Midfield_General

It’s an interesting question though - No-one could argue that they weren’t successful with Brentford, and from the perspective of a club the size of Brentford/Saints they’ve had perfectly adequate financial support from Dragan, so why have they not been able to replicate that approach and success here?

True. Another way of looking at it is that as it stands we could get out of the bottom three by winning one game. That's how poor the four bottom teams are this season, not just us. Obviously we won't, but it's nice to dream.

Telling the coach driver to get to the Etihad early so he can get a cheeky selfie sat in the home dugout

RM's tactical plan for City has been leaked online. "Doing precisely what we've done 18 times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time!" Give it up for Melchett Martin and his Suicide Saints.

I’m not sure Pep Guardiola will have the tactical nous to work out how Russ ‘Keep ‘Em Guessing’ Martin is going to play, or how to counter it.

It’s such a bizarre concept that it’s almost surreal. It’s even more surreal that anyone other than the person spouting it wouldn’t just dismiss it as madness. A football manager who wants to be defined by an approach that loses every game. I build these amazing cars. They do everything except start. I build these amazing planes. They do everything except fly. I build these amazing football teams. They do everything except win games of football. Admire me! It’s almost Orwellian.

Our policy on recruiting managers is just generally odd. We have no problem spunking £6m in fees and four years-worth of wages on players like Wood and Edwards who can't even get in the match day squad, or £8m plus wages on a striker who's only fit to play 20 minutes a season, but god forbid paying a fraction of that for a manager who might actually make us competitive in the Premier League, with a prize of £100m if he finds a way to come fourth from bottom.

Exactly. Jimmy Case. Three European Cup winners’ medals, four Division 1 (Prem equivalent) winners’ medals plus one each for winning the UEFA Cup, European Super Cup and League Cup. Paid thirty grand for him and he bossed the midfield for years.

I was at that game too - I would have been 13 for that one. It's burned vividly into my memory for two reasons. One was that we were at the very back of the very top of the uncovered concrete family stand, what felt like miles up into the freezing night sky on a Tuesday night in February and it was to this day the coldest I've ever been at a football match. It was brutal. I remember my sister's boyfriend was wearing a Campri ski jacket (as was the style at the time) and we found out that you could unzip and remove the arms so we did that and turned the arm sleeves into makeshift ski hats as a desperate attempt to stave off hypothermia. The other was that Matty scored those world-class goals and destroyed them single-handedly - I'd never seen an individual footballer that good before. When he put the second and third ones in we soon forgot about freezing to death and looking like twats and just watched in awe. What. A. Player. Peerless.

Alan Shearer and Paul Rideout as twin centre forwards with Rod Wallace on one side of them and Matt Le Tissier on the other. That’s just a ridiculous forward line. Teams have won the league with far worse than that. I was at that game as a kid, and watching that footage just brings home how much more fun the football was then before the massive influx of money ruined it. We were never going to win the league but we and teams like us could afford to compete and keep it interesting each week. Powerhouses like Liverpool or Man Utd could come to our ground and get a hiding if we were on our game. Cheap tickets so kids and families could actually afford to go. Standing, rowdy crowd so there was a great atmosphere that made it thrilling to be there, whoever we were playing. Fairly regular bragging rights over the big boys so kids wanted to support their local team. Being able to actually keep good players for a decent chunk of their careers. Compare that to ‘the product’ now where every single thing is about money, and the people responsible for running the game seem hell-bent on turning every league in the world into an uncompetitive procession where only one or two of the same teams can win it and everyone else is just there to line up with ten behind the ball to be hammered by them. £50 a ticket to sit in a half-silent ground full of tourists and obediently watch on every week hoping you can keep the score down to 3 or 4 against. Watching an exciting young prospect have a great game and knowing that it all it means is that in the next window he’ll be bought by someone who will triple his wages to sit in their reserves. I’m genuinely amazed we still get 30k plus turning up every week for that ‘experience’. What a bit of skill by Matty to set up that third one though. Jumpers for goalposts, isn’t it? Marvellous.

Latest odds according to Gambling.com: David Moyes: 2/1 Rudi Garcia: 11/4 Kasper Hjulmand: 3/1 Rob Edwards: 4/1 Daniele Di Rossi: 11/2 Frank Lampard: 6/1 Ralph Hasenhuttl 🤣: 7/1 Graham Potter: 8/1 https://www.gambling.com/uk/news/next-southampton-manager-betting-odds-3685700

Pahars in 2022?

Yeah looking very good so far. Good to see him fit and back playing again, lovely player.

Yeah, only a second or two beforehand though, and by backing in and making him shove him off him he was giving the keeper something other to deal with rather than just focusing on the cross that was about to come in. Not clear cut by any means, but you have to wonder whether that would have stood if it was the other way around with a Wolves player backing into Ederson then ducking out of the way.

Re Wolves - linesman gave it offside too even before the VAR told the ref to look at it. Ref overruled both to give it but even though he went to the screen he gave it so quickly I’m not even sure they showed him the bit beforehand where Silva backed into the keeper. I thought Wolves looked like they should have had a direct free kick on the edge of City’s box before City went up the other end to win the corners that led to the goal too.

Is barging the keeper not considered interfering with play now?

Thought-provoking opinions there from the ‘fan’ who reacts to us conceding a devastating 97th minute winner by gleefully posting the betting slip that shows he celebrated it. Great supporter mate. Really, really great supporter. One of the best. Bet you’re still basking in it today, must have made your whole weekend. Fair enough if you enjoy it when we lose, that’s up to you, but don’t then go around lecturing the actual fans.

So according to MOTD Taylor said he saw it and chose not to give it because the shirt pull 'didn't have consequence'. He literally pulled him back for about five seconds, in the penalty area, as he tried to attack a cross that was heading straight for him. Corrupt.

Fernandes was on a yellow so I understand taking him off. Should have been Lallana who came on though.

Onuachu tried to be honest, stayed on his feet and got nothing. If he’d thrown himself down like everyone else does we’d have got a penalty. Then they wonder why players go down at the slightest touch. Joke.

When you’ve been given two yellow cards in the first ten minutes, and four after 36 minutes, for absolutely nothing, it’s only going to go one way. Then he let their player stay on the pitch after treatment, but ours had to go off. Then there was the blatant shirt pull on Onuachu that should have been a penalty, ignored even though he was looking straight at it, and no VAR review, then for the same offence we get a penalty against and a straight red. Then he plays a minute over the seven minutes of injury time he’s already given. I don’t usually moan about refs because generally speaking I think they make honest mistakes, but that today was a fucking disgrace, it really was.

You must have really punched the air when that went in Fucking prick

I don't blame Martin or the players for that That is on that cunt Taylor, 100% Needs to be investigated because I've never seen anything as blatant as that

The most bent refereeing performance I've ever seen Absolutely fucking disgusting