HarvSFC

Please hit 10.

Replacing Ings with Adam Armstrong and replacing Vestergaard with Lyanco was prior to Sports Republic and when Semmens made the majority of the decisions. Handing out new contracts to McCarthy and Stephens and signing up Walcott permanently was also under Semmens. So, he isn’t totally blameless and he’s a big reason as to why we have such a bloated squad of shite. The rot was setting in before Sports Republic, they just spread it faster. He’s also just as condescending to fans as much as anyone else currently at the club is and has helped to create the divide between the fans and the club that currently exists.

Best mates with Fraser Forster, who left Southampton, got a pay rise, got to play in the Champions League and got back into the England squad. I don't think he'll be telling Ward-Prowse many negatives regarding leaving the club. While the Beckham record is still within his sights. I just can't see him turning down a move this summer, although I also didn't think he'd sign the new contract a couple of years back. If he does leave, then fine. A good player, has a top class attribute, which doesn't assist too well with open play. But, like with everyone who leaves this summer we've lost far better players in the past and I think it's time to move on from Ward-Prowse being the main man at the club. We need a reset all over. A new corner taker would be nice for a start.

He’s offside as much as Papa Waigo was.

Here's all the mistakes: 1. Sacking the coaching staff, but keeping the manager. Initially seen as a positive, but getting rid of a long-term manager's coaches and then forcing the likes of Selles upon him was only going to go one way. Our coaches have been lacking since the Koeman era, when he brought and moulded his own team following Pochettino. So, it should've been, sack Hasenhuttl and the coaches and then bring in a new manager, who can bring his own team with him. Alongside this, while Selles was initially seen to be a good coaching addition given his CV and reputation, we also promoted Carl Martin from within, something which was a big reason as to why we needed new coaches in the first place and Alex Clapham joined from Notts County. Don't know why we were taking non-league coaches, again seemed to cheap out on the last two, even though Clapham soon shot off. 2. Signing Bazunu and making him our undisputed number one. A goalkeeper who had only played League of Ireland and League One football prior to this season. This was at a time when Bernd Leno went to newly promoted Fulham, Dean Henderson went to newly promoted Forest and Neto went to newly promoted Bournemouth... All three goalkeepers who've had good seasons and would have came to us if we weren't obsessed with academy players. We did actually sign a 26-year-old goalkeeper on the same day as Bazunu. Lis, who pips Larios to the most pointless signing of last summer. 3. Signing Joe Aribo. Who scouted this guy? We were a high pressing Premier League team prior to this season and unlike in Scotland you have to be able to run at the very least to play in the Premier League. He was the most unsuited player to what we had been in the previous seasons. I commented when he signed that he was clumsy, even in the SPL and never looked in full control but he did score a good goal in pre-season and I was looking forward to being proven wrong. Nope. Frozen out before today and based on today's performance he will be frozen out again. Commented that he doesn't really care if he plays or not in an interview anyway, which sums up the squad. 4. Sekou Mara. I really hope he's the 2023 Morgan Schneiderlin. Young, French, signed when we should have prioritised his fee in other areas, but has shown small glimpses of something. Hopefully, like Schneiderlin a drop down a level does him the world of good. Although, again, he needs to put more work in on the pitch. But, yeah, that fee we spent on him could have gone towards signing an actual proper striker. 5. 2023 summer transfer deadline day. We went into panic mode seemingly. Brought in Caleta-Car, Edozie, Larios and Maitland-Niles. Four crap signings. Caleta-Car, Edozie and Larios have all been frozen out. One for being hot headed, the other for being too attacking, which goes against the current manager's ethos and Larios, I imagine because he looked like a 10 year old against adults. Makes Cedric look like Goliath. While, Maitland-Niles just doesn't seem to have the heart for football. Poor in the centre of midfield and poor at right-back, why we have to keep shoe horning him in, only the manager knows. On the same day we let Oriol Romeu leave. A fan favourite and no replacement, leaving us with JWP, Lavia and Diallo as our only centre midfield options. We also neglected