Smirking_Saint

He would of been involved, as part of the transfer committee, as he would of been this year too Frankly I’m finding it worrying that you either have to be in the Rasmus camp or the Semmens one I’m firmly in neither… we need to remove the old board remnants that helped put us in this position… move Rasmus into the over seeing of the SR multi-model which I feel was why he was actually here and get a CEO in to manage Saints that can focus on only Saints

But the argument could also be levelled that there are a group of fans that hero worship Semmens, when in reality he is, in my mind, just as culpable in our slide as the others. Ralph - I agree, he is a very capable manager but unfortunately was hamstrung by, as you say a lack of quality attacking talent and the Lavia injury… should he had been effectively backed when the board retained him then I’m sure he would have been ok Semmens - He was responsible for keeping Ralph, Rasmus wanted shot in the summer… I see both sides to this argument. He was also heavily involved in the appointment of Selles, its not an opinion, I unfortunately/fortunately get information from time to time. He was also internally blamed for our failure to get a striker over the line in the summer fyi (whether this was bred by his historical need to haggle Im not sure).. and after was when Rasmus took the lead on negotiations Jones - Probably the biggest reason we were relegated, and yes almost completely on Rasmus. I can’t comment on who made the decision to retain him for so long but it was a Rasmus appointment Player recruitment - I’m not sure it was as rosy under the Gao reign as people are now saying, probably through rose tinted glasses. We replaced genuine quality with Diallo, A Armstrong, Walcott, Lyanco… We need a serious shake up in our recruitment team because for every positive buy they drop two clangers but I cannot get over Semmens throwing Reed under the bus for ‘over burdening us with long, needless contracts’ and then doing exactly the same Moving forward - I think we need a genuine reset, and with relegation we have that opportunity. Remove Semmens and the previous board remnants. Allow Rasmus to take a less hands on and more over seeing role (which Im told is more of his specialty anyway) but more importantly we need to employ and effective and functioning recruitment team that are cohesive with whoever holds the reigns… there is a genuine disconnect between the old and new board members and we need some sort of harmony In whatever direction we decide to move as its seriously damaged us this season edit - Not really sure whats been ‘dismantled’ as far as the academy is concerned tbh… not a huge amount has changed there

So it was even more vital to make prudent transfer decisions and not overburden us with deadwood on substantial contracts then

He convinced the heirarchy to stick with Ralph and I believe was also heavily involved in pushing for Selles Im not convinced his previous reign under Gao was as convincing as many believe either, he is, in part, responsible for the state of the club when SR arrived by over burdening us with incorrect contractual decisions Whatever happens we need a fresh start without Rasmus and Semmens imo

He averaged a goal every 3.4 games, he was decent enough but not outstanding

Why is James Beattie the ‘obvious choice’ ? I’m sick of the pandering around getting ex players/managers of some description as if they come with some extra ability What coaching credentials does a bang average ex prem striker have over what we already have ? I want the club to go out next year, do a proper job with the analytics and find us a capable management team that fits the clubs current models (to an extent)

Schneiderlin has played only 4 games for Sydney Wanderers mate

We have owners happy to put money in (albeit not directed particularly well), plenty of saleable assets and parachute payments So no I don’t really see any immediate financial pressures… you could argue we’d be looking over our shoulder if we fail to bounce back in that first year but ultimately we’re in reasonably good shape Just selling Lavia and KWP will likely net us 50-60m for a start

The whole Romeu transfer was one of them for me, hindsight says it was a fuck up due to thr Lavia injury and Diallo/AMN being completely inadequate in DM At the time though, especially as he wanted to leave and I respected the bloke (OR not RA) it didn’t seem too bad but due to how this year turned out we can add it to the growing list of misery I still think we probably could of got away with no Romeu or Lavia at the time if we had altered our gameplan to suit… this whole year has just been a fucking mess by basically everyone employed at the club by some capacity

We replaced him with Lavia tbf

Ralph had run out of ideas at the end… potentially you could argue if he’d of gotten a striker in the summer then he may of found his way back.. but I’m not so sure Sacking Ralph late (after admitting he’d lost the changing room before this season had even started), appointing a man that EVERYBODY could see was wrong from the start.. and then replacing him… far too late.. with a guy that has zero managerial experience is atleast 50% of why we are comfortably the worst team in the prem this year Terrible contractual and transfer dealings over the last 2-3 years are also very much to blame

I don’t see why we’d ‘need’ to sell outside of any large incoming bids If they down tools thats a different conversation but they’re on decently long contracts and again we’re under, as far as Im aware, no real financial pressures to sell so I don’t see why we couldn’t for atleast a year

