S-Clarke

You know it's bad when you get a late night rant from Kaiser Soze.

Football pales into insignificance during times like that - hope everything is ok.

This guy feels like exactly the sort we'd go for. Totally leftfield and someone who'd use us as a steppingstone as an oppertunity to show up in Europe and get on the radar of big clubs, if he's as good as the reports suggest he is (I'd never heard of him until last week tbf)

You often get people thinking we’re a bad choice as we’re 18th etc, but we’re still in the PL, they’d be offered decent $$$$ and I’d imagine an attractive enough break clause 'if' the worse happens. I’d expect us to have a chance with anyone on that list.

He's a really young kid who doesn't seem capable of saving anything at the moment. He's got potential and I like his demeanour on the pitch, but as I said in the summer this is the one position we had to get right in the summer and signing a kid wasn't getting it right. The club are too obsessed with the mantra of buying young players, creating a platform and making a profit in a season/18 month, as borne out by Semmens comments about it not being about how many points or where we finish - it's who we develop. That's not a football team, that's just a soulless conveyor belt business that no one is ever going to be able to get behind as they're not around long enough. I have no issue with signing talented young players, but it has to be balanced and you have to create a platform for those young kids (i.e a team). And you certainly can't rely on kids in the absolute key positions of goal and ST.

Sheldon clearly still has links to the club, he broke the takeover story as well. I know Ralph seems to be despised by many, but as a fan of this club I appreciate anyone who puts their time and effort into 'trying' to make things better and I'll always appreciate Ralph for that. We had some decent times where he was able to assemble a team from this rabble, but ultimately it has been fraught with frustration and many what ifs. I've always felt we got Ralph at the wrong time when we had zero backing, he tried to implement his ways with players nowhere near good enough for it. And slowly his way has just evaporated, and I think we've changed him. He was always known and proven as an attacking coach, gegenpressing the fancy term for it, and he did it very well at RB - but with better players. He has now morphed into a cautious coach, which has actually made us a really confused outfit. We don't seem to know what to do in possession anymore due to the complete and utter fear of making a mistake. I can see him doing a good job as a Technical Director or such, but I think as a manager his experience with us has probably finished him off sadly.

If we're not willing to operate in that sort of market, then we will be relegated. What we're 'up against' are PL teams, if we cannot compete with other PL teams then we should pack up and travel to Millwall. Football has moved on from the days you could pick up a Wanyama or VVD for £10m and as a club we've never quite moved with the times. Expecting to find another Mane for £10m and ending up with Remond is an example of that.

Perraud's defending for Willocks goal left a lot to be desired. PL full backs should never be beaten as easily as that. He has a bit of fire in his belly which I like, but some of his positioning today was reminiscent of Oliver Bernard. I would agree that it wasn't a 1-4 game at all, but the way the team structure and shape fall apart after the 2nd goal went in shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Weird game all said, if you take the emotion out of it for a second we really weren't 1-4 bad. The chances Adams and Elyounoussi had were as good as, if not better, than any of Newcastle's 4 shots. Adams chance at 0-1 was huge, that moment on the belief just evaporated and it was 0-2 shortly after. Defensibly for all goals it was a shambles, we lost our discipline and pushed up higher which left gaps and runners all over the place. A really half arsed defensive effort to close down and get tight as well, which is totally at odds with everything we are supposedly known for. Two major problems in this team - A goalkeeper who can't seem to save any shots, and an attack who can't score goals. When your left back is the leading player for shots on target then you have a major, major problem. The whole place certainly feels stale, so a change of manager is about to happen of that there is no doubt. But I really don't think anyone else is going to get goals from that horrific bunch of 'strikers' we have.

I agree that we'll lose games, but I don't think the club/manager should be shouting from the rooftops about the fact. There's being honest and then there's being a bit self defeatist, which is how the club feels to me at the mo. It definitely does filter from the top, maybe not as far as Sports Republic, but the comments from Semmens at that level seem to follow a worrying theme of us being lucky to even exist.

Has anyone seen Ralph's comments in the media today? ''We should expect 10-15 defeats a season'' - come on FFS. No club, no matter how big, how small, should go into a season openly preparing to lose a quarter of their games. How is that galvanizing the fanbase and the players? Sure, we will lose games but don't pre-announce it ffs. The whole narrative fed from all levels about this league being ''so so hard'' and ''we're lucky to be here'' is pissing me off now.

