S-Clarke

I had the Astra-Zeneca for the first two, funnily enough just after my second they decided to stop giving it to my age range due to the complications! So I'd probably have Pfizer for any booster, or moderna.

Yeah, I've followed her. There is also a Dr on YouTube (Dr John Campbell) who is also very knowledge and offers really fair views I find. In terms of where I sit at the moment, I've had two vaccinations and I'm not really keen on any form of booster. My story of vaccination has been quite a troublesome one. 1st Jab - woke up in the middle of the night, cold sweats, shaking from every part of my body. Felt like a seizure, but it wasn't. I then did faint and tests did reveal heart related spikes, which have gone now. So luckily I was ok, but it shook me up. I'm a fully fit, young guy with no underlying issues. Previous to my jab I'd just been given the seal of approval my by doctor for having a 'remarkable blood pressure'. 2nd Jab - Maybe I was daft going for the 2nd given my experience of the first, but I did. Sadly it was still a bit shit. They didn't aspirate correctly, it got caught in a vain when they took it out and blood went everywhere. Literally squirted. It didn't even seem like the guy knew what he was doing. Ruined a pair of jeans and left a nasty bruise/bump for weeks on my arm. So I think I'm well within my right to steer well clear of any third jab. If that means I lose my job, I'll lose my job. If that means I get shut of of society then so be it. Given what happened to me on the first two I think people would appreciate my hesitancy.

But I think 99% of human beings on this planet, in 2021, would define Leeds United as a bigger club than Southampton. So I'd say that based on that there is definitive criteria and it's not meaningless. They have a bigger global fanbase, thus more revenue. They have a bigger stadium, this more fans to provide revenue. They have bigger history and are generally more famous around the world. Those are all definitive criteria in my eyes. You could use the same criteria to come to the conclusion that Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea etc are also bigger than us. So I don't think it's meaningless what so ever.

Bit weak to add training/stadium to the argument to be honest. Leeds have a much bigger stadium and with a bit of investment that could be built out to be even bigger and aesthetically cleaned up. Historically it's one of the most well known grounds in the country and Europe. I'd say as of today they have a much better mix of players than us too, more financial clout (even before this takeover) and higher revenue pull from all over the world due to their name, which no matter what you say is much, much bigger and well defined than Southampton. Also, have you seen the outside of St Mary's recently? It doesn't look particularly higher quality, we don't seem to have the money to improve on it either given that those 'screens' have fallen by the wayside.

Not sure he's the wrong player for us as such, he'd get into most midfields in the bottom half of this league. The problem we have is the mix around him in my opinion. His job should 100% be focused on breaking up play, positioning himself to be the deep pivot in essence - which will result in a lot of recycling of the ball. What he needs is someone to be able to pass the ball to who will then drive forward, sadly his conventional midfield partner JWP doesn't do that either. JWP is not a DM as such, he's just a bog standard CM who again is good at recycling the ball and playing a higher pivot role (he also gets around the pitch much better as well as cover) So I wouldn't give up on Romeu and say he's the problem, far from it - he'd doing his role, the issue is the mix and lack of quality around him. If he had players to pass the ball to who did look forward then it would be a different picture. A lot of the fault lies with our number 10's as well who just don't contribute near enough in that area. You always need a Romeu in your side to do the ugly side of it, but you also need quality in the attack to do the pretty bits.

That would be a bit daft in my eyes. We've signed him for a month to play, not sit on the bench! These sorts of signings don't give you a window to 'test' their quality, they're just in the thick of it from day 1.

That's what I meant, it's been a long day..! It feels as if we've been delaying the inevitable for many years to be honest. Our 'end of the lockdown season' was seemingly the freak, the consistent theme has been relegation flirters for the last 5 years. Eventually you go, especially when in that 5 years you've not had the ability to actually improve on the failings. We're weaker this year than previous which makes it even more precarious this year.

Could have done with Diallo as a sub in the last game in my opinion. But I still think we're a player short in DM to provide true like for like depth in that area, I have always thought that was a gap we should have filled in the summer.

Looking at the way things are shaping up, I think it's 5 from 3 for the drop. We're part of that 5. Newcastle will spend and will inevitably get out of it. Burnley, not sure, could be the year it's just a bit too much for them - although they have a knack of grounding out results when it matters. Watford will be one of our main rivals for 18th come the end, I think. They make me nervous as they have goal scorers and match winning attackers in their team. Norwich, I think, are probably a lost cause.

I don't this to turn into an Ings Love-in! but...he was critical to our attack and how it functioned, more than just a goal scorer. He popped up with assists as well, his genuine running and ability on the ball did open things up for us. Vestgaard is prob a bit of a freak though, he was massive so we had an enormous advantage at set pieces. That tailed off once teams figured out how to defend against him though. I'd also add to the argument that we have improved defensively this season, we're not committing as high up as we did last year (so we're not getting caught like we were). This will likely contribute to less attacking clear cut chances, but more defensive stability - which is kind of what we've seen. The damage to our attack is being felt because we haven't got that '1 chance, 1 goal' type of player up there, as we do still create chances.....better striker up top and this setup would be being lauded imo.

