S-Clarke

To add a genuine positive, no more VAR. Just watching the Sheff U v Leeds match, and being able to know it was a goal without waiting for check clear/check over was just refreshing. (If you haven't seen it, that was the sort of goal VAR would have spent a month checking, for various reasons)

Wasn't that in the summer we last went down? I'm sure Sheff U were strongly interested, as then a PL side (he was stalling on a contract with us too). Don't think we had any interest this summer.

It's just a normal internal coaching move around by the looks of it, nothing more to it than that from what I can see. We were a coach down after RM's cronies left. We did it with Craig Flemming and Davis under Ralph, and Carl Martin under Selles or Jones.

What a time to be alive.

That Jim Radcliffe takeover has been a total disaster for Man Utd, funny to watch it all unfold though. The Glazers have always been shit, so everyone assumed this would be better - but he's gone a bit Elon Musk on them all!

I think the £30-35m Joachim Andersen went for in the summer is a good benchmark for what we should expect for THB, with the added English tax.

To rephrase it slightly, what I meant is that he's way, way too good for us in our current guise. I agree, we needed Ramsdale level players in at CB, CM and ST to really stand any hope (the same will go for if we are ever promoted again).

I don't think he's ever been much cop to be honest, certainly had the physical attributes I thought we needed back in Ralph's days, but technically he's pretty piss poor. Add that to a genuine lack of conditioning after not playing for years, he looked pub standard. The crazy thing about him is after all of that, he'll still throw his toys out and demand a move in the summer as he'll think he's better than the Championship. Wilcox called him out last season by suggesting there are players who think they have a PL market, but don't. He's one of them.

You've picked out Ipswich as a game we dominated, but we lost it. In many ways that game highlighted the flaws of Martin's approach. Some good moments in the attacking third, but absolute nuts at the back - always giving teams a chance. That was the story of our season really, we vary rarley put teams to the sword - I can think of a handful of games at best. We gave everyone else we played a chance. We gave Huddersfield a two goal head start, we allowed Rotherham back into the game against us, we dominated a first half away at Swansea, went 3-0 up and managed to just about scrape a 3-1 from the second half. We got absolutley destroyed by Sunderland at their place, Leicester home and away. It wasn't as good a season as many try to make out. We were a bit of a oddball in how we approached games and saw them out, which is why I was really happy we got promoted but dreading how we'd cope with better teams. Alas, we haven't.

I think it's been mildly refreshing to have a goalkeeper in between the posts who is capable of making saves. We expose him so much, so he'll always let in a few, but he does actually make saves which is light and day between Bazunu who isn't capable of making saves. He's the least of our issues, but I'd say he's more of a Villa level GK than an Arsenal/City etc, but he's a very good GK and way, way, way too good for us. We'll miss him next year, trust me!

I read that, I thought it was a good article. I'd put it down to another cause though. Their core players are getting older, and their recruitment for the replacement/evolving of their roles has been really really poor by them. I don't look at their side and see any future Rodri's or De Bryune's - they're recruiting 'good' players, but not who I believe will go on to be elite level. The jury is still out on their January signings, I don't really know much about them. Their midfield has been decimated with the absence of Rodri and De Bruyne through injury over the last year, and it's hard to emphasise how important a strong and reliable '6' is when trying to control football matches. If you lose that central structure in a tiki-taka style, then the walls around it crumble. I can't imagine Barca would have done as much without Busquets or Xavi. I don't think it's the end of 'passing football' per-say, I still believe if you have good enough players then you can probably play in any way. City just haven't been good enough in the transfer market under Pep.

Absolutley, I agree. There needs to be an element of ruthlessness in the summer, I don't give a shit if so and so is good in the changing room, if they can't add to us on the pitch then they need to be dumped. Whilst the loyalty we have shown to the likes of Bazunu, Larios, Stewart etc can be seen as admirable, there comes a point where it starts to look like pure stupidity. If we are really going to change and he's going to call the shots then I'd expect to see some common-sense decisions in the summer, and none of the club mouth pieces coming out saying how good Bazunu is etc. Most people in football know he isn't, that's why his only taker in January was Standard Liege (and that's only because his former City coach works there).

