Midfield_General

Fans Advisory Board? Well I didn’t vote for them

With impressive results clearly

"I'm a boy....man... retired" is a genuinely amazing opener it's like his entire life flashed before his eyes in three seconds We do have a high ratio of shall we say... 'unique' fans, don't we

In the last few seasons the points needed to make the play-offs have been: 2024/25: 68 2023/24: 73 2022/23: 69 2021/22: 75 So let's take a probable worst case scenario and say that 75 points is pretty likely to get you into the play-offs. We'd need 63 more points from our remaining 33 games, or an average of 1.9 points per game. So we just need to go on an unbeaten run from tonight until the end of the season, and if we can just spawn wins in 15 of those 33 then we can park the bus and draw the other 18 games 0-0. Over to you, Tonda.

Couldn't agree more 🙂

Don’t have the link unfortunately as I don’t subscribe to the Echo, but it was the interview Alfie House did with Dragan for the Echo in the summer if you want to google it. It was around late June I think, and Dragan talked about the rumours the club was up for sale, as well as saying that he would have given Martin more time but felt his hand was forced by the negative sentiment against him (or words to that effect)

It's a strong pitch and you've convinced me. So, who to devote myself to next? For me, it's a toss-up between Al-Ettifaq, Shanghai Shenhua, wherever Ronaldo CR7 goes next or just spending Saturday afternoons having some alone time in a personal underground wankden dedicated to Gianni Infantino.

Which is fine but that is a very different brief to helping select the new manager. The point is that Alfie was saying that ‘the board’ don’t like Martin and wouldn’t reappoint him, but if that’s not Dragan (who said he wanted to keep him), not Spors (who wasn’t there), not Parsons (who is focused on commercials) and not Rasmus (who is focused on Goztepe), then who is left that Alfie is suggesting would block an RM return?

11 English players too. In the late 80s England could have done far worse than put that side out as the national team.

Have you got a link to that press piece about advanced talks please? Cheers

I heard that too, but who at the club specifically? Dragan said in his big summer interview that he didn't want to fire him and would have given him more time. Spors didn't join until after Martin had left. So in terms of people in positions of enough power at the club to influence the selection of a new manager, that can only really mean Parsons or Rasmus. Rasmus's focus is on Goztepe now he's unlikely to be a key decision-maker, and if it's just Parsons then that is very different to 'the whole board hate him', particularly if Dragan thinks Parsons is also a bit shit, which surely he must do by now.

As far as shortlisted candidates go I'm hearing whispers from a lot of people I trust about Heiner Backhaus, manager of Eintracht Braunschweig. Braunschweig are currently 15th in Bundesliga 2. They have won 3 of their first 11 games but they have been unlucky in a lot of those and their -10 goal difference doesn't reflect the amount of possession they have had in games. Backhaus likes a high-intensity, pressing game. He's got a recent promotion on his CV as he got Alemmania Achen out of the third tier, and he also kept them up. At 43 he's a younger manager, so he's still making his way in the game but has got a lot of potential and is under the radar at the moment. ...is probably what Johannes Spors is thinking.

Flowers, Dodd, Benali, Osman, Ruddock, Case, Cockerill, Le Tissier, Rideout, Shearer, Wallace in a 4-2-4. My favourite Saints team of all time.

Yep, did alright last season (finished 13th in Serie A), then sacked 2 days ago with the club bottom and without a win from first nine games of this season (six defeats, three draws).

Regarding Viera - On Solent just now the chap from TSP pointed out that Spors hired Viera for Genoa, and that he also worked alongside Eckert there, so there are some strong connections already in place. Factor in that he is available, has a lot of experience of English football (including some as a manager) and that they may want a 'name' to bring some authority, and that could have some legs.

Seems to be: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/southampton-will-still-oriel-romeu-36183568 Also reported in the Echo and Alfie tweeted that he understands it's true

Still, at least @Fabrice29 and @notnowcato look happy in the picture

Captain first, let him do his badges in the background and then when we sack Rooney in February Romeu can step up and take over as gaffer

Well that's come from nowhere. Absolutely brilliant news when we really needed some. I wonder who's idea it was?

I can see the board getting fanny dazzled by Gerrard, Rooney or someone like that because they think a track record of playing achievements might win the players round who weren't having Still and his lack of one

We don't buy success - we breed it 🥰

If I had a 20 year old son who was earning £40k a week I'd have installed myself as his agent and would be kicking it in the Maldives, toasting his misery from my gold-plated yacht

From a toxic attitude perspective: Harwood-Bellis, Downes, Manning, probably Fraser, possibly Aribo. From the perspective of needing to be moved on because they are associated with relentless failure: Macca, Bazunu, Archer, Armstrong, Stephens. From the perspective of simply not being good enough to bring any value to the squad: Downs, Long. And Roerslev looked lazy as fuck on Saturday and couldn't be bothered to run so he can fuck off 'n' all.

And only having £40,000 or something like that dumped into your bank account every week. The poor flower, my heart bleeds for him, it really does.