Midfield_General

Sounds like De Zerbi is about to become available following a monumental fall-out with his entire squad at Marseille. He'd obviously be aiming way higher than us, but could see Bournemouth going for him if Iraola goes, or Leeds if they're looking for an upgrade on Farke.

We should hire him, let him get us promoted, then immediately sack him too, just for a laugh

So you’re saying that his weakness is that he has no strength

If I was a betting man I’d say that if Martin stays in this country he’ll end up at Leicester for next season. He’s not getting a PL job any time soon so I’d say that’s probably the next best thing. Could see him going to Rangers though, battering pub teams most weeks in a two-horse race would be a great way to make himself look good.

Ah, Tony Mowbray. There’s a man who single-handedly showed Martin’s ‘philosophy’ for the meaningless propaganda it was. I’ll always remember our game against his Sunderland side in the championship. Possession stats: Sunderland 32%, Saints 68%. Final score: Sunderland 5, Saints 0.

And Adam and Ben and Kamaldeen and Jan and Joe and Alex and another Ryan hopefully 🤞

God yeah I hate seeing the team celebrating on the pitch after a win. Much better to do what this season’s managers did and cleverly swerve the need for it entirely by simply never winning any games

Armstrong scores for WBA

Nathan Jones' Charlton go 2-0 up away against fellow promotion contenders Wycombe to put themselves* 2 points off the League One automatics with 6 points left to play for. Fair play to him, they were rubbish when he took over and he has turned them around. He's an absolute knob obviously, but credit where it's due. (*assuming they go on and win it)

I for one would like to opt out of the 'we' in this instance

Nope. Not a link, not a rumour, not a suggestion either party is remotely interested, and he's miles out in the betting among the complete randoms, where he has been since the start. We 100% aren't getting Cooper. Because that would be way too sensible.

Yeah, if there is then he's keeping it pretty damn well hidden. 23 appearances for Strasbourg this season - 1 goal, 1 assist. Playing for one of the better sides in a poor league. I wonder when the player in there will come bursting out?

Oh dear. There is no such platform as 'Twitter'. It's been called 'X' for 21 months. A basic factual error, there.

He’s never been anywhere in any of the bookie’s odds, no mentions, no links. Seems pretty obvious we’re not interested in him (or maybe him in us, though I’d find that surprising). Seems mad to me. Even if we have a preferred candidate (eg Rohl, who I’m pretty sure we’ll end up getting), Cooper should still be one of the first people we speak to if we’re doing proper due diligence, it’s a no-brainer. But this is SR.

It was certainly utterly ridiculous in the Premier League. But probably not in the way you mean.

Blimey. Just as context, with four games to go, the current top goalscorers at each of the top 4 sides in the Championship are: Leeds: Piroe (15), James (12), Aaronson (9) Burnley: Brownhill (13), Flemming (9), Anthony (7) Sheffield Utd: Campbell (10), Hamer (8), Rak-Sakyi (7) Sunderland: Isidor (12), Mayender (7), Mundle (5) So to suggest our numbers would be in the region of Armstrong (20), Archer (20), Diaz (20) seems... a touch optimistic?

For clarity, I'm guessing you mean that if those three are our main strikers next season then the entire team, including them, should be OK to score 60 goals? Not that they are going to score 60 between just the three of them i.e. an average of 20 each...

Yep, when I think 'Adam Lallana' I think 'workrate'. Getting up and down, running all day, putting his body on the line, getting his foot in, shrugging off injuries and putting the team above everything. That's Lallana alright. in the 357 minutes he's spent on the pitch helping us this season, of all the things I've most most admired about Adam - and what a guy he is - I think top of the pile must be his his amazing engine and the way he busts a gut. You can tell he just bleeds for the Saints cause.

Which Niemi? Last I heard, he was 52 (and Finnished)

Thanks for explaining how bookmakers work, I had literally no idea. How do you think the stories get written in the first place? Journalists often base their stories on leads, tip-offs and insider knowledge from connections at clubs, from agents and elsewhere within the game. Clubs and agents also feed information to selected journalists. All these factors contribute to the stories which go into the media and which create the rumours, which people then place bets on which impacts the odds the bookies offer. Not all of it will be accurate of course, there are plenty of social media bullshitters pretending to know things they don’t which can influence people, lots of the rumours will be serving different agendas, and things will change over the course of the process for any number of reasons, but to dismiss bookies odds as basically meaningless is simplistic, ill-informed and reductive, and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how both football and the multi-billion pound betting industry works.

Some movement with the bookies today: Rohl moving out: generally around evens now, moved out from heavy odds-on before. Will Still moving in: generally around 3-4/1 now. Oh god, Gary O’Neil has come from nowhere to be second favourite at a fair few bookies now. Rosenior generally moving out to around 8-10/1 across the board. Cooper generally way out in the pack of randoms around 16/1, I’m not sure we’re even interested in him.

7/2 second favourite at William Hill and 3/1 second favourite at Bet365 - not at many other places yet though https://www.bettingodds.com/thesackrace/teams/southampton https://www.bet365.com/#/AC/B1/C172/D1/E112515524/F2/ Rohl still overwhelming favourite everywhere. Cooper is way out - said it before, but I really don't think he's in the mix. There's a lot of chat about him from fans but he's not amongst the favourites anywhere, he's just another random name in the pack out at 16/1 or more, along with people like Dyche, Lampard and Chris Davies.

I think I may have spotted the tiny flaw in this otherwise excellent plan

Sounds like Glasner is Leipzig's first choice, with Rohl as one of the fallbacks if Glasner doesn't fancy it or Palace won't play ball. Also feels like he would be quite a risky appointment for them. They're fifth in the Bundesliga and are currently one point off the Champions League qualification places. You'd think a guy coming from his first managerial job and currently 13th in the English second tier would be a slightly divisive appointment, at best. That's a very big step up.

Completely agree with your post. On this point though, what do you think he had to gain when he was doing that? I was watching it while it went out and couldn't believe the hypocrisy of what he was saying because as you say, he was criticising Spurs for doing exactly what he had been doing all season, with the same results. What was in that for him?