to address the one position we needed a player in after Broja and Long left. A STRIKER. It then gets a bit catastrophic after here: 6. Appointing Nathan Jones as Hasenhuttl's successor. This was at a time when Aston Villa and Wolves, who were sat with us in the table appointed Unai Emery and Julen Lopetegui. Managers with Arsenal, PSG, Spain and Real Madrid on their CV. BUT, we went with a man who had failed to manage Stoke City and only had success at Luton on his CV. A man with no top flight experience in his playing or managerial career. Who joined with him? Chris Cohen and Alan Sheehan. Again two more with no top flight experience. He had no one with any real footballing pedigree to consult with, like he did at Luton with Mick Harford and Paul Hart. Two crap manager's, but they are football people, which is something we lack here. 7. Signing Mislav Orsic. He's doing wonders for me on Football Manager, which must be what attracted Ankersen to him. Joined with a good CV, World Cup goals and a few good Europa League goals against Premier League opposition. However, he was given 6 minutes of Premier League football, a couple of cup games and a B team game and I doubt we'll ever see him on the pitch for us again. 8. Not recalling Nathan Tella. I don't count sending him out on loan as a mistake, as I think we all accepted it was the best move for him at this stage of his career. So, he goes and scores 8 goals in 19 starts from out wide prior to January. Fantastic. Just what we need is a goal scoring attacker and Tella's looking like the easy option to recall. Nope, too obvious. 9. Recalling Jan Bednarek. Someone who wasn't impressing on their loan, unlike Tella. I bet Villa couldn't believe their luck. Rebranded as "Janny B" and the heroic leader we were missing. Had a disastrous first few games back, but he hasn't done anything too disastrous since. He's just not much good either. Always said I'd rather have Jack Stephens in a relegation dog fight than the Poland international, who shirked his club duties last season and has been a shirker his whole Saints career. Again, could have recalled Stephens, who is now helping Bournemouth stay up, but no. 10. To round off the January 2023 catastrophe, we signed Paul Onuachu and Kamaldeen Sulemana for big fees. Onuachu not quite Carrillo, because he was actually scoring for his previous club. But we've since found out we spent around £18m on a 6'7" striker who cannot jump and can only last around an hour before blowing up. FOR THE PREMIER LEAGUE. Again, makes you wonder what our scouting team is being paid for, but he is doing very well for me on Football Manager, so again thank you Rasmus. Then with Sulemana. I posted when he joined that we needed goals, so why we spent such a large fee on a Rennes squad player with 5 Ligue 1 goals to his name, I didn't know. Turns out he wasn't the answer. 11. Keeping Nathan Jones in a job until it became near fatal for the club's league position. The man lost 7/8 league matches. There were already question marks when he was appointed and then losing all those games, especially the Forest home game on January 4th confirmed that he was out his depth. However, we were told at the fans forum by the condescending Semmens and Ankersen to trust the process, despite every Saints fan stating that he needed to go. The next game we lost 2-1 against 10 men Wolves after being a goal up, and hey, what do you know, turns out we were right, so Jones got the sack. 12. Going the caretaker route. Marsch turned us down, that's okay we must have a big shortlist of alternatives. WRONG. Selles appointed until the end of the season. Since then Chelsea, Leicester and Crystal Palace sacked their manager's, while Leeds appointed Gracia, who unsurprisingly took 3 points off us. Did they name their assistant as the man to take over? No, they brought somebody else in, proving there are options out there. We're a Premier League club and given our position there wasn't much for a manager to lose. If we got relegated, but put up a fight then their reputation would remain intact. If we survived, they'd have been hailed a hero. Instead, we've got the player's best mate on the touchline and therefore standards have dropped massively. We play without a striker, we drop anyone who shows any attacking ability - Alcaraz scores, out he goes, Djenepo gets an assist, no thank you, Edozie takes players on and wins free-kicks for our most dangerous weapon, no we'd rather see Elyounoussi pass it to the opposition. Selles makes Mark Hughes look like Guardiola considering Hughes actually got a song and some fight out of the squad before he was given a three-year deal. So yeah, what joys we've had! Feel free to add any more. I guess Shields could've been mentioned.

