disconnect

Just gone onto the Goztepe site and translated via Chrome - some of the players names are 'interesting'. I'm not sure if it's only done some of the players, but the defence looks very good, including Arda Okan Survivor, Aegean Lightening, Taha Six Brothers, and personal favourites Ismail Village Head and Meal Flag.

Mine is also nothing to do with Lampard but nevermind! 🤣

I'd bring Matsuki on for a Centre Back - get another body in midfield where somehow we're losing the battle against a team that can barely pull a squad together. The 3 at the back always seem to get in each others way! Get Downes sitting deeper if need be, the extra body will have us dominate Wed. They can't handle Scienza and Fellows.

Worst Long Holgate-ABK-Larios Udoh-Traore-Groebaek-Orsic BBD-JuanLove-Cornet Still praying Downs comes good!! ABK could've been one of the best, but ended up being a complete waster.

Scienza, Jander and Charles are the only ones who have looked consistently good. Jelert looks very good too and needs to come back in ASAP, Downes played ok once or twice when could be bothered, and Wood been ok, but always think he's fairly limited, just the only seemingly strong centre back (or the equivalent of Eddie Hall compared to Edwards).

Think about their key strengths - Downs is known to want to play on the shoulder and run in behind - we've seen him score a good goal like this in pre-season, and from last season. Azaz is good at getting on the ball and slotting it through the defence for strikers - he's done this a few times for Armstrong who's fluffed it, but it is probably Downs who wants that sort of service and we haven't actually seen these two guys really play much together to utilise their talents.

Please no! He instilled the whole “comfortable for his mates” environment which led to us being completely embarrassed in the prem and was a laughing stock with Rangers

Based on the squad and the teams we’re facing with that squad, Still is definitely doing the worst.

SACK HIM NOW

I think this is the thing - he never looks like he even wants to get involved. When it’s not working out you at least need to try to get involved, and he just wanders around not trying to even touch the ball

Maybe we show some ambition and put a £10 million bid in for Ross Stewart in Jan?

No time like the present Will!! As you said, Azaz, Fellows, Downs, Roerslev, Jelert, Jander, Scienza were all literally brought to play this system. GK Roerslev THB Quarshie Jelert / Welly Charles Jander Fellows Azaz Scienza Downs Just as Downs hasnt worked out (as yet) - there is a very obvious way of playing this system with all the players and replacements for all positions. It's not like we suddenly dont have any attacking midfielders or similar. The target man may be a bit of an issue, but Fellows and Scienza are good at carrying the ball so should alleviate issues there.

He's a good player when he wants to be (i.e. when his mate is constantly bigging him up), but is quite clearly disruptive in the dressing room. Wouldn't matter so much if he played to the best of his abilities and starting dominating the midfield, but we haven't seen that for a long time. I expect he will play against Preston, but needs to have a bit of a think about what he wants doing with his career and actually put some effort in, work in a team environment and play to win matches of football.

Bazunu and Robinson starting tonight against Real Madrid. No sign of Sesay who played the full match (and scored in the 96th minute) at the weekend - possibly rested, or saved for the first team? Supposedly free to watch on Saints Play (via website) but I can't see it as yet on there. KO 7PM.

Some of the weird selections / substitutions make me wonder if he is bringing on the players who have been least disruptive / shown the best attitudes, rather than those who are best for the game / situation? That said, I thought it was fairly clear that Stephens was probably undermining him... Sad it's come to that if so. I think the last few games are well past the settling in period and are now extremely worrying, but at a very minimum 6 points from the next 3 games now has to be the main goal or he's surely got to go.