Saint Fan CaM

What a great goal from Perraud! Just need three more now to be safe.

Should’ve put a winkie thing 😜😉

Why? Mara went in away from the keeper and it ended with the keeper kicking Mara!!!

We’re all over the place at the moment - AMN doing a bad job of trying to imitate a footballer.

Spoke too soon?

Minute I saw the line up I thought, good move Jones - you’re testing out the first team for the Championship.

I guess that goes to show that everything is relative as we were flying a lot higher back then.

Yeah well that’s my point. Outside of signing a striker that it seems we can’t afford, it makes you wonder why SR didn’t save some money by appointing a much better Manager in the same league as Koeman and Poch. Surely that would have represented less risk and less cost than the route taken? I’ve believed for a while that with the present squad a decent Manager would get us playing better - I.e. specifically passing formations, pressing, shooting, scoring.

Out of interest, does anyone here think Koeman or Poch would make a better stab at getting this squad to play better football and win games of football? I do - I don’t think it’s all about the money all the time. If that were the case we would never beat City 2-0 for example…it just wouldn’t be possible.

Well we now know that was an ‘exaggeration’ because apparently Jones was responsible entirely for the Bree signing.

Welcome James and good luck…you’re going to need it. Next.

Tick tock…FFS.

Jones personally led this one eh? Well now we know who NJ’s favourite boy was in the dressing room at Luton, with all respect. He’ll become a regular starter when KWP goes in the summer after our relegation. Happy days.

Yep, this guy would be great. What do you think…£50m?

Simple answer is we can’t, but then nor can about 10 other teams in the league. That’s why we’re a development and sell ‘em on high club, but it’s a delicate balance which can end with relegation as in our case.

I’ve got this picture in my mind of 4 or 5 Uni sport grads sat in a darkened room making bids on players a bit like E-Bay. See something of interest and knowing there’s a Buy It Now price, they still go in with a fucking ludicrous offer just in case the seller is desperate. Then when they get rejected they get a cob on and just move on to another player. 🤣

Thanks - I was not so sure of what games he’d miss.

Agreed, so I was surprised (once again) to see Jones not starting Alcarez with Lavia - to my mind a much more dynamic pairing especially at home. But Jones seems to like playing on the back foot and chasing a game.

What does realistic mean? £10m, £20m, 30m? At £10m-£20m, I’d say save your money, you’re not getting anyone in this window of any worth costing less than this. In fact I would hazard a guess that £30m is the lowest, but is that realistic for SR to stump up? Probably not, so I’m afraid fantasising over a player we’ll never get is pointless. Sorry.

My issue with Mara is he’s too isolated - his excellent goal against City came from good positional sense and an excellent assist…how often do we see that happening? He can’t go past 5 players especially Newcastle’s defence, but that’s what Jones expects him to do it seems!

Well that’s going to just delay the inevitable pain - we’ll all feel a sense of hope that we can score at St. James but of we won’t. Not great CC getting a red card - thank goodness for Janna B! 🤣 The key disappointment for me was the two big chances Che once again messed up. We can’t score and when an opposing player puts it in, VAR rules it out…so predictable! Still need (a) a proven striker, (b) better off ball movement- too many statues and (c) better passing routines in transition.

Maybe, but given we’ve been dicing with relegation for a few seasons I highly doubt they’ll sack him and if he can’t get us firing in the Championship who will? Once he’s got us in the play-off places after a few games he’ll be worshipped, mark my words! If not then he’ll be sacked pronto. Before that I suspect Semmens will be the sacrificial lamb.

Agreed. I think history worked against Ralph somewhat - let’s face it the performances were dire and the results worse. If they had given him a striker in the summer, there’s every chance it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to the results. It’s not as if there were no signings and who knows perhaps Ralph prioritised Lavia, Edozie etc.

We may never know why a striker was not brought in back in the summer, but once the results in the new season were clear Ralph’s time had run it’s course, they had to start to act. Find a manager that could potentially keep us up, but one that would be happy and capable of stopping freefall in the Championship, including keeping players on-side that would otherwise jump ship. They tried to get a very tough decision or series of decisions right and it could be said that nothing has ‘failed’ as such…from a business perspective they’ve prepared us for the drop which now looks highly likely.

Of course they don’t want us relegated, but they have to prepare for that eventuality. They will be taking actions that will attempt to keep us up, without ruining the club financially should we go down. In fact I reckon they started those actions with the sacking of Ralph and the appointment of Jones. Waiting until May will be too late to act.