S-Clarke

That's actually a really good point. Every manager seems to, by default, stick Redmond on the left. He's described in most places as a 'left winger'. Cut inside tactic I guess? All that does is tempt him to stop and go backwards though, at least on the right he can carry on running and then whip it on without having to stop and cut back. He is very one footed.

Yeah, they have great owners. Similar circumstances what with the death of their main owner though, although the son was always heavily involved in the first place. They're a similar size to us but have left us a long way behind. I will go as far and say that Leicester's success has been mainly driven by their scouting. They don't throw money around. They do sell big....Chilwell, Maguire, Kante, Mahrez, Drinkwater... ...but they've progressed on the back of those sales because their scouting has been top notch. They sold Chilwell and bought in Castange, they sold Kante and bought in NDidi, they sold Mahrez and brought in Maddison. They'd planned for Maguires exit a year before and bought in Evans and Soyuncu - so when Maguire was sold, they used that money to invest in the wider team (Tielemans, Praet, Justin etc). The frustrating thing is that we should have been in a similar position as we also sold players for similar fee's, but our scouting lumbered us with Hoedt, Lemina, Elyonoussi and that useless crowd. It really is quite depressing to see how Leicester did it and how we've made such a mess of it. And didn't Les even say that they copied us...?

Report: Southampton eye Angers midfielder Angelo Fulgini - The Boot Room (tbrfootball.com)

I'll let you think that if you want! Crack on.

Please excuse me whilst I continue to laugh at them languishing in League 1 with Marquis as their top scorer.

Shall we just start the build up thread to Leeds away now? Might as well forget this game tbh.

Yeah, we had a shitty setup for around 4 years. It was the point in time where Ross came in and started to oversea everything. We had the change around which gave him and Les more and more influence on incoming player transfers. Their decisions in and around the 2016-2018 period have killed us, we had a huge amount of money from the VVD, Mane deals (100m ish) etc that should have been used sensibly by us to build for the long term. Yet we made a complete and utter mess of it. The fact our club thought Redmond was a clever replacement for Mane says it all. It'll take us some time to lose the influence of Ross and co. I think the first signings we can judge to have come purely from our new setup have been KWP, Diallo - so that's an improvement already. It wasn't all bad though to give them some credit - we did sign Armstrong, Ings, Bednarek, Vestergaard amongst the carnage and they have been sound investments for us. It's just a shame that the failure rate has outweighed the success rate, certainly on the 'big' statement signings which we couldn't really afford to get wrong.

At least Werner has broken his duck, I was sensing the inevitable 'werner hasn't scored in 1000 years, here's Southampton' headlines.

No idea who I'd seen, I reckon I thought he was someone else! You could tell he was too slow for this league the moment he stepped out on the pitch for us though, you'd have hoped professional scouts would have figured that. I do remember at the time we were battling it out against Everton for Hoedt, apparently. But again, as soon as he stepped out onto the pitch you could tell he wasn't suited. We've got scouts paid thousands to be the judge of players suitability for this league and they got it wrong too many times.

He didn't play RB. We went to 3 at the back, Salisu as left sided CB, Bednarek as right sided CB. Moussa as RWB.

Did you play RB? Get your boots....

I think both are hamstring injuries, so prob not anytime soon for either. Same as Theo.

They really wanted him, but they couldn't afford him and ourselves and Fraser weren't prepared to budge financially, so Celtic couldn't touch the wages he wanted. That's why he didn't end up there.

Exactly that, you get it!

Not sure we have anyone who is true captain material. You want a player who sets an example, steps forward in tough times and you notice them. I'll use Gerrard as an example, he was a proper captain. Chips were down, he'd be the one standing up and driving that team forward. He got them out of the shit through pure leadership. Fonte had a similar effect on us as well, I remember a 4-1 win at home to Arsenal when we were on a slump - he stood up that day and dragged us through that with the opening goal. Vestergaard is a good player, but I don't see that in him. I see another player with poor mentality who will more often than not shrink in size and panic when the going gets tough. Look at what happens to our defence when it's attacked by reasonable force by any team, they just crumble every time and start doing stupid things.

