Saint Pete

Granit Xhaka has been a major reason for their success in my opinion, outstanding signing for a promoted team, not sure how they pulled that off. A proper leader on the pitch makes a real difference, and genuine quality who could be playing for the usual top of league teams.

He would probably still improve us but having already re-signed an experienced Central midfielder in Romeu the timing doesn't feel right for him to return now, would have definitely taken him at the start of the season if he was available then. Agree that the salary would be better spent on improving our striking options now and let Jander and Charles come on more with the help of Romeu providing the know how in midfield.

I don't disagree with a lot of what you said in your post, I too get nervous when people talk about appointing a "name", football is littered with managers who get appointed because of illustrious playing careers rather than their abilities as a manager/coach and usually it doesn't end well. But although the 3 successful Saints managers you mention didn't have experience in English football, they did all at least have a body of work as coaches behind them that would have given those making the appointment some confidence they could do the job we needed at the time. Poch was the youngest and definitely a left field choice at the time but he still had over 3 years experience of managing Espanyol in La Liga to give Cortese etc a good idea of what he could do and what kind of coach he was going to be. The other 2 were both experienced coaches at a good level. Surely you can see the difference between that and appointing the likes of Selles and potentially Eckert on a wing and a prayer just because they are easily to hand within the club already? (We have previous examples of that with Stuart Gray and Steve Wigley for those longer in the tooth like myself and they didn't end well either!).

It would be totally crazy in my opinion to put trust in yet another ridiculously young and inexperienced coach after what's happened with the last couple. So we should resist any temptation to be swayed in any way by a few temporary results, particularly as the 2 wins so far have been against inferior opposition and not accompanied by particular impressive performances or any kind of improved approach really, game management has been poor but we have just been luckier than under Still. We are surely crying out for a more experienced head and a safer pair of hands at this level and in this country to steady the ship and get everyone moving in the right direction again. If the delay is about securing such a person that they have in mind then fine, but I fear it is dithering and hoping that another couple of positive results will allow SR to take the easy/cheap option and put in their man with zero experience and track record. In which case more pain for Saints fans will inevitably be incoming over the rest of this season and potentially beyond.

West Ham were truly atrocious in that match tonight, the stats tell the story of how dominant Brentford were in West Ham's home game. I think Hammers fans are getting what they deserve for their attitude towards David Moyes when he was in charge and doing a good job.

Forgot we also lost Ramsdale so 4 of the almost worst ever Prem team.

It's not been good so far obviously. But if you consider how abysmal we were last season (very nearly the worst ever in the Premier League to remind people if they need reminding) and that we were always going to lose our 3 best players from that almost worst ever Prem team (KWP, Fernandes, Dibling), I don't think it is that surprising we have not hit the ground running this season. Yes, we have signed some players who should be good at this level, but most of them were only signed very late in the window due to a couple of the above only leaving late on. We are in a lowly position but the points gap is not huge to the top end of the table and we have played 9 games out of a 46 game season. In my opinion, it would be stupidity to press the panic button at this point, but obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion.

It is a team in transition absolutely so we shouldn't be expecting it to look cohesive when there are a number of players making their debuts, bring introduced from the bench etc. The only thing I would add though as serious long term concern is whether it's gonna work with the likes of Archer up front when it seems clear we want to get crosses in with the attacking players we have brought in. I think we need an effective big man up top to make the plan work and not sure that we have one at this point.

Not great obviously but not the disaster that a defeat would have been for morale. I'm not that concerned at losing a little ground at this early stage, we are clearly a work in progress with quite a few new players coming in to bed into the team. But you would expect things to improve as they get more game time. My biggest concern is lack of presence up top for crosses coming in, which I think can happen more now with the new arrivals. We need one of our bigger forwards to come up trumps pretty soon.

Could be a big moment for Stewart if he scores the winner today? Here's hoping anyway!!

I think Aribo in particular we know can do a job in this league as he did the year before last. But obviously depends on his attitude to training etc.

Pretty happy with that. We needed to freshen things up with our attacking options and looks like we've done that. We've lost Dibling and Fernandes but that was always gonna happen and don't think Dibling is the finished article right now for this season anyway. Striker position still a worry though, as is central defence...

Yep, absolutely. This many years has supporting Saints has conditioned me to expecting the worst for the whole game and only feeling elated after the final whistle. (on the rare occasions we do actually win!) 🙁

12 players? That is optimistic! ☺️

... I have had a few beers though...

Boo! I feel a bit more optimistic, players will be keen to impress the new coach and will turn in a much more committed performance. A return to 1-3 away results!

A bit similar to his goal for us v Man City.

5 points from 15 games. How long can this go on, really?

What concerns the most is how on earth can VAR conclude that they should reverse the ref decision and give a foul their way for that? It's either corrupt or completely incompetent. The biggest problem with VAR is they seem determined to find a reason to disallow goals. I wish the refs had the balls to tell them to fuck off when asked to go to the monitor and review!

Just watched Match of the day and that VAR call to disallow our goal is possibly the most ridiculous decision I have seen and that's saying something with VAR. If anything, a foul our way not theirs, how they can decide to overturn the refs call for that I do not know. Some sympathy at least for Martin on that. And it definitely should have been a free kick to us in the build up to the 2nd goal, even the MOTD pundits agreed that. Doesn't change my opinion that Martin needs to go, but we were badly done to on the decisions today.

The thing is, you can live with a couple of games of hard luck stories of "we had loads of possession, they had very few chances but somehow they won", but it's the same thing over and over now and Martin clearly doesn't have an answer other than continue doing what we're doing and hope something somehow changes, hope rather than pro-active expectation. We are ineffective going forward but continue to do the same things every game. The club have to act now, otherwise it will be pointless when they eventually do as will be too late. Change of tack needed, hope someone at the club has the balls to recognise that now.

Week commencing 16th Dec. Our Russ will be gone by then, so new manager bounce should see us smash 'em 4-1. Who do we want in the semis? 👍

Brentford or Palace at home please.

It does feel like we are kind of marking time at the moment. I am not RMs biggest critic but I think everyone can see now that a change is going to be inevitable before too much longer and it feels like if we leave it another couple of games, it just makes it even harder for his successor to achieve anything this season. Regrettably, I would make the change now, although obviously it does depend on getting a better and more experienced replacement in which is not a given by any means.

I was thinking Sulemana personally. More likely to be a smaller forward player to cover the edge of the penalty area?