HarvSFC

Okay, he's quickly made me eat my words from the last two weeks. Charlton are a well drilled outfit under Jones and had only lost one of their last six before today. Was expecting a tough match, but it wasn't. I maintained belief that this squad of players were capable of providing these types of results in this league. Although they got dumped out of the Premier League, they're still up there with the best in the Championship. We just never saw a good performance under Still, even in pre-season when we were playing against Eastleigh. We never A good manager unlocks the team to perform like they did today. No arguments regarding today. Fellows and Azaz, two of the more exciting signings of the summer for us have finally been unshackled.

Very naïve move from SR. Two poor results against Charlton and Leicester, which is very possible given this season and they will lose a lot more of the fan base than they have done already. The Preston game was a taster for the anti-SR chants, but if they've wasted three weeks, two of those being an international break and three games then St. Mary's will be toxic. This was a chance for SR to bring the fans back on their side. Make an ambitious appointment, one that gets us believing again, one who we thought was impossible to get. But, no, we're going with the U21s boss for the foreseeable, and he's only been with the U21s for a couple of months, achieved nothing with them, hasn't earned the promotion. As I've said before, we are a reputable club, a historical top flight club, a big club in a good location with a big budget. I don't believe for a second there wasn't a good manager out there interested in improving things here. But, here we are. For a long time we've been a club that's been sleepwalking to where we currently are. Off the pitch we've appeared to lack plans and drive. That's on Dragan as he should be setting the expectations, but each decision made seems to come with more disappointment these days.

There's also a fair amount of difference between appointing a manager in a two week international break than there is appointing one in December. "Lets wait until Eckhart starts losing matches to appoint the new manager" then you've got matches every three days and all of a sudden it's the transfer window.

Relegation under Gao would have definitely been more dangerous than it currently feels. Remember that we always had to sell players in order to buy new ones, usually for half the price. Sounds similar to what we do now, but we wouldn't get Azaz or Fellows under Gao. It is why Hasenhuttl should be applauded for keeping the team up when he was given little to work with. In 2020 we only signed KWP (Funded by Hojbjerg), Salisu, Diallo and Walcott in the summer. Season after we sold Ings, Vestergaard and Lemina for some cash and got Armstrong, Livramento, Perraud, Small and Lyanco in return. We were working with scraps. A relegation would have left us really scraping the barrel, we would have been an unattractive proposition with no budget and would have fast tracked ourselves to where Swansea, Blackburn and Stoke, possibly even where Bolton, Wigan and Reading currently reside. At least these days you have hope that SR will one day learn, or hire a proper consultant to advise on how to spend their money correctly. We still made profits on Lambert, Lovren, Clyne, Fonte, Wanyama, Van Dijk, etc. West Ham made a profit on Kudus. Forest will make a profit on Gibbs-White despite the initial fee spent looking large at the time. Signing players in their prime with proper scouting is just as profitable as signing a young player who could develop, or may not.

We have a young squad, so why don't we appoint a manager with an experienced track record of bringing through, guiding and developing young talent, rather than getting someone new to the profession.

So disappointing, yet entirely predictable. As I said earlier in the week, we have the exact same record as Reading did from their first 15 games back in 2011-12. Everything is still to play for, even if it does seem near impossible now and we should be aiming for the top. Yet, SR are gambling it all on a rookie coming good, when all of their gambles so far have been disastrous. Back in the day us fans used to get things wrong. There would be decisions that the club made that would seem on the face of it a bad one, but would go surprisingly well. These days, the fans have always been correct, e.g. the Martin, McCarthy, Stephens extensions, most of the signings. They're taking punts and they aren't working out. We need guarantees. On top of this, we used to be such a forward thinking club at our most successful. There was a good quote from Les Reed who said he had an ongoing list of target for any eventuality. But, we always seem to be so reactive these days. We had half a year to prepare for this season, and other than the managerial appointment we did most of our business in terms of selling and buying in the last three days of the transfer window. Still had an awful record, not just once the season started, but the football was also tedious and dull during pre-season. Certainly in the last three weeks, after a winless October, which included being thrashed by Bristol City and beaten by a relegation contender in Blackburn, any other club would have started working on drafting a list of names just in case the poor form continues and we need a replacement. But, it's as if they only started working on a list of names last week. In football there are managers who can manage teams to win every week, dominate matches and win titles and there are managers who are able to manage their teams to grind out results. At the top level, David Moyes, Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis are good examples of this. Both Moyes and Hodgson failed in their big moves to United and Liverpool because they couldn't coach a team to dominate, as they are expected to do. Allardyce was dumped at a bigger club in Newcastle and I can't remember Pulis ever being given the chance. I think Still fell under this bracket. He had only managed clubs who were always underdogs, where it's acceptable to play a back five, just as it was against Liverpool at Anfield. But, he couldn't coach a team to dominate matches and overwhelm the opposition with their attacks. A back five doesn't allow this, as once the momentum shifts, we have so far been unable to regain control. So far in his managerial career at senior level and the U21s Eckhart has been playing similar tactics, and we were very fortunate to once again beat a weak QPR when we did, as I said that wasn't a sustainable performance and more often than not we'd lose giving that amount of chances away while creating nothing. Eckhart needs to do something with the U21s first before he gets promoted to the seniors, it's another case of the club overpromoting from within when they aren't qualified enough for the title they're being given. Finally, this two week window was the perfect time for a new manager to come in and bed in their tactics properly before we face Charlton. Any good manager would be able to do that over two weeks. Instead, if and when Eckhart doesn't work out, we'll be seeking a new guy for December, a fairly busy period where we have six fixtures and pretty much a match every three days, so good luck with that. The anti-SR songs were loud and clear against Preston. This really would be the final straw if they get another gamble wrong. All we as fans want is for the club to show some ambition and we haven't done so for a long time.

