Smirking_Saint

I don’t really understand the furore around Jackson, he is quite obviously an extra wide attacker and unlikely to be our striker option because if we can see he isn’t a No.9 it I seriously doubt anyone at the club has looked at his as a striking option considering his skillset

Im not sure how enthusiastic I am about it really but for the right fee it dhould work

Ahh but you’re more than happy to pass comment ? I think the views are diverse enough, Steve and Glenn provide a consistent and generally spot on insight around the club and they have usually someone with good journalistic insight, I don’t see any need to change that… perhaps they could have a guest speaker but as someone that has done podcasts in the past that isn’t always a good addition and tends to cause editing issues if the guest isn’t au fait with audio recording etc As for the OPs post, I commented online that it was one of my favourite episodes.. you have to remember that it is a snapshot in time of the general feeling around the club.. an FA cup win, that in essence was scrappy and somewhat gifted did little to bouy my enthusiasm for our primary concern… relegation The panel were right to question the performances and NJs ability and Tanswell/Sheldons piece on SR and the changes was very interesting and welcomed Come the end of the season I expect all of us would welcome humble pie in tge form of an all beating NJ masterclass but again the podcast is to bring the panels opinions to bare, not to bring fake optimism… Im sure there’s plenty of happy clappy stuff you can listen to instead

I suppose we’re in an odd place, we’re bottom of the table so it immediately makes our negotiating position difficult, any top level proven striker is unlikely to want to come here without significant recompense and likely break clauses in the contract, as suggested too just agreeing a fee is probably more difficult too as clubs know our position This is why we needed to sort this is the summer and Semmens blase about not overspending in that window has come back to bite him

Embarrassed about voicing an opinion ? Absolutely not, its easy to sit on a fence and then come out with an I told you so Embarassing would be to come out and portray the lie that you believed all along that you knew it would come good. We’re certainly going in the right direction but there is a LOT of football still to play I stick to my initial assessment, tactically we were inept against our first 3 premier league opponents under Jones. A 3 at the back long ball game doesn’t suit and as a ‘club’ we’re suited to a more aggressive press.. unsurprisingly we’ve picked up since Jones changed his tactical approach Im more than happy to be wrong about him, but we needed a big improvement on the Forest game, over the moon we got one and long mag it continue Sign a decent striker and work on our set piece defence and we should be ok

Probably plenty of reasons why he doesn’t train with the firsts Outside of Borges stats Im not hugely aware of him but apparently he is very technically gifted but not particularly quick

Yup… and although Im no financial intelligentsia (Im an Engineer) I imagine that Chelsea’s new ‘offer everyone 7/8 yr contracts, is their way of overcoming FFP rules… its an odd system anyway, its only really calculated after the 3/4 year period I think… not sure whether this amortisation actually reduces any spend they may need towards the end of the period ?

Secret scout is very reliable, seems like you have some sort of weird personal agenda around a bloke you don’t know

Was talking to a man city supporting mate of mine and apparantly Pep doesn’t massively rate Borges who still doesn’t train with the first team so there moght be legs to this At the end of the day like Lavia, City have a great many talents ln the books and the upcoming change in loan rules means that they’ll need to sell instead of loaning these guys out so structuring deals much like Livramento and Lavia is sensible

Credit where credit is due, we look a different team since half time in thr Palace game.. more pressing, less long ball and much less 5 at the back Players look up for it all of a sudden, he is making positive changes when needed.. I didn’t fundamentally agree with him changing the winning side today but we got the job done If we get a striker and he can sort out our terrible defence of set pieces then we’re on to something I have absolutely no qualms in being proved wrong

Maybe… I do hope he does because sacking a manager every 6 months is ridiculous, but from the outside it looks to me like the players are starting to let him down Ive got zero love for Boehly/Chelsea these days anyway, from the Tuchel sacking to hoovering up every ounce of anyone remotely showing talent

This is all well and good until if becomes more evident that he’s lost the changing room… owners can have long term vision but 500m pounds worth of players won’t be as willing to wait it out

Its not really a coincidence that our last 3 keepers have been poor as well as a shaky defence infront of them.. I agree Baz has had a poor season but GKs are only really as good as what infront of them and we’re absolutely terrible defensively and have been for years

