carved out one or two chances and hit the bar, rattled them a little bit in the last 10 minutes, and by keeping it to 1-0 stayed in with a puncher's chance right to the end. There are plenty of teams who'd take a one goal defeat from City away if it was offered. When you're where we are though, unfortunately it doesn't really mean much. Even if you go in fearing the worst and expecting a drubbing that doesn't come, a respectable defeat is still just another defeat and another week with no more points on the board. Honestly, they didn't really need to get out of second gear and regardless of how many pretty little little triangles we managed in meaningless areas, they just pinned us back or held us at arm's length to get the three points without expending too much energy. If it felt like the positives from that respectable defeat were something that we'd learn from and build on, then maybe it would feel more significant. But unless we use this to work towards a settled team, and get wins from Everton and/or Wolves, it doesn't mean anything. I want to take some encouragement from it, but really all I feel is relief that that fixture is out of the way and we haven't been pumped by 6 or 7, which I thought was on the cards when they scored from their first attack of the match.