S-Clarke

Haven't heard anything, which is usually not a good sign. He's no longer in the training pics. He did have a set back, but I don't 'think' it was his knee. Whatever the outcome I'm fairly sure we won't see him this season.

I think that's fair, let's not forget the fact that we were a rabble before SR came in. We've been circling the drain for quite some time now and it's always inventible that clubs like us will get sucked down. In some ways I think SR underestimated what was needed here, Semmens painted a picture of serenity from the outside but it was far from that and I think SR went into it with their eyes half closed. Focused too much on young players on the assumption that the likes of Moi, Moussa, Adams etc can cut it for us. We needed better first team players and then added kids on the back of it. I have said all along that I believe SR have done everything with the right intention, but it's just how they've executed it all which is the problem. It's not inconceivable to me that a year in the Championship will enable them to settle down a bit and turn the tide, I don't think they realised how much of a sinking outfit we were.

I can't see any scenario in which he stays if we go down. The guy is on 100k p/w for starters, he's the player with the highest sale value we have - we're going to need that income to sort ourselves out for the Championship, so I think JWP will see it as a way to repay us by enabling us to get a decent $$$ for him. There is no way this guy plays in the NPC. He could rock up at any of the top 10 clubs. It feels like the right time for a clean break and a fresh look at the on-field captaincy as well. Don't get me wrong, JWP has been amazing for us over the last few years, one of our only shining lights really, but his on field leadership will always leave me wanting more. Never seeing any galvanising from him when things go bad.

This is where I think we fall down - when we keep players like him as a 'squad player', because it just bulks the squad out with absolute crap. If he's not good enough to start for us then he's not good enough as a squad player either. He's no where near Steven Davis, comparing those guys is like comparing Messi to Ali Dia. Light years apart. Davis could turn with the ball, run with the ball and most importantly pass it. All traits which are absent from Moi's game.

Don't think I've ever missed a comment from you, sorry if I did - not intentional if I have. I know what you mean, but there are still players in the core of the side who have been around (and part of the losers, as they can be called). Bednarek, Elyounoussi, Moussa, Salisu, JWP, Adams, Diallo etc. We've added some players to freshen it up, but we're still worryingly reliant on that contingent of so called experience, of which most have consistently failed us. It doesn't take much for young kids to get taken over by fear, especially when the so-called experience has been bogged down so much with it over the years.

We've had some depression-inducing footballers over the last 5 or 6 years, he's another one to add to the list.

They're all paralysed by fear. Stops them doing anything that may put them at risk. You have to take risks to win games, but we are too scared to take risks. Need an entirely new core to get that mentality out tbh. It's stunk us out for years.

You can go all the way back to 2017 to be honest, it's been pure misery most weeks. The worst way to spend your money in Southampton on a saturday.

I just wish we'd have bought him and an experienced GK in the summer. The guy Bournemouth have (Neto) would have been a good shout on a free, with Bazunu the young understudy. I just hope this experience hasn't totally ruined him as a player, there is a chance it has but we'll see.

This is true, and it really makes you question the people making the footballing decisions if they believed he deserved a new contract. How much evidence do they need to see he can't cut it? He's been here 5 years too long as it is, I just hope we don't do anything daft in the summer and get him to sign that extention. I'd lose all faith at that stage. He needs to go to a foreign league which is played at a much slower pace, just like you say. In english football he's dump.

