goodymatt

Yeah I’ll hold my hands up on this one, Bragg proved me wrong today and fair play to him. I stand by the expectation that Joe Aribo who was reasonable for us in the PL last season should be contributing more for his £70k a week rumoured wage and not leaving us to take risks that in other games this season have cost us.

I stand corrected, pleasantly surprised by Bragg today. Well done to the lad.

You’d think Aribo would be getting up to match fitness having been in and around the squad for a while, we’ve just had 2 weeks to prepare and we still can’t rely on our highest paid player? I’d rather have an off the pace Aribo than an academy player that’s not ready, this isn’t the sort of game to throw him into. i get the caution with Downes and Romeu but Aribo needs to start being used, when we haven’t during availability crisis we have dropped points unnecessarily e.g. Watford and Blackburn.

Bragg didn’t look ready away at Blackburn off the bench. We have Downes and Aribo sitting on the bench, why not pick one?! I’m a bit concerned about CM, down to 6th choice due to injuries/match fitness?

Yeah seems pretty clear that the ‘pessimistic’ view of Eckert always being their preference will turn out to be the reality. Either that or just waiting it out for a decent option to become available and avoid paying compensation. When Norwich are appointing higher calibre mangers than us when they have no parachute payments and are in the relegation zone, it shines a light on the mindset of SR. Always trying to be too clever and find upsides from investments, rather than make the sensible decisions in the here and now to be as competitive as we can be. Emotional attachment keeps my interest but in any other hobby I’d be checking out!

WBA did have some ownership issues during his time there and the takeover only happened around the time we played them in the playoff semi final. He still managed to get them into the playoffs with very limited resources that season. I’d agree they weren’t a great watch but quite an effective team with a very solid defence. Has plenty of championship experience. Wonder if with better resources at Saints he might do well. Do also think his solid style would be a good approach if we went up.

Anyone else reckon we are waiting for Corberan? We had considered him when we went for Juric but like with Rohl the compensation ruled him out. I posted this before and the timing certainly fits. I have also seen loose links to Leeds for him this week if they sack Farke but I’d be quite happy to let Eckert take the team until Corberan is sacked by Valencia, assuming it is as close to happening as rumoured. Just trying to see the motivation for not going for an available candidate like Carrick/OGS and Corberan might be the reason?

Great post and fully agree. Well said, Sir.

Hoping this is right.

I’m all for taking a little bit longer to ensure we get the best candidate but I’m not really getting that vibe from the trusted journalists, more that Eckert is is being considered and more likely than not will take the Charlton game at least. Why sack Still if we have nobody in mind? Still’s underlying data was pretty strong is the main (think expected points and xG were top 3 or 4 during his time here), just wasn’t getting much luck which after a while that starts to be a weak excuse and I do think replacing him is the correct call. I’m not having that Eckert has proved he is the man from those 2 games personally. Wednesday is the easiest fixture possible and QPR were better than us. 31 shots on our goal and 2 keeper errors. If anything our players just tried a bit harder now they’ve got rid of a manager they didn’t want. We are 7 points from the playoffs with 31 games to play. Plenty to fight for with more resources than most. We must appoint an experienced manager to deliver the promotion push we all expect. Not the time to gamble on a rookie.

All very quiet, looks like we won’t be getting anyone in nice and early during this break to give them the maximum bedding in time.

Does Brentford’s success with Frank and now Andrew’s fit the bill of internal promotions? There aren’t many although we have seen people step up as first team managers for the first time and do well such as the aforementioned Brentford pair, Rohl, Arteta, Maresca had a failure at Parma first. I agree with the sentiment of previous posts on this one. You can internally promote when you’re heading in a good direction as a club and have the platform to succeed. We need someone experienced to come in a build that platform from scratch.

To be fair to Brendan, he has signed so many Saints players in the past he must secretly have always wanted to manage us?