I always disliked O'Neil as a player because of his connections to Portsmouth, but if he was an outstanding manager who could guarantee us promotion and take us up a level I would probably look past that. Unfortunately, Gary O'Neil is not that. Now, we're unlikely to find a manager who is "outstanding" at this level, but I like to have hope and we already know enough about O'Neil to know he's a bit average, so wouldn't provide much hope. That Wolves squad were very undisciplined by the time he left, he captained Lemina, the last person you would want. As a whole, we want a manager who buys into the club. A manager who sees the importance of the south coast derby and celebrates each goal and victory against them alongside us. O'Neil wouldn't do that after his long playing career there out of the respect image footballers put on for ex-clubs. We've got one over them because one of their cult heroes was interested in working at Southampton, lets leave it there.

The season Reading won the league they were sat in 16th place after 15 matches with 4 wins, 6 draws and 5 losses. Whose record does that sound similar to? Still a lot to play for this season.

Echo what all are saying, wasn't the perfect performance, but was a professional performance against much weaker opposition and we haven't seen a professional performance in a long while now, so there is that. Good to see we're now varying our attacks. Under Will Still it was all out wide and our wingers had to win the majority of their 1 v 1s to give us a chance. It was a bizarre way of setting up the team. But, yeah, agree that the three at the back formation is still limiting us and not allowing our forwards to truly flourish. We have a few capable attackers in this league in Armstrong, Fellows, Azaz, Scienza and Robinson as a rotation. While our defence is pretty mediocre. Putting on a lesser player isn't helping our defence or performance and we aren't keeping clean sheets whichever way we play. So, may as well get Fellows in his best position and hope we overwhelm the opposition going forward, which we aren't doing at the moment. A lot of attacks saw our players running down blind alleys today because they didn't have any support close to them. We want to see quick, one touch passing with players close to each other and building partnerships up the pitch, but that isn't happening yet due to the formation. Plus their goal, as always our midfield was nowhere to be seen. The manager appointment is now all important. Get it done this weekend and they have two weeks to work with the squad and instil their methods into the team before we face Nathan Jones. The anti-Gary O'Neil songs were frequent and loud today, so should have sent a message. I just wouldn't want a manager who wouldn't celebrate goals and victories over those lot down the road because of the footballers showing respect to their former team thing. We've already got one over them because one of their cult heroes interviewed to work for us, now leave it at that. Eckhart gave us two victories, but as said earlier in the week I would like to see him do something with the U21s first before he gets promoted to the seniors. May be too soon for him and if it goes tits up then we lose what we're told is a good U21s manager and a first team manager. You could easily see them appointing Eckhart and naming Lallana as the U21s manager, but surely pressure is on Spors to get this appointment right. If he gets the next one as wrong as he did Still and Eckhart is a big gamble, surely his job is on the line? But, on a positive note, we haven't had to hear about the scar tissue of last season for two matches, almost as if it's a bit mythical and an easy excuse for poor performance. Two wins sets us up to go on a good run now and you'd like to think the new manager will see there is something to work with regarding this squad. We need to push on now, lets not flush these two wins down the drain with a complacent appointment.

They've lost 4 of their last 6 and are winless in 8. We're the strong favourites according to the bookies. Naturally, you'd be thinking in the back of your mind that typical Southampton are going to be the ones to end their poor run. However, they're like we were 17 years ago, if not worse considering they've missed payments for their players (before admin), didn't sign anyone for any money in the summer, while we were still putting £1m down on a raw Morgan Schneiderlin when that was a lot of money for a Championship club. So, really any manager worth their salt should be guiding our team of far more experience and worth to a comfortable victory this afternoon. It should be the nicest fixture we play this season. Go into the international break on a high for once and hopefully we're in a good position to go again two weeks from now. Up the Saints.

