Lallana's Left Peg

No, they pay them alot more when they sack them after a few months...

The season is not written off but this is not an appointment that would drive confidence of a play off push. Too many unknowns - it is a clear risk. Remind me how SR risks have turned out for this football club during their ownership? Go back to this summer...you'd surely have been concerned if Eckert was appointed as our manager? Just because SR continue to fail doesn't mean we should accept more risks and a lower caliber of manager. Their constant failure should not diminish our expectations of competency in the slightest. The only other thing I'll say is that it may be an enforced risky decision, as SR have now backed themselves into a corner where they can't attract managers due to both their record with them and their patience with them. It also defies belief that Spors attracted Eckert to the club by saying he'd be Stills successor. Spors himself has created this situation and it is complete lunacy.

If Tonda Eckert was jobless, would he get a job as Manager in any other club in the Championship? Clubs with far less resources than us appoint managers with far more experience in order to try and get the most out of what they have at their disposal. It seems SR constantly go for the moon shot and when they fail cut the cord quickly. What they fail to realise is the material impact this has on the players and the supporters. It is just a mathematical game of chance to them.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest that GON played for Portsmouth. It does bother me that there is evidence in the public domain that he clearly is very happy to be part of Portsmouth teams that beat Saints and takes great delight in it. The fans would hate him and anyone comes in has a huge job on their hands and doesn't need the handicap of that stink over them. There also isn't any evidence that he is the right man for us either.

The club is overly familiar with losing and allergic to appointing any sort of experience to address it on or off the pitch.

Based on what Still and Charles said I believe he'll stick with the same formation and largely the same players and simply lay down the challenge of proving to themselves they can cut out the wastefulness at one end and gifts at the other. If they mentally can't do it against poor opposition he's then given himself free reign to drop whomever he wants without anyone feeling aggrieved. You could argue that ship has sailed but the players must sense it and it's time to find out who is going to dig in and who is not. We have one of the biggest budgets in the league and the players have to start showing up.

One of the fundamental principles of Sports Republic (based on Rasmus) is to buy a lottery ticket and if it doesn't work pivot quickly. Keep doing that until you hit gold and then build. But the consequence of that in football is that you have to be able to retain that individual to create the foundation for sustainable growth. Saints are stuck in a rut of a high turnover of staff and the ones we do hit on leave very quickly, leaving us completely lost.

There is some sense in this but you are asking us to place our faith in a Manager that SR have appointed which is already an unavoidable red flag, and whilst the need for stability and consistency is hugely important for the players they are currently letting the manager down and I am not sure why we think it will change when they have often let us down more than they have simply met their end of the bargain of effort and concentration. Still seems to be able to identify the issues but not correct them. That's a huge concern. It is not his fault when players miss sitters and it is not his fault when defenders make mistakes. But he is responsible for the mentality, and he is responsible for finding a way to win games with a squad that is comfortably Top 2 on paper. The clock is ticking for progress.

He knew what he was getting himself in for. He's been told he's got two seasons (he has publicly stated this) as the Board recognised how poor the squad and mentality was. What he's got to figure out pretty quickly is who is going to be on the ride with him and who isn't and make some tough decisions. The future is never this 3-4-3, which is clearly in place to try and put a plaster over the pathetic lack of resilience and mentality in the squad. The squad has been built with 4-2-3-1 in mind, and at some point he is going to have to bite the bullet with it.

3.5 years of Sports Republic and the squad and quality of manager has got worse every single season.

I like Fernandes but he's not creative. He's a driver of the ball in the middle third.

When you play two strikers on the wings you accept the risk of that is leaving lots of space out wide for the opposition to attack, which is what Espanyol are doing. You usually accept that risk because you will pose an attacking threat yourself, but we are showing absolutely nothing. I can only assume that Still is giving some senior pros their chance to impress so that when he dumps them they can have no excuses. Quarshie is looking to pass forwards all the time and he clearly has no options. Too many of this lot are showing a hangover from playing in a team that doesn't score goals.

For a city beset with the tragedy of Hillsborough the arrangements leaving the stadium were shocking and someone needs to give their head a wobble. The explanation of 'to stop Everton fans getting into the stadium' as an excuse for stewards in the stadium telling us where to leave with no idea what was happening and the Police holding people in causing crushes and frustration is pathetic. The Police had ample time and means at their disposal to allow a safe and timely exit for away fans. It doesn't take Einstein to figure out there were thousands of Everton fans outside who may try and get into the ground after the game and several thousand Saints fans who wanted to leave the ground. To have five Policeman try and manage a single person exit is the sort of incompetence that means people get hurt. Idiots.

Ah ok fair enough. Let me revise that statement: I don't believe a Director of Football Operations who has spent four years in football and sixteen years in Rugby combined with Sport Republic will make sensible and impactful appointment for the betterment of Southampton Football Club. There.

There is no Director of Football in place and I have little faith in Sport Republic making a sensible appointment.