Lord Duckhunter

His in laws live in the same town as me, one works with a good mate of mine. I’ve been priming him for info, but none has been forthcoming. The work colleagues tip toe around the subject of Saints, & he himself (family member) has told my mate that Jones’ family tip toe around it with him. One snippet he gave me back in Nov before it went tits up was about player recruiting . They would give the manager the players, and as far as SR are concerned they’re assists. Clearly some won’t be rated by the manager and whereas they thought Ralph would freeze them out, Jonesy told them he was prepared to work with these players . He told them making players better was “his job”, one that was specifically mentioned to my mate was Adam Armstrong. Obviously the Bree signing casts doubt on this theory, but it’s peanuts in modern terms, so maybe a case of chucking jones a bone. Assuming that’s true (and I’ve no reason to doubt it, and it’s 100% fact my mate knows the bloke), I don’t think SR are dictating formations, but they maybe giving him players that lend themselves to certain formations.

I’ll defend him when it’s pony. When people claim he’s a Sunday league manager, or Lyanco couldn’t get in the Havant side. Some of the pony written about the Newcastle game was ott as well. But yesterday was every bit as bad as Ralph’s “effort” up there last year, so I’m not going to defend that. I didn’t mind him calling out the twats in our fan base or our useless spineless players, but yesterdays interviews weren’t that and weren’t appropriate. I get where he’s coming from, he hasn’t played the Jones game. But I think the conflict is with himself rather than others telling him how to play, but he’s not man enough to admit it. Like Graham Taylor did at England, he’s compromised his natural game and pulled back from going for his own style because he probably thought he needed a more sophisticated version at the higher level. Once you go away from your core beliefs you’re fucked. He looks like he’s trying to buy himself time, but the time to impose your “play book” is the first few weeks, he’s now going to try from a position of weakness. A more or less impossible thing to do.

I stand by what I wrote on Jan 5th Personally, I prefer to see who comes in during the window before pulling the plug, see if there’s a change in attitude and culture within the club. Somebody needs to take it by the scruff of the neck, get rid of the losing mentality and upset a few of the precious darlings. Personally, I think he deserves the chance to do this. I understand peoples anger and don’t think I’m a “better fan” than them. But with this shower of shite, the next bloke that comes in will face exactly the same problem. As he’s SR’s man, and the loss of face that’ll come with sacking him, he maybe given more leeway to do the nasty stuff and kick a few arses. Making a few tweaks to Ralph’s playbook won’t cut it.

Probably cost him his job.

Close but no cigar

Bingo!!!!

Showed some glimpses that he could be a decent addition to the squad.

That’s face facts 1-0 down up there, there’s not many sides outside the top 6 that’ll pull that back, and we’ve been horrendous up there before with far better players. All I’m hoping is we don’t lay down and die, we make them fight and scrap for it.

The 5 games before us they played us were Fulham, Palace, Spurs, West Brom & Newcastle, winning only 2 of them. They were on the slide, a slide that ended up with 3 wins in 12.

💤 😴

Hey Sid, is there 3 wins in 12? Is this woeful form? Did any other manager cry?

Everyone was beating them around that time, they were in woeful form. Within the next few weeks, they’d lost at Home to Burnley, Brighton, Everton & Fulham, as well as losing to Leicester, Chelsea & Man C. They were in a run of winning 3 out of 12. Despite all those defeats only one manager thought the achievement so great he started crying though.

Sidney will be happy, he can meet up with all his Luton mates.

We’ve had some bang average keepers.

I genuinely think the way we handled the loss or Poch, a load of international level players & Cortese will come to be seen as one of the most remarkable transitions outside of the top top sides. It was quite remarkable, and I’d be amazed if Brighton or anyone else of our size could do the same. The only disappointment was that we didn’t have a decent cup run until we’d dipped slightly.

Cheese & Onion, I’ve never actually eaten them but I’ve got a gut feeling they’re perfect for me.

What flavour crisps do you like?

All the love for Brighton, but they’ve only done what we did when Poch & a bunch of players left. Replaced the manager & players whilst maintaining, or even bettering what came before. All this “why can’t we be like Brighton” is pony, they became like us under the hated Les Reed. IF they manage to continue this trajectory for a few more years, then yes we can look longingly at them. But at the moment, they haven’t got into Europe or a cup final, and haven’t been able to keep hold of players any better than we did.

I’ve noticed that. He waffles on that jones needs to manage as he wants, if he wants to play 3 centre halves then he should be true to himself and do so. Before then going on to say he shouldn’t play 3 at the back. Yesterday he was running down the signing of Bree, saying we didn’t need him, before ending by saying if jones wants him it’s a decent signing. I would say the blokes clueless, but it’s hard to work out what point he’s actually making.

There’s more chance of going to the moon in a shoebox.

I don’t understand why they can’t mix & match a bit. There’s lots of ex players capable of doing the games. If I was in charge I’d get different ex saints doing the away games at least. I’m sure there’s ex players living in every part of the country that we could rope in. I’d like different opinions rather than the same old same old every week. The other advantage is they can be a bit more outspoken without worrying about the clubs reaction. They could also challenge Blackmore’s pony a bit more. I’d also bin the text’s from chumps sat at home. Fucking idiots that have listened to Blackmore commentary of the game, then giving us their “insights” into what went wrong. “Fred from the IOW says, we need more width”.

Must have some Scottish blood mixed in.

Due to the horrendous train service I’ve listened more prior to and after games. Don’t know about his “in match” stuff but Tessem is fucking woeful before & after, annoying voice spouting nonsense. Doesn’t really say anything, just waffles on and on. I found Dave’s last of the summer wine act grating, but this is far far worse.

He’s got a chip on his shoulder that’s bigger than his feet. Perhaps that’s what drives him on, insecurity and the need to justify himself over and over. Personally, I’m with you. For too long we turned up with Mr Nice guy in charge and minced around nicely. It was all too matey with other manager, Pep & Klopp in particular. Maybe he shouldn’t get involved, but the chants at Palace, the Radio pile on from people like Blackmore & Doswell and other such stuff is going to fuel the fire even more. Just because he thinks everyone is out to get him, doesn’t mean a large section of the fan base isn’t.

Absolutely no chance of that. He’s their man, there’s zero chance he’ll get binned if we stay up. If we go down by one point, there’s a possibility they’ll keep him. I’d imagine they’d want to, but it’ll be untenable.