S-Clarke

I think you only have to look at Villa today to realise that Gerrard is a failed manager, he'll never make it on his own. This is the same crop of Villa players and they're pushing into 50 points after he was risking to relegate them in November, quite an incredible change and it doesn't really show Gerrard in a positive light what so ever. He had his chance and he blew it, might get some ambitious L2 club giving him a gig, but he needs to re-build his rep if he wants to be a manager.

We seem allergic to signing anyone over the age of 30, and when we do we refuse to play them (Orsic). Absolutley need to make some 30 somethings our first signings in the summer, not necessarily world beaters but players who have some brains to them.

I wasn't referring to individuals specifically, more so the approach and the 'southampton way' we try to sell. That's a busted flush, nothing to work with. Need to re-design our approach from the ground up. There may be some players here who grow into a new approach/philosophy, but quite a few will need to be shifted on.

I think our priority has to be experience, we can add talented kids after that.

Absolutley all players make mistakes, and keepers are prone to be shown up more...but this guy drops one in the net every week, he doesn't seem to make saves. Anything on target equals a goal, which isn't a good habit for a GK to get into.

I'm convinced the sale of Romeu was linked in with the purchases of Edozie/Larios in some weird way, i.e it enabled us to get them cheaper or something like that. (Girona are part of the City Football Group).

Alcaraz, Sulemana, Tino - of the current crop I think they will be good for us in the right environment, potential to be standout players next year. If we add Tella and Smallbone to the mix, who have been standout at that level this year, then there is potential. One major issue is still present though - no striker. We'll have the same problems if we go into the champ without a striker. Get rid of the 'strikers' we have and actually buy some proper ones. Might be out of our range now, but Gyokeres, Akpom etc would be the sort of level I'd be looking at for next year.

Got about as much interest in this as I have watching paint dry. In fact I do have some walls to paint.

To be fair we had 5 years of breaking all the good records, wins, PL finishes, higher finish every year for 5 years etc - clubs like us cannot sustain that, so we were always going to dip. I just didn't think we'd dip this badly, but for clubs like us it's just part of the nature. We'll have good spells, then we'll have years in the wilderness, have another good spell etc. This current spell has been especially demoralising though, mainly because it's been dragged out for years like a painful death.

Johnstone made a good save as well. I'll be honest I wasn't totally sold on Johnstone at the point last year, I wanted us to aim a little higher. But jeez I didn't envisage us getting it this wrong.

Not sure if you noticed (I could only see via TV tbf), but we spent a good % of that game firing long balls to Aribo and Theo to try and get them down the channels - yet they never came off. We then put on a 6 ft 7 inch striker and reverted to tippy tappy crab football between the back 4, and didn't really put it 'in the mixer'. I'm just confused. Are these players genuinely that dim?

It goes further back than that, I can trace these wimpy fundamentals back to the end of the Claude Puel era. Risk averse, scared football. JWP has been a core component during all of those years as well. We had a little spell under Ralph when we went for it, but in the main since 2017 it's been like this. Too scared to make a mistake, not confident enough to take a gamble. The life was sucked out of the guys we had, and we made sure the new ones we recruited didn't have any life to start with. We can't start next season thinking we are on the right sort of path, we're not. This path needs to be ripped up, shredded, thrown away, whatever - and we need to start from scratch with every foundation. There is nothing to work with here and if the club believe there is, then we're onto a very nasty slope.

I still think it's too early to judge him too harshly, he has come into the most dysfunctional group of losers the PL has ever seen. Hard for anyone to make a huge impact, especially when they're young. I imagine he'll be with us next year and with some confidence I reckon he'll be a threat. Too early to give up on him, ditto Ounachu - although he is starting to have Carillo vibes about him.

