Lighthouse

His pitiful contribution this season has come almost entirely from late sub appearances when he has a huge fitness advantage. Somehow he still manages to look sluggish and off the pace.

But only because the teams above us have also lost games they should’ve won. Ipswich lost a game they were winning in the 94th minute, Leicester lost against Millwall and QPR, Leeds have just failed to score at home to a very sub-standard Sunderland.

Nobody looks consistently special, even the top three. I’d say in an ideal world we end up with Ipswich third and Norwich sixth. The last thing the Tractors will want is a highly charged local derby, which also happens to be their biggest bogey fixture.

It’s as if nobody wants to win this league. Every time someone goes top they lose their next game and end up third.

After being superb at Ipswich for 65 minutes and getting nothing, I’ll take that.

Martin’s teams have also been very entertaining at times this season and everyone is convinced he’s got the worst goalkeeper ever to play football, not to mention two strikers who can’t hit a barn door in Adams and Mara. We’re talking about two managers whose worlds have never overlapped, playing in different leagues with different players. Given the choice, I’d just about prefer Martin, who isn’t without his faults, over Puel, who isn’t without his attributes.

Remember everyone, climate change is all a myth. Three centuries of worldwide industrial carbon output have had no effect on our atmosphere whatsoever…… but by sending a small squadron of aeroplanes up to spray a few chemicals every now and then, we can completely control the entire weather system for the whole country.

I think you may have misinterpreted that post. He means when someone (like Tiss) mentions the phrase ‘MSM’, not people who actually listen/read/watch it.

In case anyone is confused, X has taken the time to fact check this claim with a verified source:

I doubt anyone is taking a random Twitter account that seriously.

Apparently VIP tickets grant you a ‘seat near the front’. Somehow, I don’t think that’s likely to be a problem for anyone attending.

Is it possible to build a full size marquee out of tinfoil? We can’t have the feds reading our brain waves.

Yep, guilty, I'm a fully signed up member. I'm afraid I don't pay £30 a go to sit and admire the architecture and catering at St Mary's. I don't know if you genuinely loved watching us play for a 0-0 at home to the likes of Hull, B'mth, Stoke, Be'er Sheva and countless others, or if you thought that's all that squad was capable of, but I'd prefer so-called Russball any day.

If you're just going to judge managers based on numbers and tables, save money and dont bother watching the football. Most of my opinions come from what I see at St Mary's (or on TV). Taking such a simplistic view on things means that Puel (8th and a cup final) must be better than Poch (8th and no final). That isn't true. If I had to choose a Saints manager since the ML takeover, based on my own opinion of what I've seen on the pitch it'd be: Poch Koeman Ralph Adkins Pardew Martin Puel Hughes MoPe Jones

We'll never know what RM could achieve with the likes of Tadic and Gabbiadini. Even someone like Austin would have been far better suited to RM's patient build up than Ralph's energetic press. He might even have finished off a bunch of the chances Adams spoons into the car park. I'm well aware of which managers were in which leagues and how they played with the players they had available. If I was offered a straight, 50:50 choice of who I'd want in charge next season, it'd be RM.

Which is lovely except it's nothing to do with the point I was making. FWIW I would probably just about choose RM over CP.

I understand what is being said fine thanks. Some people seem to be under the impression that our worse manager in recent history would certainly be at least as good as where we are now, with the implication that he may well do better. I disagree, really quite strongly.

I don't get this, I can only assume it's part of some collective wind up. Nathan Jones is the worst manager we've ever had. He could have continued to be just as dreadful in the Championship had he stayed. Now for some reason people are arguing that he certainly couldn't be worse than 4th, a possition he's never taken a team to in his life. He once finished 6th with Luton, so what? He could just as easily have replicated the season he finished 12th, or his dreadful season at Stoke. Why is that one 6th place definitely the season he will replicate and even exceed here, this season. Harry Redknapp won this League with Pompey in 2003, then got relegated with us, playing far better than Jones' team ever did. How did 2005/6 go? He was definitely a better manager for us than Adkins, who achieved absolutely nothing at Scunthorpe, right?

This post and the three people who liked it

Everybody understands that, we know how a league table works, thanks. It shows how good you were relative to the other teams that season, nothing more, nothing less. The Leicester team which won the league was, by a very comfortable margin, worse than the Liverpool team which missed out on being the invincible Champions ‘by 13mm’.

Yes, he got Luton into the top 6 one time, that’s a decent enough achievement. It’s a heck of a stretch to go from that to him definitely having us up above where Martin’s team is, which is what’s being said openly on this thread. Nobody was walking away from that wolves game thinking, "thank goodness he’s the right man to bring us straight back up."

I’d say it was the opposite. Martin is 4th with a points total that would usually be 2nd. Puel was 8th with a points total that would usually be 13th.

Jones was the worst manager I've ever seen at Saints and by all accounts was equally dreadful at Stoke too. Christ knows what would have happened had he stayed but I can't for the life of me understand why some people are so convinced he couldn't possibly be below fourth. We've just failed to score in a game for the first time since September and people are talking as if Martin is Branfoot in a rubber mask.

And the 6 points we gave Bristol City sent them down.

When he left Luton he was 9th, by the end of that season they had plumetted to 3rd. We are currently 4th. I've no idea how you can extract, "Jones can't possibly be worse than Martin," from that. Jones is the most utterly dreadful manager I've ever seen at Saints, not one redeeming feature. The football was dreadful to watch, the results were abysmal, he wasn't even more likeable than Russ. He looked completely out of his depth, then there was that, "I've been trying to please other people, now I'm going to start doing it my way," interview, when he implied none of it was his fault. They may have been different leagues but Jones' results fell off a cliff from what Ralph was doing, and that was despite having our easiest fixtures and a month long WC in order to prepare.