I keep forgetting it's coming round, which probably says it all. It won't fit right in the winter. As someone said above, the WC isn't all about watching football, it's the warm evenings in fan parks or beer gardens etc. This is going to be watched during damp, cold days with light drizzle and with it being dark post 4pm. It just won't feel the same because of that and it's probably why I'm not too 'up' for it. I guess that might change when it kicks off in anger, but the whole Qatar WC thing has never sat right with me.

Whenever it pans out like that in the opposite way (i.e we're on the good run, they're on a bad run), you can almost always guarantee we will slip up. Not so sure it ever applies the other way round for us. But I must admit this is one of the reasons why I have a funny feeling about a positive result at the weekend.

Is that the same Liverpool who are unable to compete with Man City financially, and are totally aghast with Man City's approach to squad investment? Thought so. I don't think that's a big enough variation to really say we're underachieving by much, especially when there are like 1 or 2 points in it.

I reckon we'll win this, just a feeling I have. Not sure where the optimism stems from, but I just fancy us.

Look at any corporate job advert these days and it's sadly full of that nonsense, it's not limited to football sadly.

They don't really have any strikers. Trossard, their '10' scores a fair few goals, Gross from midfield chips in from the penalty spot. Brighton have a much better group of 10's, and a really tidy CM in Mac Allister and Cacedio. I'd say this weekend was a bit of a freak for them, they don't usually score goals and aren't very clinical, so I'm not sure we should be basing our striker recruitment on them.

What's whipping boys all about? Are you simply not allowed to call out anyone? Is everyone always perfect and magical? JWP has been horrific this season, so bad. Che Adams cannot finish his dinner, as has always been the case. Their situations haven't been helped by the club hanging them out to dry by selling Romeu and not adding a proper attacking player for Adams to feed. In a team with a clinical forward Adams would be a critical component to our game and I'd still play him. It's a sign of regression when we have to rely on him for our goals.

I genuinely believe that had we had a goal scorer we would have more points than we have today. Football can be overcomplicated sometimes, and we can put too much into systems, tactics, shapes etc, but at the end of the day it's about keeping the ball out of the back of the net and scoring the chances when they come about (and we have had chances in many games this year, however they've come about) It's all being lumped at Adams door because he is an awful finisher and due to the failed transfer window, he has been hung out to dry. We know that Adams strengths are his build up and support play, feeding more clinical forwards and being unselfish in his approach. He's still got that part of his game, which has got better over the years, but he's now the single person we rely on for goals and this is the problem we face.

That is the difference, same with Broja. Both Ings and Broja were capable of generating chances themselves either with quick feet, good movement, good skill, good power/pace etc. Sure they wouldn't score them all, but already we had more chances to score than we do today. We have to rely on a very poor mix of 10's to put chances on a plate for Adams/Armstrong etc and the likelihood is that they'll still miss them. It really is a miserable place to be in.

I don't think it's fair to judge them so harshly on what is 10 months, you can clearly see the approach and what they are trying to do and the intent is there (financially at least). Which is something we haven't had for years. The biggest mistake they have made is weakening our attack after spending about £60m without sales. By all accounts it wasn't the plan and we did want one, but the fact we didn't get one has to be seen as their biggest mistake to date. I know people will lump all the blame on Ralph, and whilst he should shoulder some of it, the lack of a striker is paralysing us. With an Ings or a Broja we get points against Wolves, Villa and Palace, which would have meant less pressure on Ralph and a better platform to take into the season after the WC. But we're embroiled in a relegation battle now for the entirety, and that isn't all because of Ralph.

Didn't have the money for that back then, I think Newcastle spent £20-25m on him. And we also had Ings when they signed Wilson, so the same urgency wasn't there.

Sadly, I think he's gone by the WC. In around 20 points I think he'd be safe, but to finish on 15-12 points is not good enough by any stretch given the investment. True, we have somehow managed to invest and make the attack worse, which hasn't helped things, but it gets to the point where everyone just needs a reset and a fresh pair of eyes to appraise what is here.

After half a step forward, he took 20 back today. That first half was as bad as I've ever seen from an 'attacking' player. What often gives him some wiggle room in fan opinion is his off the ball work, which is somewhat consistent, but even that was dire today. When you're judging an attacking player's impact on their off the ball work then it's probably not a good sign. Still don't think he's anywhere near the level we need.

You seem to be adopting this ''we're only Southampton, we're lucky to even be a professional football club'' mantra that is flooding through all corridors of this club right now.