S-Clarke

They are yet to buy a capable centre forward, we last signed one in 2019. But we do have a new pub, lounges and TV screens at St Mary's. I'm not saying that you can't do both, but their focus is on maximising commercial revenue which is all well and good - but for that to make any sense, you need a viable product to sell. Since they have been in charge of us, they have created the worst product in the entire country. So stadium expansion is all a bit moot to me, irrelevant. Sort the important stuff out first.

Only Southampton, under SR, would expand St Marys by 10k seats for £60m before buying a centre forward.

I'm not saying it's just down to that, but there are 4 players there who they gained because of us. Victor Hugo, cheap deal. We had to take less on Charly. Matsuki - he is ours and on loan there Lis - obviously was ours, but wasn't ever truly our player. Juan - he is ours and on loan there Upcoming links: Vanderson - looks like we'll buy him and then loan him there, same 'could' happen with Wellington in January. So they are massively benefiting from our PL finances to secure players they'd otherwise find it hard to do so. It's not all down to that as I've mentioned, but it's a weaker league and there's less required to be successful there

By using SFC as a vehicle to purchase players from Brazil and Japan, and then loan them to Goztepe. Or using our sales as a way to negotiate cheap/player swaps for their club.

Pace is all well and good, but if you don't have the technical ability to release the ball or the football brain to know how to use it, then you're pretty much just an athletic runner.

Didn't they just get rid of all their area/European scouts in favour of a new static data-based approach? We'd be silly not to rebuild our setup with some of their left overs.

I'm not seeing that at all, it's plainly clear who have really been below par this year - and people aren't afraid to say as much. Pretty much most of the team. But I just don't believe Fernandes is one of those who should be singled out or put into a 'bad recruitment' pile, he's one of the best picks we've had in some time. He won't be great every week, but he's one of the few players I enjoy watching on the ball.

Fortunately for them they play us on the 16th, so they can start to pull themselves away. It always makes headlines when big clubs look closer to the bottom than the top, but they'll quite obviously finish in the 50's or 60's come the season end. Top half I expect.

It's alright, Juric will find out by mid-January what this waster is all about. Not worth a place on the bench, let alone the 11. I find it really depressing that SAA gets overlooked for this sack of shit.

Semenyo was £10m to Bournemouth in our 'Orsic/Sullemana' window. Says it all really. It's not about money, it's how it's spent. I've never been so disheartened by the scouting setup at our club as I am today. The money has been there over the last 2 years, but the people spending it do not understand football or what is required.

I think so, we're just buying them another Brazilian.

I'm not sure you can use that season as the reason they are now 2nd in the league. They were absolutley shite that year, stayed up by a whisker after spending multi millions. The following seasons were equally shit. They're just having one of those seasons where things click, they've built on a Nuno Espirito-Santo mould - very solid, hard to break down.

People are really confused or drunk on Christmas alcohol if they're critising one of our few, maybe max 3, technical players in the side. We should be grateful we get to see Fernandes and Dibling this season who have a bit of genuine technical ability, otherwise we'd only be able to watch BBD lumber forward and AA run into a corner flag.

He hasn't really been given much of a shot here has he? Not really sure he's where the brunt of peoples criticism should be right now. I'm sure he'll bundle in a goal or two before the end of the season, and then bugger off to Turkey for £7m in the summer.

That's Bednarek in a nutshell really, a very, very, very limited defender. Gets away with it at Champ level, but without a decent player alongside him at PL level he is utter piss. Teams will always concede goals with Bednarek in the side.

Lock the keys to the credit card away. Do not let them spend a single penny. It's not needed. It will not change anything. Wait until the summer, make money back and rebuild again to try to be competitive in the Championship. There is absolutley no sense in spending a penny in January, so you watch them splurge £50m on another Sulemana, Ounachu and Orsic show.