Yeah that wasn't great from Ralph, I don't like to hear that. He's a very emotional manager, that's one of his markers, but he needs to keep it in check sometimes.

He's of a similar story to Isgrove, Hesketh etc. The club keep them around for years longer than they should, but they never make it as has been obvious from day 1.

It's quite a simplistic way of looking at it, but I genuinely think it does boil down to that. Take Ings 6 goals out of the equation, that removes 6 points from our total at the same stage. And that takes us down to pretty much where we are now points wise. It was always such a gamble to sell a proven PL goal scorer. I do appreciate that the club say the $$$ was good and decided it was a good deal, but we really cheeped out on the replacement. Should have gone all out for someone like Daka who'd scored goals at a European Level, or even had our scouts aware of Dennis @ Watford who has been excellent for them. It feels unfair on Armstrong really, he needed to replace Ings goals from day one as no one else in our existing squad is capable.

I don't think Lewis has got any better. he doesn't paly for the B Team anymore, he was dropped in favour of Bycroft? (i think). They kept shipping too many goals with Lewis in there. I'd be tempted to give Bycroft a crack (if we can) and forget the Lewis experiment. But I reckon you'll see us get an emergency loan in before the weekend...

It's interesting, as we've seen many a time with Ralph and players...when he has a problem with you, that's pretty much game over and you're out of the squad. Maybe you're right and he has now had enough of him. I wouldn't put the blame all on McCarthy though, there's plenty of other people around to relay that message - including the on field captain who was as meek as we all come to expect. We'll probably get an experienced goalie for a month, then go all out for Johnstone in January at which point we'll probably never see McCarthy again. (maybe sub at most once Forster leaves)

Pretty shit indictment of the players in the squad that replace him to be honest. Our lack of threat from those final third positions isn't good enough. Bar Redmond, who seems to be involved this season, no one else ever contributes from those areas. We're carrying them most of the time.

He has come out and stated why he left subs later, sometimes he does them earlier but it didn't make a difference I didn't feel. We were still in the game and controlling it to a certain degree. Brighton had the majority of the ball but they played in front of us, so it was fairly comfortable and we were managing it without much stress. Without that brain fart we'd have seen that game out with relative ease, let's be honest. And I doubt his 'in game management' would have been questioned at all then. Not sure I can really throw the shit at Ralph for 'costing us' this one, as we really weren't in any trouble. The on field players caused it themselves.

Yeah I mentioned on another post, we're not actually playing badly. We're playing as well as we did at the start of last season, we just can't score goals (which was going to be obvious as soon as we sold Ings). We have no breathing space this year. We had a 10 point cushion last season (we had about 24/25 points at this stage). I fear what will happen when we have our genuine dip in form and stop playing well.

Very fair views, you see the game very much as I do really. I really like Broja but it feels a bit of a fail that our attack and goals are down to a teenage loannee. Need to sort that out. The wide players are as guilty, there's no goals from anywhere else. I know Armstrong is still adjusting etc, but I still expected more from a £15m outlay. We didn't get pushed back as much 2nd half, but we did drop off a little as the half went on. Probably tiredness like you said. Ralph does sub Romeu from time to time, maybe JWP needs to be the victim of a sub occasionally. What worries me is that we are playing well - against Leicester we played well, against Brighton we should have been out of sight after 50 mins. Played well against West Ham at home, Utd at home - Norwich away we should have been out of sight really. At the start of last season in our 'playing well' period we had Ings banging in the goals, now we have no one to score those goals consistently hence why we're only managing the odd win and mainly draws. I fear as to what happens when we have a dip in form and performances, as there is nothing in this team which will ever enable us to 'win when playing badly' - we can't even win when playing well.

You could guarantee that if we were facing a team without their two goalkeepers, two centre backs, attacking mid or DM - we'd somehow contrive to lose in the most irritating way. But when we're in that position I don't see Arsenal having any problems what so ever. They'll probably swat us aside by about 50 mins, if that.

He's kind of captain by default really. Bit of a symbol for the academy etc and good PR all round in that respect. I don't think he's a bad player, far from it, but he's never been a leader in my eyes. The problem is we don't have anyone else who is that mould and we haven't for many, many years and that's why we are where we are. We lack leadership at critical moments, we lack professionalism and experience. When your captain is doing what he did in the last 2 mins it shows up everything that is wrong. There's some real quality in this team, but it's a little bit rudderless and extremely naive at times. Sometimes we're screaming out for some experienced heads at crucial moments, and we're really just a bunch of kids.

It didn't. Ralph is also scathing at the lack of communication and professionalism.

I wish you'd piss off from these forums, you're a right nasty piece of work.

Why did he have no idea? That's a worry for me. The players in our side are way too quiet, no one takes leadership of on-field issues and just sleepwalk in moments like that. Someone should have flagged that as soon as it was known, even McCarthy himself. Lewis it is then. Not sure we have anyone else?

He's shit anyway and costs us the game every week, according to some. So we won't miss him when he's out, right? We're in an awful place now. Needed at least 4 points (pref. 6) from these two games. Just 2 puts us deep, deep in the shit, in my opinion. (with injuries, suspensions and a nasty run of fixtures). Looking like an amazing Christmas for everyone.