S-Clarke

I think generally our signings have been better in recent seasons. Certainly a few more successful additions compared to our windows when every player we signed was pretty shit. I think KWP, Perraud, Salisu, Tino, Adams are examples of good additions who have become useful and important players. Jury is still out on Lavia, Aribo, and the other new guys, but I'd be surprised if Aribo and Lavia don't join that group of successful additions. The problem is that we have still been making some poor big calls, in a time when our money was previously tighter. Lyanco, Diallo, Theo, Mousssa, Adam Armstrong. They've joined the group of the previously bad signings in Redmond, Elyounoussi etc and it's still weighing us down a bit. It's a bit better as we don't have Hoedt, Lemina and co around but we are still in a little bit of a mess with failed signings littering the squad. I'm not sure if the previous picks of Lyanco, Diallo etc were down to lack of funds so we just blinked on whoever we could get for less than £10m, so hopefully that won't be the case anymore.

Jack signed his new deal, in secret obviously(weird) at the end of project restart I believe. They basically reacted to him having a couple of good games (at home to Man City being one). Those contracts, along with Theo, really hamper a lot of the good work Martin and co have done. The fact they were done in secret is even more odd.

It's the same problem we had with the unsellables batch 1. We pay them too much in wages which doesn't match their ability, so clubs aren't willing to pay them the same and the players don't want to take a paycut. They'll wait it out. for example I think Stephens is on 50k ish a week, which is ludricous for a Championship level CB. It's no wonder there are no takers.

Well, this escalated quickly. I hate these sort of leaks though because it's unprofessional from whoever has done it. It's all too easy for the manager to bear the brunt of everything, whilst he's not faultless, neither are the players. There have been players stealing a living at this club for many years, under many different managers, so I just hope it hasn't come from one of that crop. Really not ideal timing given that it's 48 hrs before an important home game, and we're still trying to get signings in.

We've spent over 50mill, is that not investing? I'm sure some fans will be kicking and screaming in 24 months when there are links of Lavia going somewhere for big money, ditto ABK etc. And the window hasn't closed yet!! Have a moan if we are weaker on the 3rd Sept, but to hit the club with that now when we've said we still need to make additions is a bit too soon. No one seems to have patience anymore or understand our model. We buy young players of a good level who then become the players at the level we can't attract or afford. That's not going to change. We had a period of time where we spunked £100m on supposed proven players like Boufal, Hoedt, Carillo, Lemina, Elyonoussi etc etc and that fell flat on it's arse because 1) we use a lot of transfer fee and wages to start with, and then 2) if they're shit, we're saddled with them as we cannot sell them and we end up making a loss, and it hinders our movement in the market thereafter. This approach is risky in the sense of immediate quality, for sure, but it's less risky financially because if 1 or 2 aren't a success we haven't thrown down massive transfer fee's or wages and they wouldn't be too difficult to move on. But our model is and will always be buying new players, developing them to a level where top clubs want them, selling them for a profit and then going again.

Little bit more confirmation on this one - Saints winger Tella agrees Burnley loan Southampton winger Nathan Tella has agreed to join Burnley on a season-long loan. The 23-year-old academy graduate has made 33 Premier League appearances for the Saints. He made 14 last season mostly from the left-wing, but he can also plan on the right and as a second striker. Tellas was once in Arsenal’s academy before moving to Southampton in 2017.

Don't mind me if I don't pay an ounce of attention to any opinion Charlie Flaming Austin has. The same player who downed tools for us, and had some of the worst performances from a southampton striker I can ever remember. If I was Ralph I'd probably hate him as well.

Not sure if this is misguided optimism or not, but I can see another 3 maybe 4 new additions (with 2 or 3 going out). I think we're pretty close to a new full back to provide cover, maybe even first choice at RB with KWP going to LB. (if he's not badly injured). We will almost certainly buy another striker. But a new number 10 and a new CB will only come in if we shift a few of this lot - Redmond/Moussa/Theo/Tella/Stephens/Valery/Bednarek/Lyanco etc. It's possible, I think the next couple of weeks will be quite busy. We got a lot of our business done early which we haven't been able to do before, but it's almost always the case the more sought after positions get filled later in the windows. If we had all the money to throw at more proven players we'd have done it by now for sure, but by waiting it out you can sometimes get changes in circumstances with the fees and even availability of players on loan etc.

