benali-shorts

Ralph was a harder act and a higher bar to follow, and hopefully our next manager will be less shit than Jones and Selles. Any potential replacement shouldn't be judged by their inadequacy.

A damagingly limited footballer, and a total moron.

Who are the realistic options? Potter - waiting for bigger/better option? West Ham / Wolves more attractive for him. Moyes - squad totally unsuited to his methods (although quite what they are suited for is anyone's guess) Cooper - has Championship experience and is obtainable. O'Neill - will need a break, awkward Skate connection Martin - rinse and repeat, to some sort of fantastical end game of becoming the best possession-based team to have graced mid-table Championship levels. Are there any others? If that's the list (plus keeping RM), I'd go for Cooper. Or Rohl if SR think they can persuade him we're a better option that Sheff Weds, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this), I imagine he'd think taking Wednesday to the top 6 would be better for his CV than getting this lot to 11 points.

In the Middle Ages, he'd have been laughing at himself about all those fools who hadn't yet realised that leeches solved all medical ills.

Why oh why do they think he is demonstrating anything to suggest he's the medium or long term answer? He's totally out of his depth in identifying players, building a coaching team or displaying pragmatism. His only saving grace is that he hasn't had a breakdown in the face of the humiliation his team is currently suffering and is willing to face the cameras week after week. How many goals playing out from the back do we need to concede before he realises we're not capable of playing that way?

Plus ca change....

Is that Greg Wallace between Dragan and Rasmus?

I'd have Steve Cooper over Martin. Or Steve Martin. Or Steve Coogan.

Jay Robinson must be close to first team?

Probably fine for the Championship. Odd not to have seen him through the middle. Looks totally bereft of Premier League quality.

Completely agree with the shape, but feel Fernandes should be given more attacking licence. All the more amazing we’ve gone into the season with only one CM, plus a 20 year old loanee.

That would be sensible, which in itself would be a refreshing change of transfer strategy by SR.

I suppose it depends how much we spend / waste in January. If it’s £50m like last time, we’d have to recoup that too.

One of the key differences would be the lack of saleable assets in summer 25. Last time, we sold c£150m players on relegation. This time, Fernandes, Ramsdale, TH-B and Dibling (value dependent on contract, talk of which appears to have gone worryingly quiet and the same for Sam A-A) would be sellable for >£15m, there's not much value (or quality) outside of them. We'd have a weaker squad, and difficult to know how much surplus cash we might have to strengthen. There would also be the challenge of renewing contracts - both in terms of finances, but also the medium term issue of knowing quite a few aren't Prem quality even if they did renew.

The "Besitz macht frei" welcoming arch might set the alarm bells ringing

He seems an odd signing in so much as he's neither a hold up forward; nor a ball carrier; nor has the pace to counter. I've no idea what attributes our esteemed recruitment team saw in him to fit him into our structure. Odd that he hasn't played through the middle at any stage, not that he's shown any particular signs of potentially being effective in that role. Maybe his new haircut and the earnest backing of Delilah from the Northam Wall will invigorate him to new heights. The Cornet / Lesley use of our Prem loans is another bizarre piece of recruitment strategy. But maybe if the Wall start a rendition of "Just one Cornetto", Maxwell will start banging them in too.

He's cut his locks off but I sadly suspect his new disguise will be exposed as soon as he tries to trap a ball. But let's forlornly hope for some sort of reverse-Samson transformation (Samson famously effective in his youth as a left-sided forward for Zorah FC).

Amazing. Who was signing off these players, and on what basis? Cornet, Fraser, BBD just stopping Sam A-A getting minutes, utterly ridiculous.

I didn’t think I’d see a worse left winger than Fraser or BB-D this season, but credit to Cornet, he’s done them both.

Jesus, I thought someone was posting that he was back training.

I think Solak sees being an owner in the PL as useful when negotiating rights for PL football deals in Central Europe. From memory, his broadcasting company lost the PL rights in Serbia having fallen out with the Govt there, so I always assumed he bought Saints as a way of influencing future TV deals in that region and usurping the Serbian govt. influence. The French club ownership is (I imagine) a vehicle to access the African player market more readily as part of their player-trading plan. They probably see some potential in the Turkish market independently (big population etc), and also owning a PL side helps their status there. I'm sure there's a plan for the Group. I'm astonished at how incompetent their management of our football planning and operations has been (and how costly). Solak must be spitting feathers. Ankersen has been predictably wily in distancing himself from the UK ops.

I think RM being out-thought in-game is one major issue - we've had decent spells in games (Newcastle pre-their red card; Ipswich (sort of); Leics for 60 mins; Utd for 30 mins). But once the tide has turned, RM hasn't shown any ability to react - or even better, to pre-empt it by adjusting our approach. The refereeing was appalling on Saturday. The squad is poor. The coach is not showing sufficient ability to manage a game for 90 minutes. We can only do something about one of those things. To do nothing would be remarkably stupid.

Jon Moss against (I think) West Brom. Or was it Villa? Both probably. He really was a fat useless cunt.

It may have been triggered automatically by promotion? That wouldn't have seemed an unreasonable clause when they were originally negotiating his contract? Even post-promotion, and with the additional duties bestowed on RM by SR's utterly bizarre and incompetent decision to not have a D of F in place, it probably was necessary to avoid RM spending the summer assuming he was a lame duck. It's annoying in hindsight as this was always a likely scenario, but would have been very difficult to a) not reward achieving promotion and b) expect RM to take on additional duties normally carried out by D of F without the reward of a new contract. Luckily for Phil and Henrik, Dragan picks up the bill. Again.

I think you mean Jaboc Neepstrur. Loose lips sink ships.