Saint Fan CaM

It’s a combination of how we’re setup, the lack of creativity in attack, slow pace of attack, the inability to attack as a unit, the lack of guile and movement to get into decent positions, the lack of accuracy in passing, the lack of shooting on target without the ball going directly at the GK. It’s been like this for ages…Ings often masked the issue by coming deep to distribute the ball forward or actually try to take on defenders and create a shooting chance for himself. Even the worst sides in the league seem to get these basics right to a certain extent - except us.

Well, the result of Lowes tenure was to take us down, put us into administration and almost lose the entire club. Rasmus is doing a great job to emulate the first bit, but thankfully SR will save us from it going further tits up despite him.

Gotta be a windup.

Big changes to the things we’ve been doing for almost three seasons really (I know some of the players have not been here that long). You’re right though and the distressing thing is there’s very little chance we’ll see those things corrected. Everything points to us limping home still rooted to the bottom.

Having got a ticket for the game I’d be delighted to see what this line up can achieve, even if it is against a lower league team. Having said that, I’m under no illusion that Grimsby have the advantage of a consistent side that know each other’s games and will play like it’s the final. Indeed sadly it wouldn’t surprise me to see us lose 1-2 after going in 1-0 up at half-time. We shall see.

His Agent/Contract? No, you can tell that for some reason he is regarded as some kind of leader…Selles kept talking to him on the sidelines. Why not talk to your Captain? Don’t begin to understand what the issue is, but there’s some weird relationship management going on.

An interesting question. You could be forgiven for thinking that certain players went all out to get Selles the job…they love him after all. Come Friday, job done, everyone’s happy and content that a nice, amenable coach is the one picking the team…so no need to bust a gut anymore. Perhaps waiting until AFTER the Leeds game to appoint him may have been a better option?

This. It’s what we all feared…he is not the Messiah, better than Jones for sure, but not capable of getting this shower of shite team to play Prem level football. To be fair to the guy, I don’t think there’s a Manager out there who could do much better with the tools at his disposal.

Hate to rain on your parade, but all the signs clearly point to relegation. We are the worst team in the league…sad but true.

Don’t do it to yourself…there’s NOTHING to suggest to me that this team have what it takes to win the required games to stay up. It would take an unprecedented turn in form, bearing in mind we’ve spunked away our most winnable games now. Look at the fixture list and tell me which 6-7 games we might win…it’s grim.

Absolutely - if you look at the number of goals conceded this season versus the number scored and it’s clear (to me) that the reason for our relegation will be primarily due to our inability to mount sustained pressure on the opposition’s goal and subsequent lack of goals. Our attacking moves are so easy to predict and counter it’s laughable.

Absolutely this. Drains whatever glimmer of hope there might be left. We don’t score goals and don’t keep clean sheets in the main, so we don’t win games. I don’t think we’ll win another game this season.

Agree with this balanced view. Take away his free kicks and you could say the the same about JWP if we’re being brutally honest.

Unsighted for the goal and no other errors today. Don’t think he deserves the stick. If we score 2 goals we win the game, but how many goals have we scored in open play this season? Nowhere near enough is the answer and that’s the primary reason we’re going down.

Definitely us and Bournemouth. Bit of a lottery for the third place as there’s 3 or 4 candidates…Leeds, Everton, Forest, West Ham. Leeds might get enough from their new Manager, although we made them look good today. Everton and WH have some decent players that can scrap. Think if I were forced to make choice it would be Forest.

Would make no difference. The players love Selles…why would they raise their game for Ralph? The answer is they can’t!

I’ve waited before posting my thoughts to really take stock. Firstly, I’m not surprised by the result or the position we’re still in. Three Managers and we’re still playing the same boring football with lack of ideas and pace that we’ve seen for nigh on three years now. This has to be either persistently deficient coaching or lack of basic footballing quality…possibly both, but lack of quality is a definite and epitomised by the gulf in class showed by Lavia. Let’s look at our starting 11, starting at the back… Bazunu is nothing special…just ok. Bednarek is a joke. ABK is OK. Perraud is OK. JWP is OK…nothing special except for his free kick ability. Useless taking corners, pressing or creating goal scoring chances. His passing stats are great when going backwards or sideways - shows little creativity. In other words a luxury player. Lavia is very good…our only truly Prem class player. Ely is a joke. Stu A is OK. Sulemana is at best OK, but likely not good enough. Tall Paul is a joke. What about the Subs? Walcott is OK. Diallo is OK, but nothing special. Adam A is a joke. Alcarez Is at best OK, but likely not good enough. There is a huge lack of quality in that collective and not enough guile/fight/fitness to make up the difference. Chelsea result was a fluke…three points gained from a chance free-kick utilising JWP’s only decent attribute. I’ve thought we were likely relegation candidates since seeing the first few games with Ralph at the helm, because there was no change to our playing style/tactics over the summer. Nothing has really changed now Selles is in place, except the players love him! Not really inspiring when underperforming players give their Manager a vote of confidence! We’re down. It’s OK though…I’ve given up hope and in that knowledge I’m not expecting anything from the Leicester game. In fact I don’t expect us to win another game. We’re that shit.

Yes, I think those who avoid the swaying in the wind approach to supporting the club and manager are being level headed and sensible in their expectations. Let’s not forget that it was not so long ago we were talking of inevitable relegation at the hands of an incompetent manager and a nice, but failed one before that (in Ralph). We’re still bottom of the table with a huge, almost incomprehensible mountain to climb to survive. We may not succeed yet. What Selles has done is shown what CAN and MIGHT be achieved with the squad at his disposal. Our squad. The best we can do now is to support them as best we can and hope that’s enough. If not…well we gave it our best shot and hopefully we start again. But there’s Leeds first. Let’s just get behind RS and the team completely.

I didn’t make my thoughts completely clear…more about the continuity and the Managers expectation of the defensive unit. They’re not my favourites by any stretch, but there’s a reason these guys are picked other than being ‘favourites’.

Did I say anything about ages? Nope.

Think we’ll see Bednarek and possibly even AMN starting to provide a bias of experience in the team, rather than a young side on average. If it gets a result, who gives a monkeys?!

Sure we were up against it in the 2nd half as Chelsea threw everything at us and the Ref did his bit too, but I believe you make your own luck sometimes and that’s what I saw from our team…they fought for every ball…put bodies on the line…and put in a really courageous battle for their gaffer. That’s what a relegation scrap requires and who knows, we might still go down, but we definitely will do without those sorts of performances. Selles IS the real deal.

Yep, I got the DVD also, although to be honest I can’t remember what it was about (not sure I ever watched it!) and anyway it was consigned to the bin years ago! We exchanged a couple of PM’s with him on Saintsforever - seemed a harmless guy, albeit either a fanatic or fantasist or possibly both.

I do wonder whether he’s just not fit enough to play in a PL game…even against lower level opponents he looked very off the pace. Not sure what to think about a DCC connection - can’t believe any decent Manager would disqualify a really decent player from appearing because of another players connection. In a large squad just don’t think he’s showing enough to get selected and perhaps he doesn’t care?

I’d take that!