Saint Matty 76

More quotes today -

That’d have us spending £10m+ more on player wages annually than Arsenal, and around the same as Tottenham, so it simply is not correct.

He does have a point. A thread dedicated to ridiculing some teenager supporting Saints is about as bizarre as it gets. He was incredibly annoying when he was pretending to be an ITK but don't see much wrong with his posts now.

We were sniffing around him for a good while weren’t we?

It really would, and it does seem somewhat plausible. Sulemana and Alcaraz both joined very recently, when relegation was already pretty likely, so unless clauses were worked in you'd assume they knew this could've been the case when they signed four year deals with us. Tella is fully dependant on how hard Burnley push, but in either case I think Edozie will have a great year in the Championship as well. Sulemana/Edozie - Alcaraz/Smallbone - Tella/Djenepo The massive worry currently is the 2 players sitting behind those 3.

Strangely underutilised by Selles and a real glimpse of what he can do, albeit far too late for it to really matter. 4 years left on his deal and the player must have been aware when he joined that we had (at best) maybe a 50/50 chance of staying up. Rumours of us loaning him out seem absolutely baffling, and you can't really see another team recuperating what we paid based on what we've seen so far. Unless his agent managed to sneak in a relegation clause of £15m~, you'd really hope we're able to hold on here. Swansea's best run at the end of the season consisted of them largely playing a 4231. If the club are able to show a bit of backbone we could end up with Sulemana, Alcaraz and Tella playing behind Piroe/Armstrong. There should be plenty of money generated from player sales elsewhere and these 3 players all have enough time on their contracts to justify holding on in the hope of immediate promotion.

Yeah, fingers crossed he’s one we stay strong on.

Good for Sulemana but realistically this probably just means someone else takes a punt this Summer now.

Spot on.

Couldn't be fucked to go to this one myself. By the sounds of it Liverpool aren't playing Alisson, Robertson and van Dijk at the very least so maybe we'll be able to enjoy one last day.

Think DCC will be out the door pretty quickly. Could see Stephens, Bednarek, Lyanco and Simeu as the 4 but I also anticipate one of them leaving and us bringing someone fresh in. If I had to guess - LBs would be Manning/Larios and RBs will be Livramento/Bree. The CM situation is a bit scary though. Hopefully we keep hold of Alcaraz and Smallbone comes back, but you'd think we'd need at least 2.

"In addition, we are strengthening our Board of Directors with the appointment of Andy Young as our first independent Director. Andy was previously the Chief Financial Officer of City Football Group, the private owner and operator of some of the world’s top football clubs. Andy will chair our Audit Committee and brings huge experience of operating at the highest level of the football industry." Semmens gone as well.

Thought it’d be worth putting McCarthy in a few months back but he really is just the same as Bazunu without any “potential” to make it worth sticking through. The first was terrible but the third in real time just felt embarrassing. Good day out either way, mainly for the 30 seconds after Walcott scored. I’m sure it’s been said 1000 times on here but I truly cannot wait to celebrate a goal with no worry again.

Fair to assume we’ll be signing Ryan Manning. Swansea LB with 5 goals and 10 assists last season whose contract has just expired. A position we need as well.

At this point we should be desperate for a manager who somebody better than us wants.

Really? I think he's absolutely god awful in possession and just a decent athlete/presser. He's maybe the second I'd want gone with this switch (after Paul).

Ah but if we'd hired Thomas Frank when they did it'd have been "he's only ever managed in Norway, never challenged for the title and has been out a job for two years". Easy saying that now after his success, but Frank's only job before Brentford ended with his chairman abusing him on their version of SaintsWeb so he quit (legitimately).

Gives the fanbase 3 months to talk themselves into being okay with it at least. Talks a really good game and comes across as a nice bloke so I'm sure the PR coming out the club will help over the Summer.

The Athletic just now reporting it's happening.

Great post. This place could use a few more like you posting again. Just watched his 28 minute breakdown of their win against Cardiff as well, comes across as a good bloke with a clear idea and identity. Wouldn't be surprised if talks with him go well based on what he's looking to implement, and the hope that his style is more suited to a team who have a better squad than he has had prior.

It's hard to know who is out there and willing to take us on next year with so much uncertainty regarding the squad/staff. There's obviously a list of names I'd prefer to this but there's also plenty discussed on here who I'd feel far worse about (Gerrard, Lampard). MK Dons and Swansea fans both seem to have a great opinion of him which is refreshing. I'm hopeful that his brand of attacking possession-based football combined with us naturally having one of the stronger squads in the division next year should lead to something positive. The apprehension on here is understandable given Sports Republic's failures so far, but it appears to be a much better fit than NJ was stylistically. I do completely agree that we needed to do something that the entire fanbase could get behind right away to have a mentality shift over the Summer, but I just can't see who could've realistically provided that (please don't say fucking Potter...). A terrifying appointment either way, but definitely not my least favourite option of a rather grim looking list of managers.

The idea of this squad needing a manager to essentially "kick them into gear" was spot on, similar to Poch when he joined and had them running laps all day. I don't for a second doubt that somebody with as little credibility as NJ trying to implement similar principles onto this god awful group of players was a borderline impossible task. With all the subsequent information and the benefit of hindsight, you do definitely understand why he was so tense. However, you just can't feel sorry for somebody who repetitively shot himself in the foot as much as he did.

Backed in even further to 1/3 (1.33) to be our next manager now, for anyone who cares about that side of things.

What is it then? Literally everybody has reported that the contract doesn't have a relegation clause.