John B

I felt rather better that day than I do about Southampton Football Club today but one has to take the ups and downs of football 1976 FA Cup final - Wikipedia No doubt better things are around the corner and I doubt I will have such a hangover on May 2 2023 as I had on May 2 1976

Having the worst squad in relation to the league we were playing for the last 60 years was clearly going to lead us to relegation Replacing a decent manager with Jones compounded the situation you would have thoufgt if Ralph was to be sacked that an experienced one would have been the replacement. But I do find it strange that Luton may replace us in the PL

The decline has been on the cards for sometime as we have not been able to recruit decent PL players for some time apart from Lavia KWP and Livramento so it was quite obvious e would be relegated eventually Thats what happens in football but unlike our last relegation we have not got a pool of top class players from our Academy to develop so the future maybe bumpy

It always surprises me why Football Clubs pay millions for coaches when they can get fans off a forum who will do the job and get winning results Still some teams will have better players have better luck but three teams will get relegated be relegated but have perfect tactics I

Although your post is quite sensible whoever we play in attacking roles never seem to perform consistently in creating or scoring goals

Only the gullible thought it was am amazing Window I for one did not For goodness sake we were in the PL we needed PL proven players not players who may develop into PL players in a few years time The January window was even worse I do not think any player who came to the club in 2023 even started and I am totally in agreement with your comment on Nathan Jones Getting rid of Stephens Bednarek and Redmond was probably a mistake too as was getting rid of Ralph without a sensible replacement was ridiculous However I am not sure any manager could have saved us with quality of our strikers GK and CBs

Agree our team is hardly inspiring is it ?

Realistically a win today is highly unlikely I would have thought but we can only hope

Exactly but unsurprising with the worst squad of players I think we have had in the PL I know in the early 1990s we had some poor players but we did have MLT to win us games

I agree with this on BBC Website we are doomed Premier League relegation: Nine teams in danger of dropping to the Championship - BBC Sport

I was at the Milton Road End that day too and remember he seemed to head the ball over his head and into the back of the net I always liked Tony as a player and followed him at Leicester when i lived in Leicestershire sixty five years ago he did much along with Paine and Chivers to get us to Div 1

Why do you think the manager who knows more about the strengths of all the players disagrees with you

Lucky Point but it is nice to have a bit of luck for a change Defence seems to be playing OK which is good However without decent goal scorers we are going to get relegated

One of out better recent buys along with Lavia

You seem to be in La La Land just because the team is poor and we are playing badly you appear to be throwing your toys out of the pram Every year teams get relegated that is football just accepted I have realised since September that we are going down but am looking forward to next season. We were much the better team last night but did not get the result DCC stupidity probably did not help Go cheer up a bit at least we are have not been devastated by an earthquake or at war with Russia and do not have Truss or Johnson as MP and we may even win on Saturday

To quote an imfamous poster what a lot of old Pony Football is a great game ask Grimsby and Sheff Utd fans this morning they would disagree with you I have been supporting the Saints when I was a kid nearly 70 years ago when we were in Div 3 South Yes we are poor now through lack of investment and a suicidal recruitment policy But there is no reason why we cannot return to be one of the top 15 or so teams in the country again especially if we have the a bit more rub of the green We did not play well I know but we conceeded one unlucky penalty had two goals not scored because of marginal offside decisions whilst Grimsby had a penalty after a successful marginal offside decision and could have conceeded a penalty and possibly could have lost a player with a bad foul on Lavia Luck matters in football so please stop whining and feeling sorry for yourselves at least we are not as bad as Pompey

They have done really well in not getting a decent striker to join SFC

Really I thought we won because of a JWP special

Well getting both teams promoted to the PL seems pretty positive to me compared with your negative response

Quite right it no one is to blame we are going down there is only a faint chance that we can get over twenty points in our remaining games JM currently has a contract with Leeds for another two years it would be stupid for him to sign another contract with SFC for anything less than that similarly it would be stupid for SFC to sign a long expensive contract with a PL manager at the present time. I would be happy with somebody like Scott Parker to manage us in the Championship as I just cannot see us surviving especially after we were 1 up against Wolves who had 10 ten and we lost The squad is too inexperienced and error prone and I just do not feel they are a team just a collection of young players who have found their way recently to Southampton

I am fed up with all this despondancy these wins two wins got me really interested in the Saints although I lived 130 miles from the Dell MANCHESTER CITY 1 SOUTHAMPTON 5 FA Cup 3rd Round 9th January 1960 Southampton Reeves(23, 32, 67 & 86), O’Brien(64) 7th January 1961 – FA Cup Third Round – Southampton 7-1 Ipswich Town (O'Brien 3, Mulgrew 2, Penk, Paine) and I still support them today after moving back to Southampton in 1962 and watching them regularly In those days they were a team not a collection of millionaires with no passion for the club

Southampton 1-0 Arsenal 16 Apr 2022 But you are off course right in highlighting our dismal record and that is why I have thought we are going to be relegated since September

Very similar to Liz Truss becoming PM with little exerience and crazy ideas

That is why sacking managers without a decent replacement is clearly wrong has now happened twice with both Puel and Ralph Worked well with Adkins and Poch

I have been watching football for over 60 years so I probably know more about than most What was the point you were trying to make