Saint Fan CaM

And there’s the clusterfuck. The players don’t know what their jobs are. The organisation of the team is abysmal.

Dibling lost. Archer lost. Sulemana his usual selfish stupid. Can’t see us scoring.

Archer is useless at receiving long balls. We're being cut apart in midfield and defence. It’s a complete and utter dog shit of a show.

Very nearly got caught there - as predicted our defence committed too far forwards.

Bedders down injured. It’s fucking ABK coming in! 😂😂😂

Can’t get out of our half - playing too deep…wonder why? 🤔

No he isn’t - he’s being saved for the 2nd half to bolster up the 0-2 lead we’ve managed to contain Brighton to! 🤣

Nothing to do with appointing a perm manager from within - it’s Saintsy because it’s the cheap option. And it seems a bit too much of a coincidence that Spors has come in and one of the first things he does is promote Rusk. Of course it might not play out like that, but stranger things have taken place at the club.

Come on, it’s the Saintsy thing to do. And probably cheaper than any other option. Plus he’s ‘proven’ himself at a higher level.

This has got to be the preparation for him to take over the first team in the summer right? He didn’t do any worse than Martin or Juric, so you can see why he’s been considered, although the bar is extremely low right now.

It’s an absolute joke. Reckon every week he thinks by starting this way, he can save a proper formation and team until the second half to somehow outwit the oppo manager. Trouble is we’re two or three down by 60 minutes and chasing the game, which then plays straight into the oppositions hands. Easy prediction of 0-3 or 1-3. Whatever…no points again and I feel really sorry for the supporters at what will likely be another shit home game.

Wasn’t the fabled Black Box based effectively around (early form) AI? If it’s still in use at Staplewood then it must have some form of service contract to keep it up to date I would imagine, unless it’s been neglected due to cut-backs or the supplier has gone out of business perhaps. Can just imagine one dark rainy night Rasmus sitting in a darkened room in front of an old black box terminal trying to break the code, for hours he’s just getting garbage displayed and then suddenly, a miracle… The system seems to come to life and slowly but surely, words flicker on the screen… . . ROSS STEWART (striker)… 🤣🤣🤣

I think there’s a little more to it than that. Downes is a limited player, however he appears better when he’s in a team that is under instruction to play possession football and therefore has licence to offload the ball backwards when under pressure. He is less skilled at turning an opponent and finding a decent pass to a teammate. I suspect he doesn’t like the expectations of Juric as it makes him look and feel like a worse player, which is why he felt he needed to press for a move. Hopefully Juric has identified how he can make a difference in his system.

Although he did also say that Capt’n Jack was rushed back too soon last injury, with the assumption being that would not happen this time. He’ll almost certainly be on the bench, but let’s hope thats as close to playing as he gets.

Perhaps he’s on an appearance bonus/payment too? 😉

Oh I don’t know - that seems a little rough on the lad. He’s a huge voice in the dressing room. Apparently.

At the moment I don’t see any cohesion or strategy between defence and the defensive midfield position(s). Because of the style of football we play, the wing-backs and even the CB’s are utilised to move the ball forward - usually slowly - and a turnover of possession often results in our slow defence back-pedalling with oh-so often disastrous results. Changing the formation to 4-2-3-1 with strict clear instructions to the RB/LB that if one moves forward the other holds back with the CB’s. Same with the DM’s - if one supports attack the other must protect the CB’s. The DM’s should be Les and in the absence of Downes, either Fernandes, Smallbone or Aribo - my preference being Aribo because he has the ability to turn and carry the ball forwards and I’d be playing Fernandes further forwards.

Or perhaps there’s a cut-off date for the final instalment and Saints are waiting for that to pass before putting him back out? The only reason I say this is that he seems to be in and around the squad training and featuring on the bench too, which doesn’t sound like he’s being disruptive or in a bad place with Juric.

This is what I’d like to see too, but Juric seems incapable of setting up a team of his best players with a ‘strong’ midfield and attacking intent. At this point I don’t care actually care if it also doesn’t work, it’s just damned frustrating knowing that these basics are not being tried. Anything else is purely tinkering of the highest order in my eyes.

If Juric plays 5 at the back it’s game over. So I guess it’s game over. 0-3.

No idea, but then I didn’t say he was. Others have alluded to it as a reason for his exclusion.

I’ll be very surprised to see any of those three back in a starting line-up for Saints going forward and for what purpose anyway? If you were manager why would you pick disruptors to be close to your first team?

Yes we seem to have had a succession of unsuitable managers, but then how many could claim to have had any knowledge of Bournemouth or Brightons managers? Would you honestly have taken a punt on them if they were available 2-3 years ago? Even if they came here there’s no guarantee they’d have achieved the same level of results, especially given the terrible player recruitment we’ve seen over a long period. It’s a convincing argument to say that better recruitment would have seen Ralph achieve much more success with the club, which would negate our current situation entirely.

So on the one hand you say we have no need to sell our best players, but then also say you’d be surprised if Ramsdale (who is under contract) stays. What is it?

Downes is certainly acting like a little tart.