Saint Fan CaM

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.

Understand your point, but I don’t think Jones is seen by the club as a long ball tactician…just someone who instructs his GK to mix it up a bit with better distribution - supposedly Bazunu’s strength. So in short I do think Jones is a safe bet appointment in the event of relegation - perfect preparation for a tough first season in the Championship. When an organisation wants to change out top management and bring in preferred candidates, the moves will be planned and executed over months if not years. It’s kind of a win-win…Jones keeps us up, he’s a hero and we get a very suited DoF. We go down, we’ve got the best Manager for the league and a ready made DoF to re-build as new CEO. Think Shields was another piece in the jigsaw but that didn’t work out as planned clearly.

Looks like they didn’t look back at all the lost games to check whether we had scored in any of them. And then look to see how times we’d won with a margin of more than one goal. The stats don’t lie - worst GD in the league surely tells you it’s not just about the defensive aspects of the game…we’ve not been scoring goals and goals win games. I’m shocked to read that SR and Semmen’s have apparently ignored this fact.

A turnaround of that magnitude is not going to happen. The more I think about what’s happened since Ralph’s sacking, the more I think we’re preparing for the Championship. As I’ve said elsewhere, this goes right to the top with the sacking of Semmen’s and the new Director of Football stepping in - a perfect choice to provide continuity for all the youngsters we’ve signed…someone who knows how to develop and utilise (read sell) emerging talent. #saintsy

Exactly this. He’s always been our player and unless Villa had an option to buy then he was always going to come back at some time. Obviously his remarks on departure were bizarre to say the least, but probably indicative of either a shortage of brain cells or an overzealous agent speaking for him, rather than any dislike of Saints (although I suspect he’d had enough of some of our lovely ‘fans’ screaming abuse at him). I suspect the latter - “going to a bigger team” is a lazy stock phrase. Villa clearly didn’t like what they saw of him in training and that speaks volumes about where our squad is quality-wise. NJ is talking him up because the only way he’ll wring benefit out of him is to make the other players think he’s in contention with a chance of starting.

I think the smart money would go on certain relegation at this point. There’s very little evidence on show to suggest this squad and the inexperienced Manager has anywhere near enough to climb away from the bottom three. Even a new striker of repute would very likely not be enough. Which has me thinking that the club started preparing for the Championship when they sacked Ralph…that’s why it took a while to finally pull the trigger. The only aspect that might counter this is the appointment of the new Director of Football, unless of course he’s being lined up as Semmen’s successor when we go down, which would be just deserts given the shitfest he’s served up over the last 5 years. Yep, the dominoes are being lined up.

Exactly. Jackson, despite only being a strong rumour, was representative of the clubs efforts to sign a striker better than Adams, Armstrong or Mara that we’ve needed for nigh on two years. That this has seemingly failed with circa 75% of the window gone by (and a clutch of winnable games), the competency of the Board must questioned. Throw in the appalling entertainment value we’ve endured and the consequences of relegation to all aspects of the club and it’s no surprise supporters are alarmed.

And your point is what? What exactly do you find ironic? Do you think our league position has been lost on the rest of us? But well done for your insightful opinion - it’s err, enlightening (🤣).

Just watched the NJ preview of the game. How many other managers, when answering a question, reflect on their own playing career? I don’t know whether it’s arrogance or just a lack of experience, but there’s little he says that gives me confidence in his credibility.

How about the disallowed goal in the Cup final against Utd?

Ah good. The defender who is regularly caught ball watching. OK then.

Unfortunately I think Bednarek will be seen as another opportunity to tinker with the starting backline, rather than playing players where they’re best suited…I.e. KWP and Perraud at RB/LB for example. Rinse, repeat, fail.

A broken clock is right twice a day. Obviously there’s some semblance of quality in the squad and enough that when it clicks it clicks really well. Sometimes it’s easier beating the better teams - who knows, perhaps NJ said “look lads we’re probably not going to get much out of today - just go out there and express and enjoy yourselves” and hey presto they did just that? Or to put it another way, the less of a clue NJ has, the more the players have to adapt and play their own game to their own strengths. Stranger things as they say… 😉