Considering he’s probably been our best CB over the last few games no

Im not entirely sure why everyone believes we’ll have a mass exodus, whether enforced or otherwise.. I do believe SR’s words that we’re on a sound financial footing… so Id only imagine we’d lose those that it makes no financial sense to keep KWP/Salisu will likely be off due to their contractual situations, we have Bree/Tino and a multitude of CBs as replacements there anyway - 40-50m Lavia just won’t stay regardless of it we stay up or not, good DMs are a premium and he has basically everything in his armoury and will be younger/cheaper than Rice… another 40-50m (we’ll likely need to replace him) Smallbone/Tella - I think we’ll probably see these leave, I imagine Smallbone because I don’t see how he fits our tactics, fee will be negligible.. Tella will probably want to remain at Burnley and a fee of around 20m probably fits Outside of that we’ll probably try to recoup some fee for Orsic, may look to sell/loan Onoachu (carillo MkII basically (more ability admittedly) and potentially offload DCC if he is causing trouble… then its a coin flip whether we can find suiters for AA/Djenepo - Might make 10m-20m from that Outside of that Id say the squad looks in decent nick for a Championship charge, we probably still need to sign a striker and a DM, maybe a CB The importance of course is effective recruitment, of which we’ve made a pretty poor hash of overall under the SR banner

Makes absolutely no difference to the ability and maturity he has for a 19 yr old. He’s comfortably going to the very top

Have to agree, since I came back here Saints web is a more calm place then the madhouse it was, some really good posters on here and Rivers is always one of them You can tell some people have a more intricate knowledge of the game then others tbh Unfortunately there’s also some that wouldn’t know a football if it hit them in the face but we can have it all

…..Of a recent sustainability study on top flight clubs… Basically its a list of the premier leagues 20 clubs and a study has been done on the financials, seems a pretty arbitrary metric but it’s essentially a ratio of assets/income vs outgoings (wages) but also stuff like fan engagement etc adds to the score… the ideology is that the creators of this want to reward the top clubs with something… not really sure what.. a goldfish or maybe Janny B on loan for 6 months IDK Anyway, its nice to see we’re well run The glaringly obvious part is Everton being in the top 2, despite falling foul of FFP and their fan engagement being basically Moshiri shouting at Simon Jordon on Talksport but I suppose these academics aren’t perfect Full article in the Athletic

But Bednarek and AMN both had good games yesterday Moi’s workrate is needed in the 10 but can agree perhaps Charly can work there. It feels like he has the attributes but we’ll need to see Ralphs and so Selles’ tactics yesterday were what we at a club are best at, we’ve looked at our worst when we attempt to deviate from them, our main issue under Ralph was being overstretched and tired and so caught on the counter - Squad depth and 5 subs will help here.. and also converting chances, we still need to improve here but lets see what Sulemana and Onuachu can do We can criticise things that are there to be critiqued and pre match I was sceptical of AMN and Bednarek but there performance yesterday justified their inclusions Selles is what we have, outside of him Marsch was the best name but for whatever reason he didn’t fancy the project, I have no doubt Wilder, Gerrard, Lampard would take us backwards

Id of said a lot of this is quite biased imo Bednarek has been pretty awful certainly since he came back, but his performance yesterday was excellent and his stats back up what I saw on the pitch As for Ely, egg is spot on, I agree he isn’t good enough from an attacking perspective but he offers tactical consistency, tracking back and covers really well for Perraud who’s main issue is he is naturally an attack first FB, if we are to continue with a 4222 then to replace him we’d need someone comfortable on the ball and able to cover back.. Edozie isn’t that man, Arma maybe but his ball retention is awful and perhaps Aribo but he doesn’t work hard enough AMN was excellent too, agree KWP is better overall but he’s had a poor season too imo

Fofana (cb) was pissing me off yesterday, threw himself over at the slightest touch towards the end and the ref bought everything.. yet when Arma did the same he was waved up

In fairness to Bednarek I thought he was our best CB yesterday. Played front footed, organised well, probably his best game in a Saints shirt for me

Orsic, Sulemana, Stu Armstrong, Aribo, Ely can probably all play there Be interesting to see if Charly could too considering its not all about pace but ability to hold, win, shift the ball in tight half spaces Edozie has enough about him I think, maybe Aribo can be convinced to out a shift in, Ely just isn’t good enough in the final third for me

100%, he’s been a fantastic buy and genuinely if he hadn’t got injured we’d be a lot better off imo Chelsea, PSG, Arsenal maybe, Liverpool potentially.. they’re all the sides that probably need a no.6 like him desperately… likely be plenty of suiters the kids got everything he needs for that role including the athleticism

TBH he doesn’t offer anything remotely interesting or insightful either on here or on twitter.. just stalks around looking for anything he can be pedantic about He is basically the Jeremy Vine of anything Saints.

Tbh Im fully at terms with the fact we’ll lose him, kids going fully to the top.. he’s an 19 yr old, 6 ft tall No.6, press resistant, good at progressing the ball into dangerous areas We’re not keeping him, modern tactic’s effectively REQUIRE a 6 with those properties and there isn’t an abundance of them at the top level Either way we profit and move on, its been wonderful watching him but he won’t be here next Summer whatever happens imo