Indeed. Lambert was 27, Fonte 26, Hammond 26, Chaplow 25, Richardson 27, Guly 28, Sharp 25, Fox 25 and Hooiveld 28 when all signed. We had Davis in goal, who was 33 when we started our rise back up and brought in older senior pros in Butterfield, Jaidi, Connolly and Murty, who contributed to the playing side and weren't just "they're good to have around the dressing room" blokes also. They helped guide and mature the youth of Schneiderlin, Lallana and Chamberlain. Who'd have thought that signing players in their prime would bring success. Semmens and the others have done a Les Reed/Wilson arrogance show on us. Reed recycled the squad and manager once with a number of good transfers and even made us better. So, he believed he had cracked football and could do it again and again. He couldn't. It was a one summer thing. He said we always had a replacement ready to go, we didn't. Semmens/the recruitment team saw the success of Livramento last summer, who was relatively cheap for the Premier League. So, again, they thought they had found an untapped market and tried to create a team of Livramento's. Amazingly, didn't work, while we also made some panic signings of more experienced players for good measure.

No intensity, no urgency, no quality. The story of the season really. Keep the ball at the back, lose the ball, let the opposition break on us. We played like an end of season mid-table dead rubber match today. Only we’re bottom of the league, have been since Boxing Day and should be fighting for our lives.

That's a poor imitation of MLG. Hajto joined in the summer of 2005. It was the next January 2006 transfer window that his contract was cancelled with us and he joined Derby. Kosowski joined in the 2005 summer window on a season long loan, didn't cost £400k, wasn't a part of the play-off side, which came after the next summer. The next summer we signed Skacel, Pele, Davis, Idiakez, Viafara, Wright-Phillips, Makin, Licka and Sarmiento. Again, not wholly successful and quite a few duds.

What I find strange regarding Bazunu was how he built up a reputation for his distribution, but it's by a long way the worse part of his game.

We're going to play in the Sky Bet Championship, anyway...

Little Ross going to Forest. Rangers fans are delighted after protesting to get rid of him, I expect Saints fans are too.

Easter football, Good Friday and Easter Monday matches. Klopp and Guardiola would have an aneurysm if they had to manage that. No winter break in the Championship either. Generally, just nice to be in a league where the top six managers aren't trying to change the league system every other week. 5 subs, with Kyle Walker, England's best right-back, Kalvin Phillips, a first team England international, Bernardo Silva, a four time Premier League winner and Julian Alvarez, Argentina's first choice striker coming off the bench is not something I'm going to miss either.

Add Lopetegui at Wolves and Emery at Villa. Both appointed around the time we appointed Nathan Jones. Another damning stat mentioned on Sky involving us earlier, as well. Leeds have only kept one clean sheet in their last 11 matches...

Getting a bit Jonesy. "Very satisfied" with a 4-1 defeat which saw City pass it around a set of traffic cones and needs to start looking at the table, usually something a manager says after a handful of matches, not 30. Might have known we needed to attack Leeds/West Ham if he looked at the table.

By the people who couldn't sell the job to Jesse Marsch. Doubt we'll get anyone with ambition, like Potter. Someone like Jones, who we're the biggest club they'll manage.

Hard work makes up for talent and plenty of Saints teams in the past have used the former to beat those better than them. This team has neither. So bad on and off the ball. If you stand around imitating traffic cones against Man City then they will pass it around you with ease, as they did today. They completed 683 passes to our 260. Piss poor.