Let's just revisit the Martin tenure a second. We started the Championship season terribly and were bottom half, the writing was on the wall but he got us moving again during the middle third of the season - and we flirted with the automatic spots. In the final third of the season we were shit again, losing to Stoke, Cardiff, being thrashed by Leicester etc etc. We were one of the 'top 4' because our players relative to that league were good, and lots of last min wins kept us in there. Whilst we did get promoted, I didn't feel like we were ever a promotion looking side. We were caught out by teams like Huddersfield, couldn't keep clean sheets to save our life and let in 60 odd goals. The style Martin implemented caused us more problems than solutions and our quality on the pitch, relative to the level, had to dig us out of lots of holes. I appreciate that he got us promoted, but getting promoted under him playing the same way did give me nightmares - I'm not going to lie. I had a tiny bit of hope that maybe we'd recruit better players, he'd adapt and we'd improve, but we spent the summer chasing failed PL players and Martin's mates so we were no better off, but playing the same way in a league that's 10x stronger. We were always going to struggle. Martin's philosophy, of all the chatter about it, had failed - and we stuck with him for too long. My argument against replacing Martin at the time was that the same people were in charge, so whilst it needed to happen it probably won't lead to a good choice. And here we are today, with another left-field oddball choice to continue where we have been under SR.

Yep, positioning, movement of feet, reading of the game, his physical presence impacting his ability to get down to corners - all absolutley critical attributes for a top level GK. They can't really be coached, so he's dead rubber.

All those extra views did was seemingly add more disgust towards the fans. As I said, weird posting style.

Which should have been obvious before he even took the job, and even more weirdness that we chose to appoint someone with a fixed style that was the opposite of the style we were 'built' for. (not built very well mind). It's just another SR masterclass. We had Ralph here doing that exact same approach, with players more accustomed to doing it. We then spent 18 months ripping that up and building a new style, to then do a full 360 and go back to where we started but now without the players to play it. Absolutely genius.

Do you actually ever have a view on the games or the club it's self, or do you use this forum as place to voice your disgust at the fans? I'm not sure who you are, but my guess is that you're some sort of a club-bot with no fan connection. It's the only conclusion I can bring myself to your weird posting style.

Seriously, it's not like they've just made a few messes up here and there. They have continuously, 99% of the time, picked the wrong ones for Saints. That alone removes any element of confidence that anything they try next will work. What they do at Goztepe means shit.

I doubt Spors has had any input in promoting Rusk, let's be honest. He wouldn't have had a clue who he is to start with. This is just a normal internal promotion as you see across all teams. We did it with Carl Martin when he moved up from the U18's, and also Craig Fleming before him. He's certainly not being lined up to be our manager.

I must admit I know very little about Spors and I do find it quite odd how everyone is now pinning Spors as our saviour. Like you say, every big call they've made has gone south - even to the point of Wilcox and Shields as they jumped ship just months into it. They always make the wrong calls. My expectations for Spors are very, very low, either his longevity or his impact on improving us. It's all a bit desperate really.

The fact you're describing Aribo and Bree as the two centre backs is where it's all wrong. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. They wouldn't even be capable centre backs in the lower league, I just have no words for this anymore. It's like we're being run as some sort of experiment.

This is different, the rot is deep. The ownership can't do anything right. I just don't see how we can be competitive next season going by what we see every week. The levels are different, sure, but it's hard to lose every week to then start winning every week. We're not going to be walking away with any league next season, maybe a playoff push at absolute best if everything goes right - but that requires SR making the right calls, which they obviously won't.

It's probably 60/40 or somewhere along those lines. The players recruited in the summer were poor and not at the level we required. That's on Martin as he sat at the head of all recruitment decisions in the summer. He has left us with a hopeless team at this level. He continued to persevere with an approach of playing football that was getting us in trouble last season, so it was obvious to all of us what it would do to us this season. His arrogance continued as we all expected. Juric has come in and hasn't really changed anything, yes the quality of player is very, very, very low - but any sane person should not be playing Aribo as a centre back (or Bree for that matter). At the end of the day, SR have struck again. Awful decisions and awful execution of ideas. This all leads back to them and their ownership is now severely damaging for the future of this club.

I question the sanity of anyone who feels Aribo and Bree are capable CB's at a competitive level of football.

Using Gotzepe as a reason to hold SR to any sort of regard is pretty pathetic. I couldn't give a toss about Gotzepe, I only comment on what I see in front of me happening to the team I support. The hard facts are that that they've relegated us twice, and have spent a small fortune on achieving those relegations. They have been utterly, utterly, utterly useless and every big decision they have made has been a fail. They are in the process of ruining this club for an entire generation of fans. If Gozepe finish 6th in the Turkish League it doesn't redeem them in anyway, I only care about what they're doing for my club and they're fucking turning it to rubble in front of our eyes.