Hodgey

He's not beyond hope but there are fundamental issues - equally for those lording Vest we should be careful as I remember after 2 games people saying Hoet looked class !. The bottom line is good CBs are very hard to find but vitally important to a good team (we went down to my mind as we never replaced Svensson). The issue I (and others I think) have with him is not just the silly mistakes that have increasingly come into his game - that can be resolved, but there are more fundamental issues - overplaying at the back leading to reckless tackles, little strength, not great in the air, no pace. Generally the best teams have one 'marker' and one 'coverer' - the skill set for the marker should be a big powerful lump who is always in the way and hard to get past, the cover should be good on the ball, quick with good anticipation (rarely you get both - ie Alderwereld and VVD). I just don't know where Hoet fits in this - he definately isn't cover - and seems to be poor as marker even though you would hope that would be his strength (back end of last season about 3 times a fwd powered in a header and Hoet was left doing some kind of odd chicken impression where he had been toppled over). As such I can't see any future for him (in this league) aside from emergency cover - and I think we have equally below-average (and cheaper / more likely to improve) cases in Bed and Stephens. Hope I'm wrong (also hope I don't see anymore chicken impressions). Can't comment on the attitude thing - all I can say is if in any way true at all he must have more front that Brighton given his performances to date.

If Shane Long and Steven Davis play 'many many' games for us this year we will be in trouble. I'm hoping Hughes has just said this to keep them motivated - it's not his fault he's got a load of dead wood on £50k plus a week - but you're never going to sell that, or even loan them at those wages - only top or Premier teams pay that money and none of those will be interested.

He gets a bit more grace for me - turning around 2 years of turgid rubbish will not happen overnight. That said I’m concerned that we are lowering possession and passing stats without increasing goals or chances. The world has moved on from possession at all costs football, but is this team more exciting and attacking ? After £50m net investment I think we are entitled to judge those metrics come Dec.

I went today - appreciate Hants had nothing to plays for - but losing is a habit and I fear for their l1 future. Roussow has an attention issue as does Vince, Northeast looks average but not a matchwinner, Alsop and Weatherly are div 2 players, the bowling aside from Steryn looks terribly average. I know you can’t equate t20 with 4 days but I really cannot see this lot licking their way out of trouble for a 3rd year

I’ve got very low expectations - I think the squad is relegation material but think Hughes has enough about him to keep us up - 16th. On the flip side I’m hoping my pessimism will bring joy when we do better than that and maybe even have another cup run or famous win vs top 6... Problem is we need to somehow get some good youth coming through, ship out the bloated squad and get a new head of scouting. Thatll take time so we may need to accept a few years of struggle

Something more than university, Scottish league one and league one. Give a bloke who has never dealt with million pound transfers £200m and what do you get ?. Look at our squad and you have your answer...although some may think the squad is good - in which case that opinion would be that he’s done a great job. Oh and all those long contracts to the likes of Forster, Long and Davis also on his watch..

My opinion is partly based on his very questionable experience to have such an important job. But mainly due to the fact he has overseen a dramatic fall in squad quality whilst spending all the money we got for selling our good players. Anyone think he is doing a good job ? - would love to hear a countering opinion.

This bloke is definitely part of the problem - way out of his depth and costing us as a club millions through his lack of talent. Fair play to him for chancing his way to this position, but any competent board would have stuck someone in above him by now to get the transfer/contract dealings to where they need to be. Very worrying with the uncertainty around our new owner and investment. I’d love to know what the strategy actually is - seems all over the shop and a load of waffle about the Southampton way - whatever that is. So what is this - we’ve finally realised that there are more talented players in all of Europe rather than just the UK ??

We won't be in for a striker unless we sell - we already have Gabbi / Austin / Long / Carrillo and Gallagher. We've spent £50m+ on that lot and they must be on a combined salary of £350k a week - so that's another £18m a year liability. Meantime we only have one striker birth. Frankly unless we can get rid of two of those strikers there is no chance of us buying another hence why we are not linked with any forwards. Think it is pretty clear that Gao will cap salary and start transfers at £0 so he can start servicing debt - so we need to sell before we buy. Given our high wage bill and bloated squad this actually isn't the end of the world (in regards the ambition to be a mid-table Prem club with some good cup runs). However - it does mean we need to be strong in negotiations and smart with contracts - something we clearly haven't been over the past few years (ref: Fraser / Carrillo / Boufal / Hoet and if true the wages of Gallagher/Stephens/Targett etc). Problem is those who have made those decisions are still making them....

Taylor was on standby to sign in case the other 4 keepers got injured and was cracking jokes to keep spirits up. Ross missed out as he was buying a much more expensive card which unfortunately turned out to be an engagement card. Austin had a broken wrist and Redmond was moaning about the state of the pen ruining his brilliant autograph.

still think he’ll end up a good PL players - despite issues with pace and strength. Reminds me a bit of Matt Oakley - who seemed to progress slowly but ended up a decent player. What do people want ? Is the suggestion we sell him and get someone else ? Can’t really see us getting an upgrade if son- in fact the opposite. Personally think he is a good right midfielder / emergency right back.

I get the impression that Kruger - like us - hasn’t the first clue what Gao wants, that’s why he was so unusually uptight about the questions. He’s a chairman trying to maintain a status quo from Katrina without knowing what he is supposed to be doing. Got his classic USA business interest quote in (what happened to our USA academies by the way?) which will clearly come to nothing. He’s got nothing to offer, but doesn’t know what to do - so rather than waffle around a direction we clearly haven’t achieved he’s giving us waffle about guesswork. All very concerning - he can’t even committ to Gao concentrating on saints F.C. - at best that was lip service - Gao clearly isn’t that concerned which is very odd....