Not quite sure how impressed Im going to be signing a CB, from a rival equally shit defensively but here we are

I’ve not really kept up with the whole thread, so apologies if I go over any old ground I’m not really sure if there is a solution to keep us away from the championship. I think that the damage is done even if we act now to remove Jones. We already looked a slideshow on confidence, unfortunately now we look a side short of ideas as well Either way, I do not see a successful future at any level with Joan, still at the helm, at first, I couldn’t blame him, after all he has taken a job. He thought that he could do for a significant pay rise. The real issue is why we hired him in the first place. as far as being successful, his concerned, we are a club built on the foundations of high pressing, this began under Pochettino, and the majority of managers since I’ve had fundamentals that lie within this philosophy, for this reason, I found it bonkers that we went to a manager with a technical skill set so at odds with these fundamentals. Ralph had his issues, he tinkered too much, but I do think he’s early high pressing tactics were the correct ones, of course they were high risk, but they tended to be higher award. The downfall is the squad size and we did go away into addressing that over the last couple of years. I think if it was me, I will go back to her back for a look to go back to utilising those tactics. Sign a striker, we now have Orsic, and probably look to bring in a defensive midfielder that can cover for Romeo Lavia, ultimately, I don’t think there’s a lot more that can be achieved right now, I’m not convinced that this club needed a complete revolution, especially not in January. It did need however, the correct appointment, that could reinspire and tweak the areas of concern.. effectively staving off relegation, and allowing us if necessary to carry out a hard reset in the summer

If thats all you think we’re complaining about then you’re well out of touch

Talking of complete tosh… Systems definately define a sides fortunes, or lack of, especially at the top level.. to say otherwise is shortsighted tbh For a start you cannot just throw 3 CBs at a side and hope it works, as a formation its far more nuanced than that, especially if you have largely inexperienced CBs and/or a lack of anyone martial ing the back line particularly well. Every goal conceded as a back 3 has been completely indicative of how it fails and even on Wednesday we saw the Johnson chance which again showed the lack of communication and responsibility taking. A back four with a fit Lavia is a fine formation, it worked well previously.. our issue was we started to overstretch chasing goals and we get killed on the counter.. this hasn’t eased under a 3 back at all The issue we have right now is that we 100% have a distinct lack of quality.. but IMO Nathan Jones is actually compounding that issue instead of easing it by using a system that is more suited to what we have

Im not sure Ivd re written Ralph anywhere tbh But the point is still valid… the argument from most reasoned viewers was the side was arguably a striker/No.10 from competing… we are miles from that now Ralph, especially towards the end was awful.. infact he went downhill when we moved away from his intense gagenpressing style (enforced really due to squad depth) but I struggle to believe anybody genuinely believes we’d be any worse currently under Ralph then Jones And before you tackle the man and not the ball.. no.. I am not suggesting keeping Ralph on was the answer

Who’s your money on ?

Ive been thinking about it, and about the Ralph situation.. and yes, sacking Ralph when we did WAS the right call, he had done what he could and we looked beaten under him.. I still think backed properly he would of still been here, but also fully understand why a hard reset in the summer was also an option, however; To briefly sum up the tenures of the two I’d frame it like this.. - Under Ralph we looked like a team that was arguably doing the right thing, yes if needed Lavia on the pitch but ultimately it was a team that needed a striker/creative midfielder to be largely capable in this league - Under Jones we genuinely look like a squad thats come up from the Championship, devoid of ideas and mentally down already And this is the issue for me.. we’ve completely gone backwards… we need to end this experiment now whilst we have the slimest of chance to battle out if this

He’s played there, but primarily plays in the left I wonder if Edozie can play on the right

Pretty much LW Which makes NJs move towards 532 even more baffling but here we are

I actually briefly wondered last night, listening to his press conference afterwards… if we are genuinely already in the Mourinho territory of getting himself sacked Surely not ? Surely ?….

Apart from the fact it’s obvious of course I know a fair amount about the takeover and how they’ve acted since buying Saints 😂

I think a lot of you are unaware of how our new ownership relationship works Im sure Dragan is utterly unimpressed with the direction his investment is going but make no mistake he is more of an investor in the SR project then he is Saints He will likely drop us before he drops SR