austsaint

As a judge of players, you make an excellent Administrator. Perhaps you should do more administrating?

What I believe to be true is that Martin couldn’t wait to bin a young, talented midfielder like Alcaraz off in favour of a not so talented midfielder named Smallbone who Martin described as making him very happy whenever he was on the pitch. That told me everything about Martin’s judgement concerning recruitment and retention of players.

He could. I remember the astonishment as each week of the transfer window 12 months ago passed and KWP was still here. Fernandes staying would be equally miraculous; it would give the whole Club a huge boost. If he is to be sold, I hope the Club stay firm with a valuation of at least 40 million pounds. Even at that price, the buying Club would be well rewarded.

The three (or six I suppose) most satisfying wins next season would be Pompey, Leicester (if Russell gets the job) and Charlton…. in that order.

I could see him as next seasons “super sub” , our own Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

There were a couple of hiccups early in Mane’s Saints career, yet you could see very early on that he was a special talent. From memory it was an early game v Arsenal where he drew a penalty; made several attacking runs and troubled the Arsenal defence. He remains among the very top Saints players in my 35 years watching the Club. Sulemana divides opinion, but given his transfer fee, has been disappointing….. he’s more than a sprinter with a trick though. Watching his spirited performance on Sunday, it was notable that no other Saints attacking player could keep up when he made several counter attacking runs. Despite what some posters claim, he was wilfully overlooked by Manager Martin. Given that Will Still knows Sulemana well, it wouldn’t surprise if he remained and played the Championship season. He may yet, belatedly repay some of that record transfer fee. He’s no Sadio Mane though.

I’m wondering how new manager Still is going to decide who goes, and who stays. I’m assuming he hasn’t seen many Saints games to base his opinions on. Who does he take advice from; how many video replays does he watch? Will he try to convince a gem like Fernandes to stay. I’ll be majorly disappointed if players like Bree, Manning and Smallbone are in the frame to be starters, or even on the bench when August comes around. How the new manager sorts out the many average players on our books is going to be his first major test.

Kreist almighty Farmer; there can’t be much happening on the estate at the moment. I’ll have to clean out my old storeroom in search of my trusty old Oxford Dictionary to see if it’s worth having a semantic tussle with you.

Oh no, not the dreaded “I question your Football knowledge” from the Footballing oracle, Farmer Saint. I actually said, the squad measured up to Leeds and Leicester; nowhere did I claim they were better. Team selections; tactics and style of play adopted by RM were other reasons many supporters weren’t happy with the Manager.

It was a pretty good achievement. My complaint with Martin is what he did (or didn’t do) following promotion. He made a virtue of the scar tissue associated with the squad he inherited, yet he showed a derelict naïveté in thinking the squad he shaped for the Prem could be competitive. His legacy is tainted by the shocking squad he assembled for the Prem and the ridiculous style of play he dogmatically stuck to.

Yet we finished 9 points and an inferior goal difference from the automatic places. Plenty of glitches alongside the famous run.

The quality of the squad in the Championship was not poor. It measured up favourably to Leeds and Leicester. The squad was shit in the PL, largely because Martin didn’t have the judgement to re-shape a competitive squad last summer. Following the Wilcox departure he had considerable say in recruiting and retention. The result?…… players of the calibre of Manning, Smallbone, Wood, BBD, Arma, Stephen’s were Martin’s picks to give the Prem a red hot go.

The promotion was wonderful, and of course Martin deserves credit, even if you could argue it was a harder won thing than might have been achieved by another Manager, given the quality of the squad. I’d say Martin created a shitshow following the promotion, rather than inherited one. S. Clarke’s forensic summary above details many reasons why he won’t be fondly remembered by many Saints supporters. Should he be given the Leicester job, I hope he comes in for Manning, Wood, Smallbone, Fraser, Bree and Bazunu. The least he could do for us in the circumstances!

Not so much “on the beach” as lost at sea.

Surprised Aribo is starting ahead of Ugochukwu.