Martin was the disappointing one for me last night really. He let his frustration boil over and he shouldn’t have. I can see why he’s frustrated; the club have invested money in improving the team (Something we’ve all been crying out for and moaning about previously), we’ve lost the first game and fans are already throwing vitriol on social media and demanding more, more, more. He probably feels a little resentment to people who criticise what he views as them pushing the boat out (in relation to the ownership and investment in the team and backroom). But whatever the frustration someone in his position has, you can't go into stuff like this and throwing the fingers at the fans, if they're right or wrong it never lands well. He'll be regretting how he came across today I'm sure.

I think this forum and social media in general will always bring out the more 'vocal' fans (lunatic fringe!!! joke), you'll never get those sorts at a fan forum and the questions will always be a little more muted than you'd see on here. I agree that some of the negativity and content posted on here and social media in general is frustrating to sift through at times, especially when people take 'gossip' as gospel and spin it to mean the worst possible news, or they make up/readjust the truth to make their own argument sit a little better. I can see why people are a little bit apprehensive, that's probably a better way to put it. We go into this season on the back of losing pretty much every week for 3 months. I'm personally happy that the club haven't sat on their hands and have tried to make changes on the back of that, but the apprehension comes from the lack of experience in the signings we've made and the fact we are still having to start players like Moussa and Valery, that doesn't scream huge progress. I know the buck stops with Ralph and as with most football fans, changing the manager will fix it all, but I do think we need to give this a bit more time as there have been changes to adjust to. But like you say and something i also agree with, the end of the window will look different. It often does. The club aren't daft enough to finish the window thinking that Adams and Armstrong are going to 'make the difference' up top, as Ralph keeps alluding to. So we need to show patience, but I can see why people find it difficult to show patience when we've been losing for months - but all I'd say is that we're approaching this season slightly differently, forget last season and let's see where we are come October before we all start jumping out of windows.

Great draw, this is what the cups are for - getting to places you haven't been before.

It's a fair point, it does make you stretched down the flanks, but it doesn't help when one of the sides in particular is covered by someone who can't defend. Valery didn't help KWP at all either. It only takes a couple of players being a bit shit to show up all the flaws in any system to be honest. I can see ABK and Perraud coming in at the weekend, might be wrong but I can see us going with it again.

I agree, I don't think he came across particularly well at all to be honest. I'm sure he'll look back at that tomorrow and have some regrets!

This is why I think we'll see ABK come into the team this weekend, he's perfect as a third CB in this formation just on his attributes alone. But the lack of threat up top kinda echo's what Ralph was saying - we need that player up front who can make the difference, which we don't have at the moment. Everyone at the club has been pretty certain on the chances of that happening, we're obviously looking at the right level of players if 40-50-60m is being quoted (As in we can't pay that), so we'll just have to see how sit on the 2nd and I have full confidence that we'll look much better. Whether that confidence is misguided, we'll have to wait and see!

SuperSAINT mentions Moi....but also Fraser, he was on loan at Celtic and did eventually forge a place in our side as a first team player. But true, it doesn't happen too often - certainly not with the young players. I find when we loan out a 'young' player it's almost the start of their slow exit from the club. Vokins, Ramsay, Slattery, Reed, Gallagher to name just a few.

It was a strange vibe, but I think maybe negativity from the fan base fed those feelings? There was a genuine defensiveness from Martin though and I hadn't seen that before. I also don't think an hour is long enough if they're going to merge the women's game into it. They either make it a longer forum or split the women into a dedicated one, as I think we didn't have enough really pressing questions on the ownership and their long-term plans of the 'group' project.