We do need to get everything sorted early doors, in a weird way it's kind of fortunate we're relegated early as the club should now start putting the wheels in the motion for the sales we need to make, and the new players we will recruit for the Champ - and the manager options. In that sense we have a bit of an advantage over the clubs still unsure of their fate, we should be clear on ours. But sadly I imagine the club will still believe there is a chance we'll stay up after the Liverpool game as they're so dim.

This is the thing for me, the endless wimpy crab football and keeping the ball at the back is the definition of a lack of fight. No penetration, no intent, no fire. They're just going through the motions, it's so obvious. As we've been in the PL for a while we pay more than the likes of Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth etc - yet their players give twice the effort, even 3 times the effort. This is why I've really taken the ''we need the fans to support us' shit personally. It feels like the club have stamped on my head with that comment after they've been punching me in the gut for 5 years. Everything about this club is dislikeable. Everything.

Sellés on the fans: “We need support from them in the situations, particularly when there is nothing happening in the game. They have their opinion & voice & they can express it in any way they want. I just want them to get behind us.” #saintsfc I really wish they'd stop saying this shit, trying to make us as culpable as this bunch of cretins. We have paid money for years to watch shit, this isn't just an afternoon of shit at St Mary's, this is 5 years of utter consistent shit. I'm surprised we even get over 1k in the stands. They should be grateful for that, now STFU and start actually making an effort you bunch of twats.

With all these City kids and the Shields connection, it does make me wonder if there are some other bits of $$$ in the mix here which benefits others. Doesn't make any sense as they've not added to us from a footballing point of view. Edozie, Larios, Bazunu are still U21 payers yet we felt it was sensible to make them PL first team players. At least we got experience like Aribo in the summer to make all the difference though.

I think he's given his all, he's always 100% and covering every blade of grass - but he is limited and that's why taking away Romeu has exposed him so much physically. There is something wrong with his makeup though, given that he's still here with our record of selling anyone who breathes probably tells you other clubs think the same.

We do, but I think this club are deluded given the contract offers we've made to Theo, Moussa etc over the years. We seem to think these guys are decent. We don't have any balls about us, we're 'nice'. Don't need any of that shit this summer, rip contracts up, throw these guys to the job centre, don't give a shit - but we need ruthlessness, otherwise we will never see PL again in many of our lifetimes. I don't give a shit if they're nice guys or not, the bottom line is that as footballers they are horrific and should not be near professional teams.

2 from Leeds, Everton, Forest and Leicester to round the relegation off I think. Looking like being Forest and Leicester at this stage, although Everton are in the shit.

All of them I hope.

I'm excited about a fresh start in the summer, but equally nervous as fuck given that every decision that has been made in the last year has been the wrong one. Not just a little bit wrong either, catastrophically wrong. I can't even guess who they'd chose as a manager at this stage, and given the track record it's going to be wrong. I have no idea what to expect. But to say I'm apprehensive would be an understatement.

We can blame Ralph, Jones, Selles, Eric Black etc etc, but there comes a point when you have to look at the bunch of utter losers they've had at their disposal. Bottle jobs the lot of them and I'd be happy to see them all dumped. If only we could sack players as we could managers, we'd probably be in a much better place.

He doesn't seem capable of making saves tbh. Johnstone saved an effort from us in the 2nd half, whereas their attempts on target went straight in. He had potential when we got him I think, but it's hard to see him ever recover now. I think we've ruined him as a top level keeper by chucking him in like we did. In fact we've probably done the same with a few of those young kids we signed.

I'm numb to it all now, it's been 5 years of turbo shit bar the odd non-descript purple patch. A fully deserved relegation and it should be confirmed in a few weeks, saves all the tension of the last games anyway. I'd be tempted to stick Ballard in there now, maybe even a couple of the other U21's - it's about next year now, as it has been for weeks really. I haven't disliked a bunch of players as much as I dislike this lot. Even JWP, for all his efforts with free kicks and such, has been a consistent loser with us since he's been a regular. It's at the stage now where we need a clean break with at least 80% of this lot, and the recruitment department as well - who have stolen a living for a number of years.