S-Clarke

That is ridiculously unjust.

I think this deal was off as soon as it started getting into the media in the summer, had a whiff of Promes about it from the off. We probably tried way back in the summer but baulked at the cost, and kept an interest as the window closed in case he became more affordable (he didn't). I still don't see us spending that sort of figure on one player. For sure, we need to, but I think we're wedded to this 'unearth gems for peanuts' strategy no matter what.

There's a lot of talk about our 'golden generation' of the mid 00's, but you have to say Belgium are totally wasting the chance they should have with theirs. Should have won something by now with the group they have imo. Lukaku, De Bryune, Hazard, Toby, Cortouis, Vertonghen, Kompany, Carrasco etc. Top players at their prime who'd have walked into any team in world football.

Great header, but just how bad are Qatar?? Shouldn't be anywhere near this level, this is going to be a big score I think.

That goalkeeper looks like he's going to be a laugh! What is he doing.

I guess the infringement was that it was a goal against Qatar. An offence in itself.

As he always was when he was here, without him during those seasons we would have been done for. It was the failure to adequately replace him that's put us in this position we are right now. Armstrong was targeted as his successor (we couldn't even buy him until we had cashed the Ings money), and that has been a total disaster of epic proportions. If you look back we had similar issues with our game when Ings was here (conceding lots of goals, letting leads slip, open on the break etc) but we always had that clinical edge to take a chance ourselves. I know it's very simplistic, but that's the single difference between us being comfortable and dredged in the mire.

When the best praise you can give Adam Armstrong is that he 'ran around', you know you're struggling. Bloke is nowhere near good enough, really shows up our window that he is a regular in this team - he wasn't last season for the reason he's shit, and that's not changed in the summer.

Not surprised, on form alone he is nowhere near international level this season. He's never really done anything for England either, so you can somewhat understand why Phillips has gone as he was a proven success in the Euro's. I'd say that JWP's chance of establishing himself as an England regular is now gone, so he should just focus on his club career, get his head down and get those PL records he craves. I'm sure he'll get picked for the odd squad every now and then in the future, but I don't expect much more than that.

Everyone has had their chance to vent their opinions, but now is the time for everyone to put those to one side and support the club. The reactions to this are much the same as 'big name signings' who make everyone excited and relative unknowns get people feeling underwhelmed. I would say during my experience as a fan of Southampton it has been our 'unknowns' who have been our greater successes. What is obvious from this appointment is that it's been strongly vetted, this isn't decided on a whim, and it seems as if we have been studying him for some time - and in Rasmus's case, many years. I remember similar opinions vented around Poch, there were calls for protests at his first game and all sorts. At the time we'd got rid of a popular manager and replaced him with someone who was unknown, spoke zero English and had to carry a translator around with him everywhere - on paper a worse situation than Janes. People proclaimed at the time we were down, relegated, no way back etc. The point I'm trying to make is that these sorts of appointments often work out better because there has been clear thought behind them, we've not just gone after the latest name or the first name manager on the out of job list (the easy choice), we've taken a risk and a gamble on someone we believe in and he has my full support.

I'd agree, I never thought 1-4 was a fair reflection on the game. You had a couple of chances in quick succession and put them away. Our keeper seemed to have the sort of day where everything on target went in. We had equal if not better chances with Elyounoussi and Adams and we didn't put them away. There's the difference. If we'd got it to 1-1 there's a different game IMO. But anyway, it's gone now and everything is different!

Protest ffs? get over yourselves.

I'd say unsure. It's impossible to form a really strong opinion either way as I don't know him, I've never really watched Luton and I didn't really pay any attention to his time at Stoke. If I was a neutral fan and Wolves were looking to appoint him I'd go ''WTF?'' though, so I can understand the concern fans have. You look from the outside and say that he's overachieved at Luton, but sometimes managers are in a comfort zone at a club which just works for them. That feels as if it could be the case here. But he's clearly not stupid though, he's pulled a Luton team from nowhere to the Championship playoffs so he must have something about him. So I'm unsure, it's impossible to say. A 'name' manager would have certainly got the fans on side and created a bit of a bounce, so in that sense this feels like a bit of a missed opportunity by the club to create a much needed feel good factor. The main concern I have is that we have an incredibly inexperienced team at PL level, certainly in age - adding an inexperienced manager and coaching staff to that mix doesn't feel like the most sensible thing to do at this moment in time.

