S-Clarke

See, I don't understand this. We are as far away from a fantastic team as you can get, dogshit is closest. Having Lavia and Tino back makes zero difference to the lack of ability we have in the final third. We are rooted to the bottom of the league, lost pretty much every game we played last year and have started this year in the same vein. We are one of the worst teams in the entire country.

I thought we were very lucky it was only 0-1, Newcastle had at least 2 additional clear cut chances whilst we only had one. We had a period in the second half where we got on the ball and started moving it a bit, but that was pretty much it. The rest of the game was almost exclusively controlled by Newcastle and played at the pace they wanted it played at, we couldn’t get on the ball as they didn’t allow us the time on it. Orsic looked like a rabbit in headlights out there, not entirely sure why he was so bad. It was like playing with 10 men. Salisu had almost zero defensive cover for the entirety of the time he was on the pitch. Diallo read the game well and broke it up, but his passing and distribution is simply not good enough for any level of football and that’s why he can’t be starting for us. An accident waiting to happen. The defenders were both a bit calamitous tonight, DCC was poor on the goal – got too tight to a player who is 110% faster than him, and it was obvious what Isak was going to do. Braindead. The sending off was a case of taking one for the team, but he really didn’t have a good game. Lyanco just plays on the edge all the time, there’s nothing composed about his game. He creates chaos when he plays at CB and it panics everyone else. Decent shouts for Alcaraz who I thought was very smart for at least 60mins, playing deeper than I’d play him though – but he has a good touch, good agility, moves the ball quickly. The ball through to Adams was delightful. Equally KWP had a decent second half, Salisu had a good game at LB, Armstrong made an impact when he came on. Mara held the ball up well and brought others into play, but never looked like scoring himself. It's plainly obvious that we just don’t have enough quality in the final third of the team to really trouble anyone, it’s painful watching Adams miss almost identical chances every week. When we do somehow create an opportunity you know Adams will miss it, it even looked like he believed he'd miss that. The faith we show in him as a ‘number 9’ is entirely misguided and is used to cover up a shocking lack of scouting ability to find someone better over a period of 18 months. if we don't get a free kick on the edge of the box for JWP to score then we are pretty much nailed on to lose the game as we have no other threat. At least it’s only 0-1, the only positive I can take overall.

For some reason it's been leaked to Sky Sports news and they've put it up as a breaking news thing.

So now we don't even get to see the talented young guys play! If I'm honest, he's a little bit daft. He should have a chat to Dibling. He'd get game time next year with us in a lower league, make a name for himself and then potentially earn him and us a fair wedge. He'll now go to City or Chelsea and be awaiting his first team debut at 22 after pissing away most of his career in development squads.

Nothing makes any sense does it! The statements that come out are at odds with what is actually happening in front of us.

But if anything this just increases the likelihood of us continuing with 5 at the back. We will have 5 'international' CB's on the books, which is way too many if we were doing 4 at the back.

Not focusing on the media rumours too much, as otherwise it will drive you round the bend and send you on a rollercoaster of emotions. But the reality as we are here today is that we still have no striker, Elyounoussi and Armstrong are still starting in our 11 and there is a week left to the window, given that we knew we needed a striker on August 31st that's pretty shocking to be honest. We moved quickly to bring in Orsic and Alverez (but then don't play them) but the position we needed to move quicker on was a striker, as we're pissing away our winnable fixtures with the same glaring deficiency's in our side. What has made me really nervous this week are the noises 'starting' to come out from the club (Jones) suggesting that we already have two good 9's in Adams and Mara, kind of setting us up to going into the rest of the season with them. That really can't be an option, as if it is we've given up and I think most fans will at that stage.

And don't forget he downed tools and refused to play for us, as he was focused on the WC Qualifier for Poland. Don't want him anywhere near us, nor should anyone at the club. But we're a bit bat-crazy at the moment so I fully expect it to happen and it'll be wrapped up as an addition making us stronger. Only we can bring back our old unwanted shit under the guise of it making us stronger.

Yeah, it's a bit of a cluster fuck to put it lightly. I appreciate that strikers are the hardest slots to fill, but we've had half a year to source and scope out a striker to fill the void that has been obvious and a necessity since July (probably even before that once we knew Broja wasn't staying). It's bonkers that we're still in the rumour zone with nothing concrete, and even more frustrating there are now talks coming out about how the club trust Adams and Mara! Massive alarm bells for me.

There were plenty out there in the summer. Pope was 9-10m, Perin as you suggested, Leno was £6m. Even Neto at Bournemouth. We simply weren't looking in that market though, so didn't even consider any of those.

