Saint Fan CaM

Agreed - and yet Dibling is still with us, with no new contract signed or a new deal offered from another club. Why is that do you think?

Very selective memories IMO. There were occasions when he made excellent interceptions (as well as covering for substandard CB’s), plus being left exposed because the likes of Dibling left him stranded upfield after another failed pass or running into a blind alley. You can’t have it both ways - if he got into advanced positions on orders to cross, then there’s less chance defending adequately in a system NONE of the fullbacks were entirely comfortable with - but who covered for him? Even KWP came under criticism at times under Martin’s system.

Outside of Fernandes and Ramsdale who did? Also his manager(s) were not up to the PL job were they? Seems a bit disingenuous judging him against such a backdrop.

I’m 50-50 on whether it’s worth keeping him or not - he’s seemingly got loads of potential, but there’s little evidence that he has what it takes to realise that potential at the moment. Maybe that’s something that happens at Championship level who knows. I’m not sure he really wants to leave and I wonder whether the stupidly high £100m price tag is an indication of that rather than anything else, although it’s baffling why he’s not signed a new deal. If it’s a game of cat and mouse I don’t think his agent is in a particularly strong position frankly.

For me Suga is not the worst defender or indeed player in a team of misfits. Manning is worse in my opinion for a start as he’s not got the attacking delivery and is useless in defence. Suga has been playing for the most part under a system that was totally unsuitable for the squad and as such was placed into difficult defensive positions when the likes of wonder boy Dibling fucked up and gave the ball away in our half. In terms of the handballs - yes, it’s not great - but there’s a definite argument that on another day/time, it’s judged as a “ball to hand” accidental thing. There has to be a scapegoat I guess, but to my mind there’s at least 16 other first team players that fit that mould too.

So what you’re saying is the club deliberately bought players not good enough for the PL because it was nailed on we’d be in the Championship this season? 🤔

Southampton’s player? Might as well be Göztepe’s player for all the good he’ll do our club!

Can you imagine the heyday the skates will have when dear Baz flaps around and gifts them a winning goal or two? It’ll be too painful to watch. I thought he’d gone off on loan to prove his fitness following injury? And actually ended up proving he’s actually quite shit.

In a way I’m glad that Still had the opportunity to witness the lack of fitness and ability across the squad this early in pre-season. If he has any sense of the overall deficit that exists in the squad (which I think he’s starting to realise) he’ll be begging Spors to shift most of the first half team out the door plus a few others and recruit some real talent in. Even if a player is willing to stretch himself and attempts to put the effort in, does not mean he has the capacity to get fitter or suddenly develop a better footballing brain. Or to put it more crudely, you can’t make a purse out of pigs ear. Example of how this works…Stephens - not improved over how many seasons?

It would be quicker listing those who might actually be worthy of a start. And from the post match interview Still thinks the pretty much the same - he was clearly disappointed in the performance (don’t think his comments on the 2nd half excluded that team). What he will find out however is these players were selected to play a different, much slower system - they just don’t have what it takes both in physical and mental attributes to play a fast, pressing, goal scoring game. Yes this was the first pre-season game, but it was against a relatively lower level side. It’s going to be a shit show unless there’s a significant improvement in either the players or new players arriving. And I predict neither will happen…there I said it.

Still sounded a bit pissed off in his post match interview - lots of work yet to be done!

Very good - thanks. Trouble is the two signings we have made are not on there and not one of those listed have been seen anywhere near Staplewood! Serves to demonstrate the value in the media rumour mill and highlights the massive value of the CoT - isn’t that right @Turkish? 😉

True, but mine has not updated for a couple of years now?!?

Even with those players gone, there’s far too many hugely mediocre players in that squad and not enough creativity/dynamics in midfield. Still a big job left to turn things around IMO.

Working for me at the moment, but not sure how long my subs last for. I seem to remember contact via email previously.

I’ll admit that the club management must know better than I do, however from a supporters perspective this stinks if only for one reason - it’s rewarding failure upon failure. He’s nowhere near good enough or worthy of the Captains armband having Captained the worst Saints team for decades into relegation and yet he’ll be expecting a start every fucking game. What was the point of signing Quarshie, even if Bednarek and ABK departs? The lad is a loser. This really does put into question the leadership of the club and I don’t want to believe this was anything other but forced onto Still because good ‘ol’ Jack the lad is a Saints stalwart. I really thought we’d be ditching the losers like Stephens, Manning and Smallbone. Nope, exhibiting soft as shit management, Saints reward failure with a new contract.

This could be fantastic news if he’s stays. I can’t see him being Englands first choice starter, so there’s no reason he couldn’t be a backup from the Championship.

That’s just too simplistic a view - he may well be mediocre, but under what circumstances? And what does that make the rest of the squad that got relegated - worse than mediocre? It’s more like breaking up with a bad girlfriend because you don’t realise you’re actually not worthy of anyone better.

Edozie is a great example of why this window is extremely difficult to determine who,should stay and who should go. On the one hand we can remember him pre-loan being somewhat ineffective and frustrating - unfulfilled potential perhaps. But then that was under changing management / systems that clearly didn’t fit with the player. So you’re left thinking “perhaps under Still he’ll come good”. But then there’s the additional fact that even on loan in a ‘lesser’ league, he still didn’t excel or indeed fulfill his potential. And lastly, as time has moved on, it might be argued that Edozie is in fact better than some of the players that collectively relegated the club…e.g. Dibling and Sulemana - such has the dilution of squad quality been over the last 3-4 seasons. On balance I think he needs to move on, but if he does what does that leave us with and what confidence is there that the club can attract a better wide player within budget that can operate well under Still? There’s many I’m sure who will be concerned that further squad dilution will be our undoing once again.

If the highlights reel is anything to go by, this chap doesn’t have a lot of goals in him, however I did get the feeling he was a level above his teammates so perhaps there’s that. And he did show a good sense of special awareness in terms of passing to a teammate - seems to be a useful provider rather than just running into a blind alley like Edozie and Dibling. Hopefully the senior strikers like AA and Stewart will work well with him and he’ll learn how to put the ball into the net more clinically well before the end of the season. Minimum expectation from me would be 6-8 goals and 10 assists.

Fuck me, most of these slackers took the entire season off last season!!! 😉😂

Byeee…

As long as Manning is not playing ahead of Welington I’ll be satisfied. If not, I’ll lose a fair bit of respect for Still.

I think we will know very quickly if Downs is the striker we’ve been hankering for. He’ll be mobile in and around the box, he’ll choose to shoot rather than pass or take one too many touches and he’ll work well with his fellow frontmen. If he’s missing any one of those attributes we’ll know we’ve just signed another Mara or at best, just signed more of the same - aka AA, BBD, Archer, Stewart.

So far SR have done their utmost best to model the club on the proverbial Titanic - perhaps this is the final jigsaw piece in that aim? In all seriousness, to be fair this is a good move as it’s nice to see a proper connection with the city instead of the dubious branding of recent years. (…yes MLG, I know P&O were not connected to the Titanic 🙄).