norwaysaint

Still think Gabbiadini would start to score if he were in the team on a regular basis, rather than played and then dropped on a regular basis. Long, Austin, Hoedt all get picked week on week despite poor performances. Gabbiadini deserves a good chance to find form.

Hughes must be furious about having to give Gabbiadini some playing time. He won't even be on the bench next match.

It's kind of funny that back in the eighties there were people complaining about the modern game and in 20-30 years time there will be people complaining about how terrible the modern game is compared to when they went to games back in 2018. Nostalgia is exactly what it used to be.

How do we compare the mediocrity of our current squad with Cedric, Long, Austin, Redmond, Mo, PEH, Romeu, JWP, Stephens, Yoshida, Hoedt, etc against the medicrity that got us relegated last time, Prutton, Telfer, McCann, Jakobssen, Nilsson, Ormerod, Delap, Higginbotham, Kenton and Quashie?

They don't care. They have Trump firmly in their pocket, just like they have every US president. Just listen to how scared Trump is of upsetting them in every interview he has. The guy would get down on his knees and blow the Saudi prince om national TV if they threatened to withdraw their money. Just look at the lack of consequences they got for 9/11 despite pretty much everyone involved being Saudi. If the US didn't have the balls to confront them after a huge terrorist attack on US soil, they aren't going to risk it all to defend a dead Saudi national.

That about sums it up. He's a player we know has quality, but just never gets any chance to get any kind of form. He was good, but he's not getting any better spending his better years playing only an occasional cameo role. Why isn't he ever a regular starter?

I think we may as well try someone from the academy or Gallagher up front. I can see how they can give a worse goal return than the players we're sticking out there now.

We scored 8 in a match where Shane Long was one of the starting strikers. Mayuka came on to replace him. Funny to see Reed on the bench. He was on the fringes of the team four years ago and is no closer to playing for us now.

I've missed this. Can someone explain the evidence it's based on and what the story is?

He came across as incredibly thick, like he would do it again if he could get the chance and the remorse seemed very fake. It was hard to feel sorry for him about sexual assault charges against him possibly being false, when he was so dismissive when it was pointed out to him that the women he had attacked on the street were probably still dealing with the psychological effects of what he did to them. I also hate hearing "I grew up on a council estate" as some kind of valid reason for a life of stealing and assault. Be a ****ing man and not an entitled little cry baby.

I think I'd go with Schneiderlin, who reached his peak during his time with us in the PL and made our midfield the match of any in the division, which is a very rare thing for a team outside the top 5 or 6. Then Pochettino, who, although not as successful as Koeman, got our team to play like they were contenders. Finally Lambert, who gave us the feeling that while he was on the pitch, we always stood a chance of scoring. He lifted the spirit of the team so much that most of us even cheered him all the way to Liverpool for his big payday glory moment. He just edges out Mane and Pelle for me. I'm surprised so many going for Bertrand, who just seemed like a seamless transition from Shaw, who had excited us in that position the season before.

People forget just how miserable it became when we got relegated before. We ended up losing decent players and stuck with the average ones, then started buying the only players we could attract at our new level, Ricardo Fuller, Idiakez, Euell, Jermaine Wright etc. That was the reality of relegation. Then we tried blooding the products of our famed academy, just like everyone had been excited about. Step forward Gobern, Thompson, Jamie White, McGoldrick, Gillett etc. I suppose Walcott was exciting for the half season or so we got to watch him in a saints shirt. Bale too, but they didn't hang around to play in the championship. Even when we found an unlikely star like Rasiak or John, we ended up not being able to play them, because we couldn't afford the bonuses. We then blew every penny we had to reach the play-offs, failed and ended up relegated again in an even worse state. Can't wait to see those exciting days again.

We've always had lots of average players. Even when we beat Liverpool 3-1 Do Prado, Hooiveld, Yoshida, Boruc, Ramirez and Cork (who I actually rate) played. Forren, Puncheon, Kelvin and JWP were on the bench. So the differences were in coaching, selection, team spirit and the few players in each team who had more quality. So who were your top three people who improved us since our PL return? (Doesn't have to be limited to players)

I don't think we have any team or formation that you'd back for a result against any realistic team they could put out, so whatever really, nice to see Yoshida and Gabbiadini getting a chance, but we'll probably lose badly and they'll both lose any chance of a regular start as a result.

He's just made a lifetime appointment that will determine American legal decisions for most likely a couple of decades, if not longer. The supreme court is the most powerful of the three branches of American government, able to overrule the president and congress. There's a reasonable chance that the next appointment will be something like Bader Ginsberg dying or standing down, meaning it will become an incredibly powerful 6-3 majority with little chance of being balanced any time in the near future. That will almost certainly mean a change in abortion laws, gay rights and more. Not fascism, but a very big deal.

I haven't had the impression that Gao is preventing the club being run well, or withholding transfer funds, messing around with first team affairs. It seems that the problems have been with unsuccessful managerial appointments and poor choices for where the money goes. We could complain that he's not more hands-on and being more visibly involved, but if he had been, we'd probably be blaming him more.

Koeman was a high point we probably won't match for a long, long time. The peak of the Liebherr era.

Somebody (hypochondriac or duckhunter or someone?) was going on the other day about all the people who said Ings wasn't good enough. I've really searched this thread and can only find people concerned about his fitness. His quality seems to have been widely agreed on. Good to see everyone in agreement about that. Hope things keep going well for him.

One more: Forward Jay Rodríguez 27 2017-2018 £12,100,000 Southampton West Bromwich Albion £10,740,000

This place becomes almost unreadable with all of the points scoring going on between people I really don't know or care about. Nice to see a couple of comments on Hughes again. I think it's still early to get a big picture, positive or negative, but we certainly haven't seen enough to call for his sacking.

Had a look back at the thread and gave up searching for posts along those lines after four pages. Most posts were very positive with a few concerns over long term fitness and value for money. Perhaps they were all on a dferent thread or you might just be overplaying the part of a very small minority.

Great to see a result. Well done to Hughes for not dropping PEH, which seems to have worked out well. I can't be sure, but pretty much all of the concern seemed to be that he wouldn't be fit for enough of the season to be worth the money we have agreed for him. I could be wrong, I'm not here as much as you. Do you feel that this has been proven sufficiently wrong already that you can start with your point scoring against them? It seems premature, but hopefully it will prove right.

Nothing new or strange. It's always been just one or two academy players coming through every couple of years at most and the majority ending up in lower league or non league. That's just how it works.

Can't see that our home grown average players are any more of a problem than the average players we buy in for millions.

We have a history of great left backs and rather average right backs at saints. Clyne was our only great right back in a list that stretches back.