Good Signing: Lavia £11m - Top player, this is an example of where age doesn't always matter. If you're good enough you're good enough, no matter how old. This kid is good enough. ABK £10m - Good player, great attributes. At the start of the season he was a beast, got a few niggles since. Bad Signing: Aribo £6m - Cannot deny that this guy has been a flop. Looks so out of place. He has a great touch, but his style means that he's so slow to do anything with it. Shows how utterly horrendous the SPL is, Elyounoussi adds weight to that as well. Bree - 750k - Cost wise, no drama there. But he was brought in as the managers mate and I wouldn't expect to see him again. Pointless signing. Jurys Out / too early to tell: Bazunu £12.3m - Jury is out for me. I don't think we can really categorise him as total dump yet, he's a young kid put into a raging inferno. I'd have had no problems signing him for the future – but not for now. Orsic £5m - Can't class him as a bad signing because he hasn't played. Need to see more of him before coming to any conclusion. Paul Onuachu £16m - Jury is out, need way more time. The guy is huge, that is clear, good strength and actually a decent touch. We just don't play to his strengths. If we did, we have a real weapon there. DCC £7m - Decent player with good pedigree, but he just hasn't played enough to conclusively say if he's good or bad. Larios £6m - No drama on this one - a punt on a young kid, could be good in the future. Edozie £7m - Ditto as above, huge potential IMO. Just not quite ready for regular PL football. Sulemana £22m - Can't come to any conclusions yet, not played enough. Mara £13.5m - Another kid thrust into the fire a bit too early, not quite ready, but clearly potential for the future. Conclusion: So the main takeout from all of the above is that we gambled on too many - Mara, Bazunu, Edozie. I'd argue in the summer those 3 positions were prime for upgrading with first team ready players, not kids. We needed a new experienced ST, we needed a new experienced GK, we needed a new experienced wide man. We filled those 3 holes with inexperienced kids who aren't yet ready, and is it no surprise we are where we are. I don't think it's fair to consign any of them to the dump, they're just young and we've hung them out to dry really. The club got all excited by the Tino experiment and thought they'd once again 'cracked football', but they haven't. You'll get the odd kid who is ready from day 1 (Tino, Lavia, Bale etc), but it's safe to assume the majority of young kids won't be ready straight away and you shouldn't base the spine of your team on youth players. I'm sure we still think we've cracked football though.

Yeah I don't see it going to the last game, it'll be over long before that. And the most infuriating thing about it all will be that we start winning once it’s confirmed and the pressure is off. That would sum up this weak as piss squad.

I make it maybe 1.5 goals from open play in the last 10 (up to Liverpool before the WC break). JWP at Everton just after HT, and Alcaraz in the first half against Wolves. (kind of open play) Shambolic really.

The only thing which made me raise my eyebrows and undone all of the other work they'd done was our failing to address the attack. That really should have been the first areas of focus, even more so given that we had become weaker in that area from last year as it was (Broja and Long leaving). That's why we are where we are, that's why our season has failed. I don't think we can spend time focusing on moments like not sacking Ralph earlier, or signing Bazunu, or not giving DCC more mins etc, our problems are because we didn't add quality to our attack so we have been incapable of scoring goals to turn those 1-goal margin situations into draws or wins. Give Ralph the tools in the summer (i.e a motivated Broja type) and we'd be midtable now.

I have too looked back at that huge swing in form under Ralph, but do you know what the difference really was? Ings. Danny ings. Goals. Armanda Broja. Goals. We don't have Ings or Broja anymore, we also don't have goals. I don't think we're playing badly in a defensive sense but we don't score goals and are seemingly incapable of doing so. So whilst our form did flip, and it shows it's possible, it's because we had a 20 goal striker in our side to bail us out when we gave away goals (which we were still doing by the way)

I'm still blaming Eric Black personally.