I've been away for Christmas, so It's reassuring to know that absolutley fuck all has changed with this shower of shite. I don't know much about the new manager, but no one is going to be able to get Aribo and Armstrong contributing at PL level - no one. They are piss at this level, always will be. I haven't commented on the manager appointment as I don't really know much about him, but isn't this yet another SR turn around to a new direction? It's like pin the tail on the donkey with these guys. As has been said before, the rest of the season is just glorified friendlies. There's nothing to play for, might make it less stressful at the end of the season I guess, but it's going to be a bore fest of uncompetitive friendly games. The question was brought up by Martin a lot, scar tissue etc etc - after this season, they won't have any issue space left for more scar tissue. These sorts of seasons kill players, there will be some in this group who never recover from this season - as a club, this will be like turning around a tanker next year. Losing is a habit and we have well and truly secured that habit. That will almost certainly follow us into the Championship first half. Cheers SR, another almighty mess you've got us into. I've never been so uninterested in football, they're killing it for me.

Wasn't he the guy Everton fans protested against a couple of years back? Forced their owners to backtrack and get Lampard instead. Not sure exactly what the hate was towards him, maybe he upset a scouse person once in the 1990's.

I imagine the posts after the next pretty random appointment will be along the lines of... ''We have to give him a chance'' ''Can't write him off straight away'' ''Let's see what he can do here, better squad than he had at x'' I couldn't even hazard a guess at who it will be, but it will be a name to unite the fan base in pure WTFness I'm sure. I wouldn't trust SR to run a bath.

My view is very close to yours on this one. I've never been a fan. I see lots of comments today about how everyone is grateful for last season etc, but for me I can't help but remember last season as a bit of a chore. It wasn't as enjoyable as some make out. Look at how we ended the season, horrendous. Salvaged it by a 1-0 win in a one off game, but prior to that we had been 2007-2008 Wotte levels of shit. The unbeaten run was a puff piece really. Littered with multiple draws and really shocking results against the likes of Huddersfield and Rotherham. I was never convinced by the appointment and felt it was a gamble, in a way the gamble paid off slightly, but I sit here today and wonder what on earth the point of promotion actually was? Money for a new bar and hospitality lounges?

I was never truly convinced by the bloke, felt a bit of an odd gamble last season when we needed a steady hand. We did get promoted, but I was underwhelmed by it all - not going to lie. We let in too many goals last season, had some great moments winning in the last min - but it shouldn't have been like that with the squad we had. It was a strong top 4, but we were the worst of the lot imo. I felt surprised when we got promoted, it took a little while to sink in as we never looked set for it all year. Fast forward to this season and we almost certainly weren't ready for it. Every single limitation in our game last season is still there, just heightened x10. I'm devastated that we never gave this season a shot and got relegated with not even a whimper. Martin was a manager who wanted to play in a way which suited him, he wanted to create a team that made him look good and had no thought of using a squad to their strengths. He threw so many players under the bus in his tenure by forcing them to play in ways not suited. Don't get me wrong, our squad in the main is utterly horrific for PL level, but I cannot believe we haven't managed to make a fight of it like Ipswich or Leicester. Our next appointment needs to be someone be with a view of next season and someone capable of creating a competitive Championship squad, don't give them ££££ to spend in January as there is no point. Do I trust SR to get the next call right? Absolutley not, they've got every decision wrong since they've been in charge so I'm fearing their next call.

The only way I can describe this season is that it feels like we've taken a year off. I look at PL games and forget we're actually in the PL. We have quite simply taken a year off of competitive football, a really weird approach but I'm sure somewhat revolutionary in the mind of Rasmus. So as we've taken the year off, I'll also take the year off. Got much more important things to focus on. Hobbies are supposed to be fun, this is pitiful.

As long as there is a monkey petting zoo, then I'm on board.

You know it's bad when fans of other clubs are on the Southampton forum arguing about our owners.

They sacked Heckingbottom early Dec last season, Wilder came back and tried to keep them up but the damage was done - but they kept him on this season as they made a better fist of it under him, albeit futile.