Lighthouse

I can't say that I did, personally, who were you expecting more goals from? All those numbers (aside from Dibling) are basically on par with what those players have done before at this level. In their most recent season, Archer and Armstrong scored four and two goals, respectively.

This season we have the widest, smoothest, flattest pathway in the history of the PL. If a youngster wants first team appearances it's quite simple; be better than Adam Armstrong, James Bree or Will Smallbone. If they can't do that, I would suggest they're not ready for PL football. There was a similar conversation on here last summer, with various people suggesting Dibling would be better off at Chelsea with Jimmy Jay Morgan because the path was blocked here. Six months later, who's played more PL football?

Nothing's easy at this level of professional football but it's well within the realms of possibility if we get the managerial appointment right and recruit fairly sensibly.

I count five at best; Fernandes, Dibling, Ramsdale, KWP and at a push THB.

Two teams who finished below them last season are second and third

Two completely independant managers have decided not to play ABK for a single minute this season, not including that weird Cardiff half hour to try and show buyers he didn't have a heart problem. Whatever is going on with him, there seems to be a solid reason why he's behind an average Championship RB in the queue to play CB. Wood has had a couple of reasonable enough games but he's still nowhere near being a PL standard defender.

They were absolute garbage, lost their last 7 PL games and took 3 points from their last 14 games, which is basically the form we had under Martin. Trying to use a home draw with Bournemouth last March as evidence of an upswing in momentum for this season is just laughable. Teams in the PL are good, teams in the Championship are crap, it really is that simple.

Yeah, they really laid the foundations for promotion.

Both teams were still absolutely awful and losing every week. Whether we get 10 points or 16 this season really doesn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things. In summer we could well have a new manager, half a dozen new faces and preseason to prepare. We’ll be playing much worse teams next season, there’s no reason at all we can’t be in the promotion hunt. Luton did much better than Sheff Utd last season and this year fortunes are completely reversed.

I’ve no idea why you would post such hysterical nonsense, particularly about Bazunu. You don’t rate him, fine, but constantly talking about how we will definitely get relegated with him, when we literate got promoted with him playing 90% of our games last time, just makes you look weird. We have plenty of good Championship players and don’t seem to be in any immediate financial peril, so there’s no reason at all why we can’t fight for promotion like we did last time.

People said that last time when we really weren’t much better than this, and neither were Sheff Utd last season. If we get the appointment right in summer, he will have plenty of decent Championship players who are very unlikely to receive better offers.

So we didn't have anything to fight for at 1-1 or 1-2? I don't know why we're even having this discussion, it was a stonewall penalty. The ref just didn't have a good enough view of it initially.

What would other fans do to improve the situation?

Can't blame Juric, this is where this squad is at. They're just sh*t players, it really is that simple. That said, 17 goals conceded in 6 games isn't great.

So what’s your point? Armstrong gets picked ahead of another equally awful player, that’s Saints squad this season.

Archer was atrocious at Forest.

Who would you play instead?

TBH that’s about as good a team as we can put out today. I’ll say 2-1 to Newcastle, with a TP header but from open play this time.

Again, you're just making stuff up. We sold Lavia for about £55m, after one decent season. Livramento went for about £40m and Dibling isn't going anywhere cheaply either. We're a stepping stone club, whether we accept it or not, same as everyone else. How are Ake and Solanke getting on at Bournemouth this year?

A huge assumption to say he'd have brought us back up but if he had we'd probably be exactly where we are now, which is basically where he had us with a similar squad two years ago.

Selles doing a job on the Blades here.

We're not 'only' interested in turning a profit on players, there's far more to running a PL club than that. We're not celebrating, you've made that up. We don't get, "pleasure from what the player does on the pitch," unless the club is run in a financially stable and responsible way. We're not just trying, "to make a few mill on cheapo players," trading on players is part of the process and we've spent plenty on expensive flops along the way. Decent signings will leave pretty much every club in the world, apart from maybe Real, City, Barca and Bayern. I refer you to point two on Dibling/MF. Who is cheering?

What's your point? Who is saying, "never mind the embarrassment of a season"? Nobody is holding this up as an example of a successful season, just stating that we did good business on Meghoma, bringing him in and selling him on at a profit.

TBH they could walk here, arrive twenty minutes before kick off and still beat us 3-0.

I must have missed that. If there’s one luxury we do have, it’s knowing our fate months in advance and being able to plan now for life in the Championship. My gut instinct is to go for Rohl, who knows the league much better than Juric and seems to be doing well at Wednesday. On the flip side, if we start seeing some promising results with the latter towards the end of the season, then he might be worth considering.