I agree with your assessment, a lot of focus is put on the goals we concede simply because we don't score any ourselves from open play. If we'd have won that game 2-1 I doubt we'd see any focus on the goal we let in, similarly I don't remember any focus on the goal we conceded up at Everton as we won the game. You are right in what you say - our defeats have been fine margins, 1 goal here, 1 go there. I'd argue that illustrates the problem is more with our attacking application rather than defensively, which I actually thought we were pretty good at yesterday in terms of shape and positioning. Teams will always concede goals, every team in the world, and there will always be inquests if they lose the game, but the better teams don't lose sleep as they are capable of scoring at the other end. When we had Danny Ings we were still letting in goals, some pretty shit goals I'll add. But he could score goals, he could pull something out of nowhere and change the course of a game, so those goals we let in during 2020 didn't really get much focus as Ings was scoring at the other end. The home game against Burnley a few years ago will always stick in my mind for that reason, we were 0-2 down and out of absolutely nowhere a moment of individuality from Ings won the ball from Mee and he scored for 2-2. Then the game turned. It's those sorts of moments we don't have anymore, we haven't had players who can score out of nothing from open play since we sold Ings and that's why we are where we are. All of our issues as we sit here today can be traced back to August 2021 when our board got excited by the £30m bid from Villa for Ings, and then patted themselves on the back for the forthcoming weeks for getting as much as they did. All well and good, but the failure to adequately replace him with a long-term option was careless - but how much of that was down to the ownership of Gao is unknown. Football is simple, goals win games. Failure to score goals unearth your other weaknesses and put them in the spotlight, so what we did in the summer was backwards. Addressed our other weaknesses (defence) but still failed to add goals to the side. Catastrophic mistake, you simply cannot skimp or make do in that area.

I want to believe and it's important to have hope, but there is absolutely nothing in the makeup of this team to suggest we are capable of what would be European qualification form. It's just not going to happen. We've got way too much to do, with everyone above us. It might only be '5' points (6 if you count GD), but you've also got 5/6 teams above us who all need to be dropping points at the same time as well. Control the controllables they say, but we've got to the stage where we've tossed away all our controllables and it's all on those above us - which is why we're done. Insurmountable at this stage I'd suggest. All my hope is that we don't finish bottom, which would at least mean we've got a tiny bit of momentum to take into next season. The last thing we want to do is go down with a whimper in a similar vein to Sunderland, Huddersfield, Sheff U etc with a gap to the rest. That would be hard to shake for next year, as many teams have shown.

The mentality of this team is shot imo. I always thought we'd melt away in a relegation battle, in recent years we've started/had good enough mid seasons to not really be in the mix, but we have continually shown a lack of backbone in the sense of throwing away leads, heads dropping when things go bad etc. So now this group is in a full on battle, well not really a battle anymore, you can see the paralysing fear take over everyone. A huge flaw in the makeup of all of our players imo, they might be good lads but they have absolutely no backbone when the going gets tough. Incapable of pulling something out of the bag when playing badly, we are always reliant on every single inch of a game going our way to get anything. At least next season will hopefully allow us an opportunity to build a team with some backbone again, I hope. Championship is a tough league, we need Morgans/Fontes/Lamberts at that level to do anything of note. I don't think we have any of those types personality wise these days.

Who is Bazuna?

They don't have any money, that vanished down the hole Usmanov fell down. They are as skint as they come, totally screwed on FFP and with a huge stadium hanging over their head. They will be ruined financially.

At least we've found some consistency at long last.

Yes, thankfully. Apparently we have a contract on the table for him to sign (why the fuck, no idea), but decisions will be made in the summer now. Hopefully that decision is to rip that contract offer up and go our separate ways, as he'd be just as useless, probably even worse, in the Championship.

I didn't see a huge issue with the team from the outset, in fact I expected it. One of my criticisms from this season has been the constant chopping and changing, never a chance for relationships or partnerships to develop - so I somewhat expected us to keep it simple and go with the 'don't change a winning team' formula. Sadly we just didn't turn up, we couldn't keep the ball and the gap between the front and the midfield was too big. Sullamana too close to Big Paul, Armstrong and Elyounoussi the other attackers who were truly inept. We had nothing in that final third.

You have to make that 5 points given the GD gap, so 2 wins needed. We've blown games against Wolves, Forest, Leeds - those key ones against teams around us, so I don't see how it can't be seen as insurmountable when we are constantly giving our opposition more points to move away. No one is saying that we won't win a game again this season, I'm sure we will and maybe a couple, but given where we are today and what is needed I can't see those wins/points accounting for much more than 30 points tops to be honest.