That's what these guys need, a bit of home truth. They have been utterly shit for months, it's not always the manager (they are the easy fall guy), but at the end of the day it's the 11 players who have to go out on the pitch and perform.

Possibly, you could even look at maybe some aggrieved former staff members who were let go in the summer. As these links only really started surfacing in the summer. But if it is someone still employed then they need to be weeded out and moved on.

I'm really not liking the leaks that are coming out about Ralph. Some really nasty, vindictive stuff being thrown out in the media with very little substance to back them up. The Atheltic seem to be lapping it up. If someone still employed by the club is doing this then they need frogmarched out never to be seen again. It's in really bad taste.

That's such a valid point and one which really explains why we fell away so much. He needed to be backed at the start so he had the players to employ the football he wanted, but he had to make do with a mishmash and that has slowly over time diluted his approach due to the fear of losing goals. From being a front-foot ‘heavy metal’ manager, he became a risk averse and passive manager, which isn’t him and isn’t who we recruited back in 2018. One of the criticisms you can rightly label at Ralph is that it’s always been one way or no way, he came with a clear philosophy and if the club had researched it well enough they’d have known the squad would have needed a radical overhaul to fit with that, but they never had the backing to do it until now - and now it's too late. I'm frustrated for him, but that's where we are.

I thought this was a good write up on Luton, it's from a few years ago but it does line-up with our strategy to a degree - so we're looking for potential managers who have worked within similar setups. I'm not sure if it was under Jones tenure or not, but a couple of young players who have made somewhat of the step up are Aarons, Lewis and Justin in recent years (Justin playing for England too) Training Ground Guru | Luton Town's Premier League production line

I don't understand the view that they've just plucked Jones out of thin air as a last min idea. If anything this potential appointment has shown that they've been looking at someone for a signfificant period of time in the event we need to make a change. The one thing you cannot label this potential appointment as being is 'unplanned' or 'last min'. We may not agree with the 'name' and let's be honest we don't really know much about him at all to come to any strong opinions, but it's fair to say that those at the club know him far better than we think we do.

Who had ''before he's even joined'' on the ''When will fans want him out?'' sweepstake. Good effort if so.

Then we're relegated. He'll have nothing to work with. Goals are needed and they will need to invest or lose a hell of a lot more money.

As I said on another post, I will always appreciate anyone who dedicates so much time to my club. He didn't come here with the sole reason of destroying anything, he tried his absolute hardest to make this a success and went through a severe amount of personal turmoil throughout the process I'm sure. The entire reign of Ralph is an odd one though. At the time, back in 2018 (feels like a lifetime ago) - he was seen as a coup. A former RB manager, backed with a very modern philosophy that we'd started to see take over the PL (Liverpool for e.g). I firmly believe that our massive defeats changed him, he lost belief in his actual philosophy and tried to change the only thing he knew. What really should have happened was that he was backed right at the beginning and I think we'd see a different story. The biggest positive to our time under Ralph is that we have never been in any relegation trouble, this season is the first season it looks a bit ropey, but in all his other seasons we have been well clear most of the time. In the main he has had to work with an absolute rabble of misfits. He's tried to make the best team he could with this group and I genuinely believe he's made players better, KWP being one. The problem he had was a lack of backing at the beginning, so he ended up having to invest his time and energy on a group which weren't really suited to his style of football. This is the first summer he's been truly backed, and it's sadly gone sour more than anyone could have thought, but I still wonder 'what if' he'd have been backed like this at the beginning. At the end of the day everything comes to an end, but I'll stand by my view that anyone would struggle managing this lot without a striker and sometimes the grass really isn't any greener. We'll have to wait and see.

It's ok, we're experimenting with a championship level manager to help us. I jest...maybe.

Call me cynical, but I still believe Sellles is who the club have in line as our long-term manager and an appointment like Jones isn't going to push Selles below loads of high-profile backroom staff, far from it - he's probably been asked to work with what is here, for the reason I stated.

I don't think that's fair. I think we're trying to talk up Adams up into someone he has never been. You will never get many goals from Adams, but you do get physicality and some really good old up play for this level. Partnered with a better player he is a very useful PL forward without question. We've just hung him out to dry a little bit by expecting him to be our source of goals when he never was and never will be.