Respect and thank Eckhart for managing us to three points last night, and he'll likely do the same at the weekend given Sheffield Wednesday are in a worse state in this league than we were 17 years back. But, with the signing of Romeu we've identified a need for someone who can raise and set the standards off the pitch. Someone who can guide and give the players someone to look up to as we still have a young squad. A young and inexperienced manager isn't going to do this. They need someone with experience, has done it all before either as a player, or a manager, can nurture their talent and pass down their experience. Additionally, performances like last night are going to bring more losses than they are victories, they aren't sustainable. Eckhart still needs to learn his trade with the U21s and do something with them before he gets promoted to the first team.

Why are they playing behind closed doors?

I particularly enjoyed the interview from Shane Long about his return: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/25596917.shane-long-welcomes-oriol-romeus-return-southampton-fc/ Confirms what we all believe Romeu is like off the pitch, in the dressing room and on the training pitch. Standards are slowly coming back. The club will no longer be a well paid jolly for the lads.

Win was important for the bigger picture, but if that was an audition for the full time position from Eckert then it was shite. But, yeah, hopefully a competent manager is looking at this and seeing there is something to work with, especially if we get another three points against Sheffield Wednesday at the weekend, which we should do considering they are the 2025 version of our 08-09 squad. Our strength is in the wide attackers, get them on the ball more and quickly in space and give them the freedom to attack and not against defences that have already set up because we're too slow. But, like Sheffield United tonight needed a wonder goal to win the match and we were very much backs against the walls for the last 15 minutes.

Maybe we should have started the new manager search a couple of weeks back.

He's a poor out ball already due to his physicality, but Armstrong makes it worse with his brain. More often than not he's offside.

Doesn't fill me with confidence. I feared a new manager would mean we'd get another manager in who needs to learn Bazunu is our weaker goalkeeper of the two, Armstrong can't play centre-forward and we don't need to shoehorn Stephens into a back three to get him into the team. Leave him on the bench and play two centre-backs. We're still persisting with this three centre-back shite and one of our better attackers in Tom Fellows as a right wing-back. Good to see Robinson back in the starting team, but these aren't the changes we wanted with the sacking of Still.

Probably the buggiest Beta they've ever released, and I was surprised they made basically no changes regarding bugs with its full release yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised last week when they were releasing hotfixes each day, but even after all of them 25% of the matches I was playing would freeze at half-time with the only fix to instant result games. Made it pretty unplayable and they released two hotfixes on one day, the second one was to fix the bugs the earlier one created. The match engine has underseen a good improvement, and it is feeling more realistic. However, there are so many things that are still the same (Media and player interactions) or that have been taken out of the game (touchline shouts and deadline day) that help with the immersion of the game that you're left thinking what has been developed over the two years since FM24 other than the poor UI and the match engine. It just feels a bit bland now, when we all play Football Manager for its depth, or we would just go onto FIFA. I don't know if they've become lazy because there isn't any competition out there, but it's been a very poor couple of years for Sports Interactive, the communication last year regarding FM25 and its non-release shows they have got a bit complacent.

Said last season that there have been far more talented players than Dibling who haven't made in it the game due to mentality and I think Dibling's lacking that mentality and drive that the top athletes have. He's got this far on talent alone, and to be fair he is very talented, but athlete's need that something extra in their head to be consistent performers against others and there was plenty of noise here that Dibling wasn't the best trainer, Martin said it himself and he didn't do enough work off the ball in a time where you get punished for one player switching off. Moyes doesn't trust him and to be honest I'm not saddened to see any of the players that left in the summer struggling again this season.

A good PR move after the recent disaster. Letting Romeu go when we did was a massive mistake, and like many others we haven't properly recovered, or replaced him since. He was deteriorating when we let him go, but it needed to be a slow and gradual transition, rather than instantly selling him. He needed to be a rotation option in that first relegation season. Also needs to be made captain on his arrival. Despite spending 7 years here, he's a Champions League, FA Cup and La Liga winner. His CV speaks for itself and he should get instant respect in the dressing room and I think a lot of the squad do respect him if the summer is anything to go by. Even Lavia posted about him on Instagram this weekend just gone and he barely played in the team with Romeu. His confrontation with Jack Grealish all those years ago also showed he's not scared to give some home truths and hopefully he can help to reset the standards here, as you'd hope players would actually look up to him, unlike they do Stephens. I just think Romeu works with all of our midfielders. If Downes could return to his form of two years ago, himself, led by Romeu coaching him through a game in midfield could be a good defensive base. Additionally, Romeu gives Jander or Charles, who are both a bit more attacking the license to have a bit more freedom, as currently if they attack the midfield is gone. Just a shame Romeu is unlikely to be able to play three games a week, and please don't let this go the same way as Walcott and Lallana.

