Saint Pete

I would pick Charles over Jander on current form. Otherwise would agree with that lineup. 👍

If Tonda wants to win this, surely the sub needed is Azaz for Archer? Why have Azaz on bench if you don't use him with score at 1-1?

Yes, think we will make quite a few changes after the 2 league games in quick succession. I'll be surprised if we see Stewart for more than a few mins towards the end if at all given that he is becoming more important to us in the league and will continue to be treated with kid gloves to try to avoid another injury. Scienza, Azaz, Downes all quite likely to be rested too as they all played the full 90+ mins last night. Hopefully Larin may be able to play for longer though and hopefully get a first start? Edozie should also get a start.

In fairness, I do understand why Stewart and Larin did not start (fitness concerns) and can also understand why he then wouldn't have wanted to make that sub until at least half time. But I do agree that Jander should certainly have come off earlier when it was clear he was having such a poor night and was also at real risk of a red card, especially when we had such a good replacement in Charles who arguably should be starting anyway. That said, at least he was decisive at half time with the 3 changes that were all needed and fully justified by the second half performance so fair play to him for that. We all know he is a work in progress as a manager, let's hope he can continue to improve and learn on the job. We're back in the mix now! 👍

Surely he should have hooked Jander well before half time if he was playing like he was pissed?! It's fantastic we came back, but this was a once in a lifetime occurrence, we should never have been 3 down to this Leicester side, and he should have acted sooner with Jander's bizarre performance.

The goalscorers make this all the more extraordinary... Stephens, Manning, Charles?!!! 🤣

I want to hear stories of Saints fans leaving at half time LOL!! 😜

Wow!!

It's not really a surprise that Stewart is not starting as I'm sure we don't want a repeat of earlier in the season when Still got carried away and started him 3 games in a week, resulting in another long spell out. But would have expected Larin to start after his goal, unless there are also fitness concerns with him.

He was loaned out last January as it was clear he couldn't do a job in the Prem for us (no argument from me on that). But once we were back in the Championship, I don't see why we would have been trying to sell him then as it's pretty clear he is quite well suited to this level, isn't it? He's far from a perfect striker which is why he hasn't succeeded yet in the Prem. But he has a very decent record at this level no matter how people try to dress it up. So, no idea if your assumption that he was for sale all summer is correct but if it was its yet more evidence that those in charge of the club don't know what they are doing. Maybe Damion Downs was meant to be the SR replacement for Armstrong, but they didn't manage to achieve a sale in the summer! 🤣 Wouldn't surprise me at this point.

I can see what you are saying about being longshots for the play-offs and how that may have played into SR's thinking in selling Armstrong and placing more reliance/risk on Stewart keeping fit, you may well be right. But for me this attitude typefies the malaise that we are in as a club and the half-arsed approach SR take to decision making. It's how we have ended up with a 32 year old manager with little or no experience. "He'll do because he is in the club already, cheap and the players seem to like him. He might be a star in the making so why get an established manager with a track record?" And now with our strikers: "Well, we're probably not gonna go up anyway so let's bank some cash for our top scorer and rely on a guy who hasn't scored all season and another who has been injured for most of the last 3 seasons". It essentially translates to "We're giving up" doesn't it? And if the proper permanent replacement for Armstrong is not coming until summer, surely we could have kept Armstrong on until then? If he could have continued scoring at same kind of rate and ended season with say 18-20 goals, I don't personally think it would have impacted his price tag much as more clubs are likely to be in the market is summer window than January.

I hope he does recover from his injury problems and have a good career of course. But the point of my post above is its a very foolish strategy to rely on him to replace the goals of our top scorer (as another poster suggested may be the case) given his career record to date.

No part of our strategy (if there is one) should be relying on anything from Stewart as we all know another spell on the sidelines is just around the corner for him. Sad to say as he has some potential as a player, but it's just reality based on his record to date. Any goals we get from Stewart should have been viewed as a bonus. So once the inevitable happens, we WILL need Larin to be better than Armstrong to make letting him go the right decision.

