Saint Fan CaM

It’s going to be horrible. Lube at the ready…again.

Think he’ll be gone in the summer. Smallbone will be favoured until then. Possibly, it doesn’t matter as either way our season was an irrelevance weeks ago.

We produce so little in terms of attacking intent, I think many are taken in by Sully’s tricks and ability to dribble. The problem with the player is that his vision and decision making are flawed - probably why he’s playing for us and not a better team. He often takes one too many touches and loses the ball…a lot. Consequently our attacking moves are often toothless. What is not obvious is whether it’s the coaching not being effective in the instruction or Sully is deliberately ignoring instructions. If I had to guess, I’d say the latter - I reckon discipline in the squad is very low.

A difficult call to make to know if Juric could do better with better players - he probably could - but his insistence at retaining the back five whatever does concern me greatly. And it’s certainly possible that an even worse Manager will be identified next time round in the Championship - I’m quite pessimistic about how next season will pan out unless a significant change to the squad is made.

To answer the question in the thread title, I would say spiralling downwards based on all available evidence.

I want to like Juric and God knows he’s got one hell of shit sandwich to devour in trying to get a song out of this squad, but I just don’t understand what the fuck he was doing playing that formation/team at home against a weakened Burnley side. The set up of the team and any form of corresponding system of play is shambolic. Sulemana had some bright spells, but both he and Dibling were essentially more interested in showboating than in working in a team that moved as a unit - very self-centred selfish play…they don’t know when to release the ball to sustain an attack. At one point Fernandes actually stole the ball away from Sully to attempt distribution (but even that failed). It’s fundamental, basic stuff to get right and so the conclusion must be that players are not invested in the coaching team or indeed the club. Things are not improving - it’s getting worse. ABK not getting a game when on the bench…Downes reportedly fallen out of favour and refusing to play. And on it goes. Well done Burnley - they looked a more cohesive side, fighting and working hard for each other and their manager. They lacked skill and guile up front, but they had that ultimate desire to see the ball in the back of the net in whatever way they could. They deserved the win - simple as. The best we can hope for is this is a massive wake-up call to Spors - he’s got a huge job of trying to breath life back into what right now appears to be terminally sick patient.

What a team we had with Pelle, Tadic and Mane etc! After sustaining our rise through the leagues to build that team under such a good management team, it really was the best of days. What a complete shitshow SR have built by contrast.

A good narrative, but in the next round there’s a very good chance only Prem sides will be left in the compo so it’s somewhat inevitable. You’ve usually got to beat the best to win anything. It does make you realise what an incredible victory Laurie’s Saints achieved over Utd in 1976.

Not bad, but not quite CoT levels of obscurity! 😂

While I understand your point, I don’t think that’s football in general…it’s just what the EPL has morphed into because nowadays business = money = business whatever the marketplace. Try attending a smaller club like Sholing, Totton or Eastleigh for example…attending those games is more like it was in our youth. The dichotomy is that all supporters want their team to do well and climb the leagues, then when they reach the pinnacle and it starts getting expensive they moan but one leads to the other! Essentially what I’m saying is, you pay your money, you take your choice.

Remember all too well. Remember the “Harry & Jim” songs sung by the entire stadium. A stain on the club and it’s supporters. Dark days indeed that were due to get worse.

Yeah, there’s something weirdly nuts keeping that formation in place for every game - looks like it’s to enable use of the huge number of defenders on the books and/or to utilise the talents of KWP, Suga etc., but that always leaves us short in central midfield, doesn’t assist our attacking play and usually has our wing backs and CB’s stranded too far up-field.

What’s the point in entering into the competition in the first pace then?

That all sounds lovely, but where’s the road map? Nothing of any substance is going to happen to the waterfront unless the cement works is relocated and even then there will be a huge amount of work necessary to clean up the site which could take years. I’m certainly not saying it’s not an exciting prospect, but Southampton City Council are not the best at bringing about positive change to our City.

Has been a good servant to the club, however when you compare his contribution as a target man/goalscorer in the EPL to others such as Woods, Semanyo and Delap, his limitations are a stark contrast. Having said that, I think a fair amount of blame can be levelled at the system(s) we tend to play with an isolated front line and very weak link up play.

It’s interesting to see so many players do better once they’ve left us, but maybe that’s because they’ve found ‘their level’?

Why do you think they can’t win it? Or why do you think they think they can’t win it? Do you really think Saints can win it?

I doubt they’ll play a weakened defence - that doesn’t happen too often at this level and they’ll see us as an easier top tier scalp to claim. They’ve got a good defensive record so far this season. As I say, a definite banana skin fixture.

Reckon they’ll be better than many think - tough game which may be beyond us now.

As I said, maybe it could, but what does that say to staff about the investment in time and focus of what might be considered the most important person in the footballing side of the club at what is in my opinion a critical year ahead?

Maybe this guy is the perfect answer…maybe. Personally I think there’s such a huge re-build job required to re-set the footballing side of the club, it needs the full-time focus of a DoF, not some half-baked solution (unless of course this chap is an absolute genius rather than a chum of Ankerson’s or Solak’s). As I say, time will tell. The upside is that it seems Juric knows exactly what he needs and importantly who he doesn’t need in his team. It strikes me that players like Manning favoured by RM were chosen because they’re NOT brave or skilled enough to anything adventurous in terms of passing forwards, taking the easy option of a pass backwards to relieve pressure on themselves and placing it on the player they pass to. It would appear that Juric is not tolerating any of that bullshit thankfully, hence the appointment and immediate inclusion of Welington.

“Appoint in some manner”….sounding like some half-baked shoe-in job. Not sure I’m getting good vibes about this, but time will tell I guess.

Does it change nothing or change everything? Somewhere in between perhaps. Well done Saints. On balance we probably deserved that.

Fernandes is very very good at taking the pressure off when moving out of defence.

Called the 8 mins - they don’t want us to win.