Lighthouse

My prediction, as with any Ashes down under, is waking up, looking at my phone and muttering, "oh c**t f**king c**t bags."

You’ve got to be able to play it forward effectively, through another team’s defence, which is a lot easier said than done. I can stand in midfield on a Sunday morning with a hangover and knock it over the opposing CB’s head for our least chubby and hungover player to run on to. PL managers have sussed that out, hence it didn’t work with Jones and nobody has been back for him in the last three years.

If we’re being real, it wasn’t the players, he was just outsmarted by better managers with better tactics. It wasn’t clear from his first game, a league cup tie against Lincoln, that the PL was a step too far for him. He was basically playing knock it over the top for Walcott/Edozie/Armstrong to run on to. His last two games against Brentford and Wolves were utterly abysmal. He had to go.

No, his problem was being hopelessly out of his depth, trying to manage at PL level. The players we had weren’t what I’d call work shy, ABK aside, they were just out of their depth too. Ralph got the most out of them, which is to say that we were in a relegation fight. Jones came in and got us out of the relegation fight but in completely the wrong direction.

It's certainly not the large, new erection I was expecting to read about.

If he does sign, he’ll probably want to bring Henry with him, from Chelsea.

Why can’t we get it done tomorrow?

That would explain a lot of what I read on here TBH.

Neither had Poch, Ralph nor Koeman. All that really matters is experience at a decent level of football. There're no special rules in Italy and France that Still and Juric couldn't get their head around. Still didn't have a clue what his best team or tactics were, Juric was never going to change our fortunes with the players we had.

We appointed Still in May, didn't do us any good. Far better to wait and appoint the right guy for the job, not that I'm saying it's a forgone conclusion.

No worries, Russia only had enough petrol for three days, so we'd outlast them by more than double.

Because you seem to have this wild fantasy that Russia is still the Soviet Union, with the world's second best military. You're completely unwilling to accept any of the major, glaring flaws in Russia's military. Whilst I know Bret is on a wind up, you seem to believe all this stuff is genuine. You seem to be equating Ukraine, armed with donated weapons, with actual armed forces from NATO countries. Vast swaythes of the Russian airforce sits rusting away on disused airfields, overgrowing with weeds, whilst you seem to equate these aircraft to F35s because, "Russia gets more bang for their buck and are self sufficient." They aren't. They don't have anything like the supply chain or expertise to match the west. Corruption, bureaucracy and inefficiency are absolutely rampant.

Given the injury to Stewart and Downs being hopeless, I'd hope we can try and get another striker on loan in January. I wouldn't expect us to be splashing the cash on players and nor should we. We've just chucked £60m at the squad, and had to pay off Still and find a replacement.

Yes we are. The ingredients are all there, we just need the right man to come in and get them playing as a team.

No, they don't. They will no doubt have considered than GON would be an unpopular appointment, but fans don't dictate how a club is run. The only thing that would make a difference would be if you run the club into the ground financially with widespread boycotting, which wouldn't happen if GON came in and actually did a half decent job.

You’re comparing the man who won the PL at his first attempt with the man who steered one of the most expensive teams in Championship history to 20th.

It’s a lot harder to interview prospective replacements if the incumbent manager is still in place. As soon as the first hint gets out that’s what we’re doing, Still’s position basically becomes untenable and he’d have to go anyway. Besides, after two points in five games, I’m not sure what you think was worth hanging on to.

That would be England who are on their way to eight wins out of nine under Tuchel, the only defeat being a friendly.

He’d be an absolute cracker of a signing.

TBH, that’s probably more sensible than rushing into a panicked appointment. None of the names we’ve been linked with have been awe-inspiring, so far. Tonda not being a disaster in the last two games at least buys us a bit of time to find the right guy.

That looks like a still from one of Bonnie Blue's videos.

If more than a third of those supposed 806 fighter/interceptors are combat airworthy, I'll eat one of them. Russia has nothing that can lay a glove on an F35, their planes get shot down by second hand, eighties built F16s.

Maybe?! 🤣 Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, around 35 years ago, Russia's overall defence spending has been roughly level with our own. That's the UK, not NATO collectively. Yet here is Alexei, sharing graphics which claim that Russia has over 800 fighter/interceptor aircraft. You really have to admire Russian efficiency, being able to keep eight times the number of aircraft we have airworthy on a very similar budget.

I’d say the summer of 2007 was level with 2024 as the most utterly bewildering I’ve seen as a Saints fan. Euell and John - Completely unnecessary and on huge wages Adam Hammill - Did naff all. Bennett - Hopelessly out of his depth. Thomas - Absolute panic buy for £1.2m when Burnley wanted about £300k. Safri - The most vanilla ball recycler we’ve ever had (still hasn’t officially left, according to our OS).

Some weird picks in there. Perry was a decent, experienced player at a time when we were falling apart. Lucketti also did fine in his brief time here. Tadders scored our goal of the season before getting a serious injury, so I'm not sure he counts either. Gardos had a few decent games for us too. He was backup to Toby but largely fine when called up.