The most interesting names linked are those already at Championship clubs. Lampard and Robins in particular. But, they'd be foolish to leave their stable clubs at the top of the league for us, purely because of money. Koeman left us for Everton for more money and although he's had a fantastic career since, his time at Everton was a failure. Would be a backwards move for them. Nathan Jones left a stable Luton for us, and although we offered him more than just money, he had to restart his career back in League One. I don't think Hasenhuttl would come back under this ownership. They killed his passion for the game during his last season after that team they assembled after he finally got investment. He looked defeated every match and like he wanted to be sacked, took two years out. He's been burned by Sports Republic before, he knows they're all words. Brendan Rodgers is also too old school for this board. He also falls out with a lot of senior figures in his recent jobs. Look at Celtic most recently. He'd fall out with SR very easily, selling his best players every summer and replacing them with mediocre development projects. Nigel Adkins also isn't the man we need right now. He's not that commanding figure, yes he has a legacy here, but he's not the authoritarian that we need and lets not tarnish that legacy. He had the perfect good cop bad cop combo when he was here. Adkins was the good, motivator and Andy Crosby was the disciplinarian. But, Crosby's in full charge at Tranmere now. Yes, we did need a change as our performances have been dire this season, and I think a few players have been mismanaged. But, the potential candidates is a grim list.

Fully expected Lallana to be put in charge and have a repeat of the Dennis Wise situation, who threw his toys out of the pram at not getting the job full time. Guess we're stuck with him for a while longer.

I thought this was what Jack Stephens was for? Or, is it a case that the club/Spors in particular at the fans forum tried the gaslight the fans. Tell them he's a great leader and great for the club off the pitch. A metric they can't see, nor judge and have to blindly accept and take our word for it. Well, his fantastic leadership did nothing for us last season and is doing nothing for us this season and he's still an awful player.

Just awful, isn't it. Nothing's changing. Aimless hoofing the ball up to a midget, slow and easy to defend against football and poor defending. Our play also nearly always goes out wide. We rarely if ever play down the middle through our midfielders. This means Scienza, Fellows, Robinson and co need to win the majority of their 1 vs 1s for us to create something. Then when they do beat their man, they're crossing to a lone Adam Armstrong, who is easily taken out of the game. There's no out ball upfront when we have a back five because the majority of our players are on the defensive side of the pitch, meaning a back or sideways pass is the easy option to take and if we do go forwards, again if Scienza picks the ball up deep he only has one option upfield, and that option was marked out of the game. How many games will it take Still to realise Armstrong isn't a centre forward. I'm no Martin fan, but it didn't take Martin this long to work out how to play Armstrong. The crowd have turned, which is fair enough after one home win in an entire calendar year. Alongside the recorded end of match video, Wood also had a pop at the fans before a corner towards the end of the game during a rendition of "You're not fit to wear the shirt". You'd respect it if he was prime Maldini, but he's Wood, who struggled a lot with the basics today, and he has looked alright recently. Downs did his signature completely misreading a ball coming in across goal and attempting to go for it, but getting nowhere near it like he did twice earlier in the season. His movement and anticipation is just so bad. Doesn't have that killer instinct in the box like the best strikers do. Manning's just awful. At the end of the day, there shouldn't be anyone behind the scenes that made decisions last season still at the club. It's fine moving Kraft and Ankersen behind the scenes as investors, but Parsons, Bitcon and others should have also lost their jobs after the shambles of last season. They don't know how to make a competitive side, standards at the club have been at all time low for well over a year now. Carl Martin should have lost his job too. Coaches should help the manager and be a voice when the manager isn't quite getting it right, he never helped Jones, Selles, Martin, Juric or Rusk when they were all failing and now the same is happening with Still. Not one of those coaches have said to him, you know what maybe we shouldn't play five at the back this week? And how Lallana's immediately made it onto the first team staff, who knows. Olly Lancashire, Andrew Surman, Sam McQueen, working their way up through the academy, Matthew Etherington, another former Premier League player with our U21s also. But, the ego of Lallana couldn't possibly allow him to become an academy coach. He's first team or nothing. Wouldn't surprise me if he's having meetings with the board behind Still's back regarding stepping in as manager when Still gets the inevitable. Either way, it doesn't look like any of these coaches can coach. Just a broken club that needed far more upheaval over the summer than what it got.

Hopefully they're all back soon because Aribo will be off to the AFCON next month.