One of the criticisms fairly labelled towards Ralph has been his stubbornness to change the formation, notably his stubbornness to move from a 4-2-2-2. He's looked at last season and has clearly decided things need to change, so he's trying to create a more stable structure first and foremost which should allow for a better structure in both defending and attacking situations, but as with all these formational talks it does ultimately boil down to the quality of player you have in the positions across the pitch. The weekend was a frustrating one, there were things in the 5-3-2 which showed why we tried it. For example I don't think Lavia would have had such an impressive game in a 4-2-2-2 for example, so that 5-3-2 allowed him to show up as well as he did. Our problem, in my opinion, was our wing backs and the passive nature of both the wing backs and the centre backs to come towards the ball when we were defending. We let too many crosses into the box, didn't defend them well enough when they did and sadly a player like Moussa (who isn't a defender) was ripped to pieces by a very, very good wide right player. I don't think one game is a reason to rip up every blue print and try all over again, but there will still be tweaks along the way with the overall aim of trying to combine the best of both worlds, and there will still be games where we feel 4-2-2-2 is the best fit for the opposition we're playing - we'll probably even change mid-game in some weeks. Fan's can't moan about his lack of change one week and then criticise him for changing the next.

So he didn't say he'd abandoned 4-2-2-2 then. If you listen back the explanation from the horses mouth was quite clear. 4-2-2-2 is difficult for new players to adjust to, providing a 5-3-2 structure makes it a little easier for them to ease into the team. I know some fans are looking at just the number 4-2-2-2 and saying ''any player should have been playing that as a kid'' - but it's not just about the tactical number, it's what you do on the ball and off the ball in that system which makes it unique. Things like pressing triggers are much more apparent in a 4-2-2-2 which take time to learn. As we all know, if you don't press together in an aggressive press such as 4-2-2-2 then you are destroyed, so everyone needs to buy into it and be ready for it. I know it's a bit weird saying that as we went 5-3-2 at the weekend and still got thumped, but that wasn't due to an over aggressive press it was us being too passive in the wide full back positions and allowing way too many crosses into the box.

Exactly that. Why are people changing what he said to make him sound worse, it's doing my head in.

Tella moving on loan makes sense for everyone. There are clearly some more attackers coming in, his game time is going to be limited and he stagnated massively last year as it was. And let's be honest, he's not really good enough to make a difference for us at the moment - so I'm glad we're looking to move those guys on, to create space for players who can actually improve us at this moment. I'm not sure if he'll ever make it as a PL player, but he needs game time. Getting regular football at a club aiming for promotion is a positive for him, look forward to seeing how he and Smallbone do.

It wasn't great, there were some good questions but some absolute time wasted on nonsense like JWP's testimonial. I've always been impressed with Martin, but tonight I sense he was very irked by the mood and maybe the atmosphere. He was very defensive not just in vocal tone but his body language, he was ready to confront fans pretty much. Not the look you really want, I'm sure he'll look back at tonight and be a little disappointed at how he came across. Ditto Toby, I thought he dodged a few questions and then got quite defensive when his responses were challenged. Ralph's answers were full of truth, they were full of the passion we know he has. They didn't answer much I'd say, the reasoning behind Armstrong starting was loose to say the least. There has been some re-writing of his words on this thread though, not at a single point did he say he'd abandoned 4-2-2-2. 5-3-2 is going to be used in some games, and we'll also see 4-2-2-2 used as well. That's what he said, I have no problems with people having opinions but don't make up shit to add weight to your own argument. Overall it was a bit of a damp squib of an event I thought. The lack of questions around the ownership and the plans for the future was shocking, it waited until the end for a somewhat useful question on that - but I expected more, although I'd have also liked to have seen one of the ownership group sat at the table as well to maybe prompt those questions and give us an insight from that side of the fence.

It's impossible not to assume Rasmus is smart given his impact at Brentford.

I doubt there are any takers for Adam Armstrong though, that's the prob.

There's no smoke without fire though, this Che Adams leaving stuff doesn't seem to be going away. Plus he didn't play at the weekend and he didn't really feature in pre-season, something is up - weather that's born out from him wanting a change or ourselves needing to raise money. The people who run SR are smart though, I can't see them leaving us in a weaker position. Sept 2nd will tell all.

A loan makes no sense because we'd need two strikers if he left, but we wouldn't have any fee from Adams so our financial muscle is then limited in order to buy 2. That would confuse the hell out of me.