We can bang on about the technicalities and formations until the cows come home, but at the end of the day everything will be dictated by having someone to put the ball in the net and having a keeper to keep it out of the net. Football is simple really. We have neither of those key components, so 5, 4, 3 or 2 at the back isn't going to make a blind bit of difference whilst we continue with the same deficiencies. Jones, much in the same way as Ralph, is not able to make any of our forwards premier league goal scorers and he needs help from the club in financing one who is. As has been obvious since we sold Ings, 2 years ago now.

Yeah and that's exactly right, but I think most peoples argument is that if the club cannot find better strikers than Adams, Armstrong and an inexperienced Mara then the scouting setup needs dismantling overnight.

That's how I read it too, it was including the appointments of Boss and Wilcox.

I'd say that quote is more than likely put out there to 'reduce fan expectations' and set the possibility of us going into the 2nd half of the season with Che and Mara.

It would be peak Southampton if we fail to get our CF, yet on deadline day we announce a new contract for this buffoon. Got nothing against him and he tries hard, does a lot for us off the ball, but as an attacker - at this level - he is just pointless and not worth having out there.

That's what I mean, he's a left winger. He needs to play there, that's where he played 90% of the time for Zagreb and where he played 100% of the time for Croatia. On the left, cutting in and shooting at goal. Jones has good tools there, but the question is does he actually know how to use an international level player.

Part of me thinks the club is still trying to avoid 'overpaying', but that is (and this is their own fault) the only way we get the quality we need now. We have to overpay both the club (they know we need a player) and the player, to convince him. If the club are still trying to do deals that 'work for us' then nothing will change. The time for that was in the summer, but we didn't do it, so they made this bed and now need to pay over the odds.

He has a World Cup third place winning, Croatian international left winger on the bench, yet seems reluctant to select him. That needs to change

Not sure why he is being singled out, that was a typical Adams performance. If he had an Ings alongside him he'd him we'd have probably won, with Ings scoring, and Adams work would have been lauded. He's a work horse, not a finisher and as a club we are hanging the guy out to dry by pretending he is a lone PL forward.

He's very flappy, inexperienced and looks a shell confidence wise. When you are wondering when McCarthy is back you kind of have to admit the club dropped (another) GK clanger over the summer. No problem with us signing players like Bazunu in addition to others, but we're hanging them out to dry a bit when they're our 'first' choices. Leno available in the summer, £6m. But we had this 'Let's find Tino' fixation on one of the most important areas of the team. Why does this club always think it's 'cracked' it when something works out once?

Bit harsh I think. I didn't ever see him as a first team player, more of a young kid punt. What was he, £3-4m ish? Peanuts at this level, so it wouldn't have been a case of him and no one else. Still too early to say either as he's not really played for us, still got a lot of development to do. I'd say he was seen as a development signing rather than a first team one.

Talk about hanging a kid out to dry, they both need help in the form of a proper experienced centre forward. Adams will never be that, so we need to drop the hope he will become one as that won't get us anywhere. Mara may well become that, but he's way too young to be carrying that. If the club remain fixated on wide attackers in isolation and ignore the CF area then they're odd.

Back to earth with a bump really. I didn't think our overall game was THAT bad, but the same old problem continues to haunt us and will continue to haunt us until we sort it out - our centre forwards and 10's are truly, truly inept. Armstrong had a chance on the pen spot, but he didn't take it. For a team who doesn't score goals as it is, it's absolutely infuriating that the few chances we get fall to players who are just horrendous. For me, the Armstrong experiment is over - he's not for this level, runs a lot and has a bit of pace, but technically one of the most limited players I've ever seen play for us at this level. Adams works hard, has physicality, but is not a lone player as we keep saying. He needs 'quality' alongside him to bring the best out of him, we should not be hanging Adams out to dry like we are. Filling the team up with wide players is not going to fix the problem, surely the club can't be that blind. Midfield, which has been decent for the last few games, was very weak - but what contributed to that is our lack of control or ball retention, Diallo in particular is still one of the worst CM's we've ever had so i really hope we take the opportunity to replace him, as he's absolutely shit. Not sure why Orsic isn't playing, he needs to start in place of Elyounoussi. Fair enough he might work hard, and his off the ball stuff is good, but from an attacking impact point of view (which is what we need) he is again one of the worst ever players we've had in the PL. So the crux is that we're continuing to carry players who are not good enough for this level and until that changes we will remain bottom. The chances of getting out of this are pretty slim now I think, I'm pretty resigned to it - I don't see us getting anywhere near enough points now, and we're pissing away the games where we should be getting those points. One of the worst seasons supporting this club for sure, because everything we've done up to now is 100% self inflicted.

We've moved from right backs to left wingers now. Hopefully at some point we become obsessed with strikers.

He had been playing for Chelsea, but he did his ACL and apparently his MCL - so a very, very significant injury for the lad. Hope he's ok, but given his game was pretty centred around explosive pace you do have to wonder if he'll ever be the same after this.