Gibbs-White was 22, scored 11, assisted 9 in 35 matches while on loan at Sheffield United, Wolves sold him for £25m with potential to rise to £42m. A player who had only made 4 appearances for Wolves in his last two seasons there. Nathan Tella, 23, scored 17, assisted 4 in 35 matches while on loan at Burnley...

Jones beat City fairly comfortably with Lyanco, Diallo, Djenepo, A. Armstrong and Mara all starting and it was the beginning of our great revival. Over to you, Selles...

Our season tickets are up there with the most expensive in the country. Going to be hard to justify keeping those prices at Championship level.

Steve de Ridder, Lee Holmes, Ryan Smith, Kayne McLaggon, Dany N'Guessan, Adam Hammill.. Anyone, would all be better than Elyounoussi.

Cooper's the manager we need to go for if he does get the boot. Took Swansea to the play-off final with a little budget and who have since struggled without him and took Forest from bottom of the league to promotion in the same season. Looks a bit like an alien, but he can't have it all. I also feel as though Forest's mad owner spending hasn't helped him this season. Has a link to Crocker after they worked together in the England setup, just got to hope Crocker still speaks highly of us after handing in his resignation. Also, this ownership couldn't sell the project to Marsch, so...

Tottenham doing their best Saints against 10 men impression.

Remember these two goons at the fans forum backing Jones when every single fan knew he needed to go, only we needed to throw a match against 10 man Wolves at home to actually get them into action. How many is that now since SR took over? Alex Clapham, who SR hired for the coaching team, headed to Brazil after just four months. Now at Genoa in Italy. Joe Shields, another SR appointment. Lasted just three months after a now appalling transfer window. Fortunately, he's now Chelsea's problem, but he still soon shot off out of here. Matt Crocker, seems to be highly thought of after his first spell and up until this season helping to keep us in the league with limited resources. Didn't last a year under SR before handing in his resignation. Now, Rice, who has been head hunted by Ashworth and the mega millions of Newcastle, so must have something about him. A lot of resignations in one season behind the scenes, even Hasenhuttl was a different character to who we had seen previously working under this board, but he also had a massive payoff to clasp onto.

To win promotion from the Championship, you need to attack and try to win games. In 11-12 we won 26 of our 46 games, were the highest scorers with 85 in 46. I don't think Selles' tactics can do that. We've got nothing to lose now, we've been 20th ever since he took charge and still are. Yet, the football I'm watching is like we're playing for draws/trying to stay in the game for as long as possible. There isn't another side in this division who doesn't start their best 11 because of the new 5 sub rule. Yet, we've seemingly been leaving the inconsistent, but dangerous players on the bench, to start the more conservative Elyounoussi to then bring the inconsistent, but dangerous players on when we're losing and the other team is sat back all season. It's a tactic that simply hasn't worked, we're always chasing the game and Selles has been here all season too, so really he doesn't have an excuse. Yesterday, Elyounoussi played 54 minutes, against Tottenham, 70, Brentford before that 58, hauled off at half time by Jones against Brentford away. It's like Selles sees he's the problem in the match, yet he starts him every week hoping for something different. Alcaraz, who only joined in January is already our third highest goal scorer in the league. How does he get rewarded? Benched for shit players who can't do anything but give the ball away at this level. I know Alcaraz isn't the finished article and gives the ball away himself, but at least he has the ability to actually do something. He's essentially the 2023 Mark Wotte. Yes, he's an improvement on Jones, as Wotte was an improvement on Poortvliet, as it's hard to get much worse. But, neither should be here in the long-term. Thank him and say our goodbyes at the end of the season. Only worry is this board aren't known for their ruthlessness and will probably hand out one of their charitable contracts. Only last September Djenepo was given a new three year deal because he had to start the season at left-back. Now, nowhere to be seen again.

Armstrong’s the worst of the lot. Used to really like him as a player, but he’s horrendous now.