Really poor squad management as you say, so frustrating we are in this position. I guess part of it is because we need to so creative in moving players out, in order to open up the space for incomings. That's just pulled away at our squad depth over the years though. Academy kids aren't up to it, feels like 2008 all over again when we are throwing Ramsay and the likes onto the field - he'll never be good enough. You can usually tell pretty quickly. Best option for me is 3 at the back, Salisu left sided, Bednarek right sided, Vestergaard in the middle. Bertrand LWB and JWP RWB. We will lose something in the middle of the park though - step forward Alex Jankewitz - your time is now (take 2).

Vestergaard isn't captain material. Not even close. Stephens has more captain attributes than any of our current CB's. Sadly he's not very good.

I agree that clubs will sign duds, it will happen. But our 'duds to successful ratio' over the last 5 years has been diabolical for a club of our size, now it's put us in this situation. Carillo is the biggest dud we've ever had. He wasn't given more opportunities because he wasn't a very good football player. That was a shocking, criminal deal for us to sanction. No point persevering with a player who is clearly no where near the level. Boufal had more than enough chances, lots of twits and turns, but no end product as you said. But like you also say, it's the same as our other wide players. Moussa in particular is again no better than Boufal. Moussa is looking more and more like another expensive £15m dud for me. Hoedt - shocking player, he doesn't deserve the time of day from us. He's at Lazio and being as equally dreadful there going by reports. He thought he was a world beater, a superstar, yet he is one of the worst CB's I've seen play for us live. And I saw Alan Bennet at home to Crystal Palace. Lemina - talented, but attitude all wrong. I'd say we persevered with him, but again a player we signed with all the right tools but the completely wrong make up mentally. Elyonoussi - Not a PL player, no idea what the scouts saw in him to feel he's suited for the PL. Weak on the ball, poor off the ball, slow as hell. That near on £80m of transfer fee's above. They've either been released for free or are on loan. That level of 'return' is disastrous for a club of our size. I will accept clubs have duds, but not to the tune of £80m worth. It's killed us.

Hopefully we don't still have the same scouts who found these guys, they should have all been sacked at the same time Ross was turfed out. Turns my stomach over to think how much we splurged on Carrillo, Boufal, Hoedt, Elyonoussi, Lemina - if we hadn't, and Ralph had that to play with, the story may be totally different.

It's the age old ''they become a better player whilst not playing'' way of thinking. But you're right, he is absolutely hopeless with the ball at his feet and he can't move his feet or body quick enough, that's always been his problem. So we'd be expecting him to come in and play a sweeper keeper! It would be a complete recipe for disaster. McCarthy is as good as we've got for that goal keeper role, he's not great, no, none of our goal keepers are particularly suited to it (great scouting, once again) but he's the best of the bunch.

Exactly. I will lose my shit with Moussa playing there though, it would absolute carnage. I'd put JWP there if anyone. He can play the RWB role.

I can see us go with those 3 as centre backs. Bertrand LWB and someone else as RWB, probably Moussa.

They were 19th on 20 points.

A spine. We need a goal keeper who isn't afraid to shout. We need a centre back in the Fonte/Cahill/Evans mode - experienced leader. We need a solid defensive midfielder who has the energy to go box to box and isn't afraid to get stuck in to his own team mates or the opposition. Then you can supplement the side with Ings, JWP, KWP, Vestergaard, Armstrong etc and it starts to look like a decent side. But without those additions to the spine of this side we will continue to be a very meek side, happy with things when the going is good and playing well...but we will always struggle and sink when the going gets tough (and that always happens during a season).

There's a lot of chat about 'Plan B', but what is it? 'Just hit it long and get it in the box!'. It strikes me that when any team has a bad patch the supporters of said club refer to the lack of 'plan b'. I don't think there are ever plans set like that, it evolves during games. The lack of urgency in the closing stages of games is a concern though. It doesn't even seem as if we have a 'Plan A' when the chips are down.