St Marco

Build up play is so ****ing slow

Not sure what your point is exactly? If its the hobbit bought in some dire players then you are right. But lets not kid ourselves that Les' has not got some dire buys too. Classie, Hoj, Gardos, Duricic, Elia, Martina, Caulker, Juanmi, Pied and so on. Where as a lot of people would say Boufal and Redmond have been flops and its way too early to judge Hoedt and Bednarek (although I have seen Hoedt play a lot when he was at Lazio). That's the gamble of football. Some do well and some don't. If the point is who found Poch then I would personally believe Cortese simply because him and Poch are good friends. Nobody 'found' him as such as he was a manager for a top flight team. But to me its clear it was Cortese who actively pushed to bring him here. Like I said I don't think Les had anything to do with that one.

Didn't Cortese say he spotted Poch after scouting some player and started getting info on him after That? Pretty sure Reed had nothing to do with his appointment.

3 wins in our last 17 games. Reed and Black need to go. Time for some new ideas.

Ah ffs. Vvd has been ****ing awful.

Exactly it all boils down to the guy making decisions. Reed. Black shouldn't be here. Built a squad with poor replacements who are not at the level we were at. We have gone from a free flowing attacking team into a dull, slow, hoof ball team. Half of them look like they can't even be bothered.

Reed really has brought in some **** players.

So we leave our strikers on the bench... tactical genius!

What a poor first half. The good news is it's only one goal when it could have been more. MP needs to change tactics now and be more attacking. Bring Gabbi on.

Not true. Another myth. He was actually asked to stay on if you read KL statement. He declined.

So who spends their own money then? And if we are talking money the owner who he brought in just sold it for a huge profit. Based on the foundations he put in place. And didn't we take out loans years after he left? I guess that was his fault too right? I do find it funny how some people want to re-write history and base their opinions on rumours. He did many things wrong but we wouldn't be where we are if it was not for him and that's a fact.

Can't blame him for the results on the pitch. But he is to blame for the manager changes and changing the style of football that we were successful playing with. Add to that he seems to have a hard on for signing defence minded players when everyone knows we badly needed quality attacking ones. We will get to January with the same problems as last year. Personally I think it's time someone else came in who has different ideas. I appreciate what he has done in the past but I think it's clear his decision making process has declined. Time to take old yella behind the shed.

Exactly. We were 4th-5th lowest scorers last season and 2nd last scorers since the new year. This season has started just as the last finished. 1 open play goal and 3 blanks. I admire people's faith in the attackers but we can't score goals and we are set up to not conceed rather than score. Remember when teams like WBA got savaged for having that mentality.

Not sure how you can say it's a good window. We have failed to address out main problem which is attacking. 7 goals in our last 12 games is poor. The players are not being unlucky it's because they are average. We do not play exciting attacking football by having 7 defence minded players on the pitch. Maybe it's just me but I don't think signing a defender and a defensive midfielder = good transfer window.

How we are still 0-0 is insane. Everyone bar Gabbi has been awful.

We really are a shadow of the team we were a couple of seasons ago. So devoid of any quality. Poor performance all around.

We really need some better attacking players.

Be interesting to see what money is actually being invested in the club. Thanks Kat and your family for everything. Been some great years.

Of course we are a selling club. I'm pretty sure we all expected him to leave eventually. But after not playing for 8 months and just signing a new deal? What people just don't seem to be able to grasp on here is that you don't sign a new deal if your plan is to leave in a few months. The others who left were not going to sign new deals with us. We made deals with them that they stay an extra year and then they can go. Virgil has done the total opposite and shouldn't be able to go simply because he is too good for us.....

Don't always agree with you but I 100% do on this. The whole point of what he has done is to cause a ****storm so fans think 'get rid', which means he gets what he wants and the contract he signed means **** all. He gets his move, we end up with a lot of money which half will probably be reinvested in the team. But then it opens the door for every single player to do the exact same thing. From top to bottom the way he has behaved has been disgusting. Especially when you take into account he has collected money from us for the past 8 months for doing nothing. People complain about players and how it's changed football but the club's can stop it in an instant. Simply say no.

Time the club took a stand and put him in the reserves. The guy is an absolute scum bag. Talks about being injured made him realise how short his career is whilst picking up his pay cheque for doing nothing for 8 months. Then has the nerve to complain about not getting 2 weeks wages. Needs to be made an example of imo.

I haven't seen any of our pre season games, only read the reports. The manager said everything was wrong and we played more like individuals etc. That's why I said play as a team. I don't recall us playing exciting football at the start of last season. Didn't we only beat Swansea, Burnley and West Ham in our first 13 games?

And people saying it's just a friendly. The reality is this is our last practice game and will give us a clear idea of how we intend to play next season. What the style is, tempo, tactics and so on. Personally couldn't care about the result. What matters is we play as a team, work hard, show some exciting football that will give supporters a bit of belief that last season's shower of **** was just a blip.

Mostly agree with you. Spending money for the sake of spending money isn't ambition, its stupidity. How many £20m+ players have been bought by PL teams in recent seasons and turned out to be average at best. Too many. Lazio did that over here for years and they got nowhere, as did AC. That being said if we look at last season and figure out what our weaknesses are we should be trying to improve on them. Einstein said some **** about insanity being if you do the same thing over again and expect different results. If we go into next season with the squad as it is we will struggle imo. You mention Defoe but I don't see a problem with the guy. He scores lots of goals, always has. Just because he is now down the coast from us doesn't mean I will forget that. He scored more goals last season then our strikers combined. Bompey last season already scored more than us, do I think we will score more than them this season? As things stand probably not. We have some decent players here, but we also have some really average ones. Mixed in with some youngsters who are not at the PL level just yet. Classie/Hojberg/Boufal have been poor last season. Long, Davis and Tadic seem to have gone backwards. Maybe that was down to Puel and the new guy can get them playing again. Either way with the millions we have (especially now from selling Jay) we should be able to find someone better than those who were poor last season. Add to that seeing as VVD doesn't look like he will be here we need a top class CB. As much praise as Yoshi and Stephens get we still shipped a lot of goals with those two as our CBs. So I don't want the club to spend money for the sake of spending money. But on the flip side I know that a lot of teams are getting stronger this season where as we seem to be getting weaker.

Which then sends a message to every club that if you want any of our players just unsettle them and we will sell. It also sends the message your shiny new contract you just signed means nothing. If we sell and especially to Liverpool we will be seen to be weak and a walk over for anyone who wishes to leave. There is a right and wrong way to do business and that isn't it.