We really need a new head of scouting. The deeply unimpressive Ross and our clear lack of black box means we are relying on Hughes - no idea what influence he had at Stoke but their transfer dealings were worse than ours. Time to fish for the best of the Championship - let’s face it the fact 3 teams stayed up suggests it is the way to go.

Really not sure about Promes - could be another Boufal. We need a solid cb as a priority as none of ours are good enough. Mawson is a good shout. Hoet sold - nowhere near good enough, same with Stephens but you could keep one, like the look of Bednerak think he could improve. Forster out, Long needs to go - as does Gabbi. I’d be keen to take a punt on the best of the champs rather than a billy big bolllox on the bench for a big team.

And whilst I’m at it - Hoet is nowhere near good enough at this or Champs level. I shudder at the he thought of him, Stephens and Bedenark (who is the best of those 3) at Swansea....

Our players are so mentally weak. At least Hughes appt has made them physically better. The players we have are an awful mix mentally - whatever happens we need a major overhaul of that squad mentally. Hughes will have earnt his £2m if he can keep this mob up

Looking at his record - Hughes has never been an instant impact manager - needs a handful of games to get the team in shape. Makes our boards late decision even more negligent.....Hughes had been available for a while. If he’ll stay - we should keep him next season.

West Ham - 3 pts we arguably shouldn’t have got. So owed one lucky ref win still in my book

I hate to say it - but there are some people with short memories on here of the champ if they think the likes of Reed, McQueen, Sims, Valery and Gallagher are good enough for anything other than another relegation battle. There are some decent players in that league (better than the ones we have currently got in some cases)

I’m amazed anyone on here think the fans can sway Les - if that was the case how can you explain MoPe ?. If the fans were right or wrong that is irrelevant - our board are paid to make the right decision for their owners not the fans. The decision to fire him and replace him with MoPe was a bad one, but to be clear the fans had zero input to it so bickering on here on who was right or wrong seems a bit pointiessc(but would delight les and the board no doubt)

Think Gao will be looking to recoup £50m and anything more to invest back into the squad. Assume we will get £90m from Berty, Gabbiadini, Tadic, Targett, cedric, Boufal, JWP and Lemina that gives a budget of £40m. Issue is that leaves something like this Gk : Forster McC - decent Df : Valery, Bednatek, Stephens, Yoshi, McQueen - lg 1 Mid: Rom, Claise,Redmond, Simms, Davis, Reed - mid champ Fwd: Long, Austin, donkey, Gallagher - decent Would £40m get that defence and mid up to top 6 standard ??? - you would need a very strong window.

And that’s the problem John B. We are arrogant enough to think we are better than others due to our black box, when the reality is since Ross joined we are in fact terrible in this area. Then we are even more arrogant in thinking sometimes we don’t need to replace players at all, and somehow a reserve will miraculously be as good. We deserve to go down and will. We can go back up if we keep Hughes and let him have a big say in transfer dealings but we need a big change at the top (bye Ross and Les) for that to happen.

For research I decided to look up Ross Wilson on LinkedIn - amazingly he is there. He brags on his profile about making huge player profits at Falkirk and Udders whilst they were brilliant etc - funnily enough he doesn’t make any such claims for his current position. Aside from being odd that he feels the need to have a LinkedIn profile a couple of things jumped out at me. Firstly he has zero playing experience, his career is match reports, player liaison (no idea) and then chief scout for small clubs. At the age of 30 and with that experience he has managed to blow the largest budget outside the top 6 on, let’s face it, tripe. This isn’t a post to slag him off - i’d be the same and be loving the power of spending £150m. But he is totally out of his depth and should never have been appointed at that level so soon - hasn’t he actually been promoted as well since ?. Secondly this is Mo Pe/Po all over again. Young and cheap - check, done a good job for a league 1 side - check. But we appointed Mitchell in the Champ, Mitchell has a wealth of experience as a player - there is just no due diligence going on - it’s major appointments by coincidence. I looked up a couple of articles on him when he was still riding Mitchell’s coat tail. There he is bragging how scouting Van Dijk wasn’t rocket science (of course not - you didn’t do it) and how he had a list of 20 players they looked at for not just skill but personality, drive and fitting in. I’d love another interview now please for him to explain the last two years. This club is in dire straights - I can imagine what the wizened old scouting network make of this young chances calling the shots..,

We now have to pick up points in two very difficult games - Arsenal and Chelsea or we could be 6 points adrift. And that means (as a certain member has pointed out once or twice) that we need to do something we haven't in 700 days - beat a top 6 side. I think we will need 35 points as an absolute minimum - no way will Udders only pick up 2 points in their next 6 - they will beat either/both Everton/Watford who have nothing to play for (I reckon 4 points from that haul). Come season end we will look back on our two draws with Udders as all defining. Also everyone has us down as beating Bompey - I'm really not convinced we have the mental strength to do that - they will play with absolute freedom and will relish the chance to send us down. Funnily enough I think if we get to a place where we need to beat City we will as we would have some momentum (I admit that there is also a history repeating situation where we go down at home to Manchester based champions with nothing to pay for again) - I just don't think we will get in that position.

This is time for in the trenches players - so that immediately means Redmond, Tadic , Gabbiadini, Boufal and Hoet are out - all mentally weak. After that you need to stop the goals against given we are clearly not suddenly going to be free scoring - so 2 defensive midfielders as a minimum. No point playing 2 up front for no other reason than we don’t have two decent cfs. Set pieces will be our best route to goals so work on that so they at least don’t mean we concede at the other end. That gives you something like McCarthy Cedric Yoshida Stephens Bertrand Rom Davis JWP Lemina McQueen Austin No they won’t stay up (Stephens, Cedric and McQueen not good enough, Davis and Austin too knackered) but at least they’ll put up a fight. Sims off the bench at 65 for a bit of pace.