What makes you think Scienza and Jander would make it in the Prem then? I like Azaz, stylish player always looking to create something. Like most creative players, he will be frustrating at times because some days it won't come off (Dusan Tadic is a good comparison). If I have a criticism of him, it's that he looks like a player who thrives on confidence, so I'm not sure he is one you want in the trenches when you are 2 goals down at half time. But he does have very good end product and instincts around the penalty area, much better than Scienza's in that respect in my opinion. And a player from midfield who can be a regular scorer is a very valuable commodity, especially when you've just sold your top scorer and replaced with a striker who hasn't scored this season!

Good player with a decent scoring record at this level, so we will miss him given that we don't have any others who can score regularly. I would have preferred to see him play more often in the wide positions rather than as a single central striker, but that wasn't his fault, more due to managers and club not signing other decent central strikers.

The guy who hasn't scored all season? You confident of that?! 😂

Well, the Canadian looks like he might have been a feasible replacement for Downs (not a high bar, potential big man option off the bench) but a replacement for Armstrong our top scoring striker? Wow, hard to see as anything but another nail in the coffin of our ambition.

Like Cameron Archer?

Yes, I think the sensible thing with Armstrong is to sell in the summer if he wants to go. Selling now only makes sense if we are very confident of signing someone who can do at least as good a job in this window and I don't think that's the case. We can't sign another Downs type in his place or we will sail very close to relegation. In theory it should be a little easier to find an adequate replacement who can do a good job in this league in the summer.

I personally would have liked Azaz to have stayed on. He seems to be very much a confidence player and after the assist for the goal, I would have fancied him to create something else to potentially win the game. I accept he's frustrating and didn't have a great game overall, but he is a threat especially when his tail is up.

Sorry, can't agree with selling Armstrong, that's madness in my opinion. He's a proven goalscorer at this level and those are not that easy to find. Stewart looks decent and I agree with you that we certainly need one and preferably 2 central strikers on the squad that have physical presence. But as we know Stewart is very unreliable in terms of fitness. Yes, bring in another big man up front, I would hope and pray that's the plan now we have a free spot after Downs leaving on loan. But don't throw away the one player that has scored consistently at this level!! I think we should be playing him as well as Stewart/new striker in one of the wide supporting positions, not throwing away a scorer that pretty much every team in this division would want.

Well, we won and a clean sheet is encouraging I guess. Confidence clearly needed at present and remember we had a couple of scratchy unimpressive wins after Still was sacked that then resulted in a purple patch when the confidence flowed for a bit. That's what I will be clinging to anyway!

A Stewart goal soon after HT would be good though before he has to be withdrawn to protect him from injury!

Thing is though his injury record means we have to surely be very careful with him. Would think its probably not sensible to play him for more than an hour tonight. Armstrong in theory should be a useful sub against tiring legs but obviously we will lose the physical presence.

I'm not so sure about that personally, I agree we are missing power down the middle of the pitch, but I would argue we do have pace in the team, going forward at least now after the summer signings with the likes of Scienza and Fellows and also Azaz and Armstrong are no slouches, you could see the pace we had when breaking in that short-lived purple patch when Tonda came in. Attacking wise, the summer recruitment looked fairly good with the glaring exception of a decent striker, clearly they wrongly thought Downs would be adequate if Stewart got injured again, which was obviously a serious error. Our biggest issues squad wise are the continued absence of an effective striker with a physical presence (who is not injured 90% of the season) and competent centre backs. But all of that is secondary to the biggest club issue which is appalling choice of managers. Even allowing for the clear weaknesses described above, we should be getting far better results than we are with the talent we have going forward. Maybe not auto promotion but we should be in the playoff mix in my opinion. But the club have saddled us with 2 very young and inexperienced managers who clearly don't know how to structure and motivate this team to achieve the level they should be at. I firmly believe we would be in better shape if we had done the sensible thing and ignored temporary form when Tonda took over and appointed a more experienced head, like Carrick or even O'Neal. If Spors was responsible for the managerial appointment decisions, then yes he is a big issue, was he (I genuinely don't know)? Are these decisions made by one man or a wider board?