Singapore Saint

I'm a professional gambler, have been since 1996, and I would like to advise those of you who want to take a punt on NJ being the next manager to be sacked not to do so. On the contrary, if there is a market on him staying till the end of the season, take a punt on that instead because he's staying till the end of the season at the very least. There is no "stay of execution" (don't believe the pundits), he does not have "just one more game" i.e. the Wolves game to prove himself, and the owners are taking a long-term view. The board will listen to the likes of Thomas Frank and JWP above the likes of the rabid fans on this message board.

He's doing no worse than Ralph for starters. We lost 3-0 to Brentford at home earlier in the season and lost 4-1 in consecutive games (last game of last season and first game of this). Which means the players are crap, not NJ, and he is not worse than Ralph. The rot was in a long time ago under Ralph (6-0, 9-0, 9-0, losing leads, so many losses, etc.). It takes time to turn the ship around with the players we have. I honestly think NJ is a better manager than Ralph if for no other reason than he plays JWP in a more forward role. Ralph in 4 years never figured this out and stifled our captain. No wonder JWP likes NJ and pushed him forward to receive the accolades after the away win at Everton. I'm convinced NJ won't be sacked anytime soon because he has the backing of our most important players i.e. JWP and Che Adams. The board love JWP because he's loyal and JWP will be instrumental to NJ keeping his job. I have no problem with NJ speaking frankly and defending himself, considering all the personal attacks he has suffered from supporters and pundits. Many of us looked down on him right from the start because a. he's from a Welsh mining town, b. he's outspokenly Christian (it's sadly fashionable in some circles to put down Christians these days), c. he's from a lower league. What his detractors call a "crazy rant" I call a "feisty response". Sometimes we have to take 1 step back to move 2 steps forward. Hopefully this is the case with NJ as he learns what it is to be a Premier League manager. No I wouldn't have put "that team" out against Newcastle, nor can I explain why he did certain things like drop DCC and play him in a B team game for 90 minutes 24 hours before a Prem game. But I will give him the benefit of the doubt and more importantly time as he has vowed to take a different tack from now on.

I did. I remember we put one over Man City not too long ago. And NJ has played JWP in a more forward MLT-esque position, something Ralph never did in 4 years. NJ needs time to find his feet, having no Premier League experience. Hence I voted for him to stay.

We'll probably end up 15th as we've done for the past 2 seasons. I like Nathan, I think he's an improvement on Ralph. Got a feeling Paul and Che will form a good partnership and Gavin will improve in goal for us. Hope springs eternal, doesn't it? 😂

Read a few comments that Newcastle are a team built with "blood money", well they are not. You get blood money from spilling blood in the process. Their owners sell oil where no one dies. That something terrible happened when an activist pretending to be a journalist kept criticising one of their leaders does not make it blood money.

What's YHGTI? I figure YHG is young hung Ghanaian but I couldn't figure out TI 🤔

I like that he says "Southampton" (twice) rather than "the club" like most players do when they sign, as if any club would do as long as it was the Premier League.

You sound like you hate NJ more than the liberals hate Trump. Give NJ a break, "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" or as they say these days, SMH 🙄

I think JJM simply doesn't want to be in a Championship club next season.

I can't see them offering him the Everton job.

Can't head? Did he not score the winner against Spurs in our 3-2 away win with a glorious header from distance, and assist JWP for the first goal with a nice little flick off the head at Everton?

Completely agree, he is to us what Emile Heskey was to Liverpool and England, not a finisher but a provider.

"Everton line up the wall and as JWP draws back his right foot to shoot, Mykolenko decides to try and head towards the post and all that does is completely confuse Pickford and the ball flies over the wall, over Mykolenko and into the net whilst Pickford stands there looking round the other side of the wall." That's a good point you make about Mykolenko moving and confusing Pickford. I wonder if it's why Pickford didn't move i.e. JWP was lucky, and if he did move, would he have saved it?

If memory serves, James Beattie scored with a long-range shot in the first 3 minutes, we were 1-2 down at half-time, then played an absolute blinder in the second half (Gordon Strachan's pep talk?) with goals from Chris Marsden, Anders Svensson and one other (Brett Ormerod?).

I loved that NJ had the courage to play him, which manager would have done that? Only our NJ 😊

Don't worry, we'll do a Sheffield Wednesday with Jamal Khashoggi watching over us.

Pep very gracious in defeat 😊

A certain Serb wants to own the nipper 😎

There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are Sport Republic.

We didn't know he was awful, we knew he was a huge gamble.

My granduncle used to say, "Be clever but not too clever by half." SR are too clever by half.

SR would never ever sack Jones and replace him with an experienced "hard" manager like Dyche or Allardyce as any normal club would because that would be a huge blow to their pride and it would mean their methods were all wrong.

Duties shared? Ronaldo is a "family man" (family first, football second) and we are a "family club". We had some of the best players in the world playing for us once upon a time - Kevin Keegan and Peter Shilton - so why not?

It wouldn't be about the money, in fact he will prove it's never been about the money as he joins a "historic, ambitious" club, he will start every game upfront with Che/Edozie/Mara, he will share his wealth of experience and professionalism with our nippers who will look up to him, he will improve JWP, etc.

You might laugh at me but I really do think if we asked Cristiano Ronaldo nicely, he would come to us.