Smirking_Saint

I mean… its been absolutely awful all round but I do understand why we did what we did Overall when you weigh it all up, the ‘established’ signings.. and they’re Onuachu, Cornet, Stewart, Sugawara, Groenback, Fraser The list goes on have been horrific Atleast with the likes of Lavia, Fernandes even Alcaraz etc we’ve profited

Our younger buys have been our best one I keep reading we should be buying established players instead of youngsters, but we’ve been shafted harder on the older heads tbh

Its absolutely about money though Established prem clubs, even Bournemouth and Wolves have squad players worth 20m+ now SR obviously made terrible recruitment decisions which made competing even harder but the point still stands Promoted clubs cannot compete, and then are too strong for the Championship

To progress the theme here of how the game has moved over the years, and I expect we’ll see the promoted three also fail this season, the parachute payment scenario has further managed to destroy the pyramid, as well as the affluence in the prem Promoted teams just don’t have the funds available to compete with even the smallest budget prem clubs, and a lot is due to PSR restrictions, but this just compounds issues in the Championship, because realistically us, Ipswich and even a Leicester with a deduction should have more than enough to compete in the EFL because our budgets are 3-4x than the next EFL club Its an absolute mess and I have no idea how its unpicked One thing I do predict, and it could be Leeds or Birmingham, but we’ll start seeing clubs gambling with breaking PSR restrictions because Forest and Everton getting a 4 and 2 point deduction would be comfortably worth the gamble if you were able to then spend to compete with the next set of clubs

Wasn’t it just a relegation release clause ? Not a pure release clause I mean… Im guessing the gamble was to make them more competitive in the prem.. which it almost certainly did

I really couldn’t give a fuck what a 21 yr old says about a manager he formally liked tbh

Not sure why everyone is writing off THB, Id fully expect him to be one of the best CBs in the champ again, and surely we’re unlikely to replace him with someone much better, as well as nobody is going to pay the 20m+ we’d want Personally Id like to keep him, just play him in a 4 back.. ive noticed he struggles hardest in a 3 CB formation

Booted up FM again tonight, took me a while to sort the stats out as they’re a right mess BUT Jesus we have a lot of players, too many really, and thats going to be our issue. (there is some crossover here but fag packet maths…) 4 GKs Lumley, Ramsdale, McCarthy, Baz 7 CBs ABK, Edwards, THB, Stephens, Bednarek, Wood, Taylor 4 LBs Taylor, Manning, Larios, Wellington 2 RBs Sugawara, Bree 4 CMs Aribo, Downes, Charles, Smallbone 2 AM Fernandes, Lallana 3 RWs Arma, Edozie, Dibling 4 LWs Fraser, BBD, Sully, Robinson 3 STs Stewart, Archer, Onuachu We’ll almost certainly need to trim that significantly and it won’t be easy

The rumour was around a week before it broke on talksport

I mean… he’s worth double Which in billionaire terms is a fair amount mate

As much as he is a cock Crook is right more often then not these days

Bloke can’t keep his mouth shut, half the stuff I hear from St Marys comes from him I swear 😂

Yeah I think Martins a better manager than the shit he’s getting on here He’ll do fine, and likely learnt some lessons around how stubborn he was with us

We’ll just agree to disagree then We’re also only the elite because of parachutes, once thats gone you need to cost cut brutally

You’re not going to see Brentford stick the landing They looked good this year because Spurs and Utd were terrible as well as the bottom three.. but also it highlights how PSR has protected the elite, the prem began runing away from the Champ a few years back due to how turnover is such a huge part of PSR calcs.. and now we’ve been in a situation where the Champ clubs can’t stay up, that gulf will get worse Its not, enabled Brentford, its just meant they were the right side of the divide at the right time

Technically gifted, but just has zero tactical proficiency and zero defensive awareness Not a good enough dribbler for an attacking midfielder, zero defensive qualities to be a DM Not really sure what he offers unless you play a 3 man midfield and you’re in the ascendancy

Thats only really because Utd’s had probably the worst sporting decision making Ive ever seen Bad manager after bad manager and throwing money at all of them, allowing them to buy their own targets… awful

Parsons then

I doubt they could spend enough, us three spent what we could and were still miles off

Was never about ‘financial security’ and always about maintaining the ‘elite’ Its fucking shit… not that I really have an idea how to solve it from a sports integrity POV… I always thought you could have a bond that the owners have to put up at the value if 6-12 months expenditures but can see the infinite spending just further pushing the prem away from the rest

I think any of us would of struggled and I don’t see how the three this year are going to do any better Short of any of us doing a Forest and chancing it I just think the financial disparity caused by PSR is just too great Personally thought Cooper had you playing ok, competitively wise… RVN was an awful appointment, as was Juric

Very good player, and I like him, think he has a 13m release clause

After hounding out Cooper for RVN I think its best to sit this out

https://x.com/saintsextra/status/1926645665288827249?s=46&t=MqpubAzkQD51r3m_v775zw this seems a bit odd no ?

I think Russell is a very good coach that unfortunately is, at times too stubborn for his own good, he isn’t the first and won’t be the last… there’s a group of them atm… Martin, Kompany, Amorim… that seem to want to play there way regardless of the damage it does Im very grateful for what he did for us last season but, his reluctance to stray from his MO, even a little, and the club giving him more autonomy in the transfer market than he deserved put an early and somehow final nail in our coffin