Hodgey

Wouldn’t be missed according to many on here. A slow, ineffectual player who was only good at a few free kicks, terrible captain and couldn’t take corners. Glad we’ve now got the likes of Smallbone and Downes who are miles better.

There are a lot of players who haven’t pushed on in 4 dayers. Weatherly has never done it (but looks an improving white ball player), Organ hasn’t progressed, Donald clearly has talent but is out early more often than not (although being reserve gloves man may help), and you have to wonder how much longer our 3 seamers can keep going. Crane needs to move for everyone’s sake and what happened to Campbell ? Wheal I assume will be white ball. If we find a quality opener then Holland may struggle for games. I see something in Currie so hope we stick with him, Turner is just class, and I do feel Albert could be a good opener (still need experience there). There are a few other promising youngsters coming through as well like Kelly, jack and eckland. Hopefully next year is a breakout one for Prest - with his talent no reason he shouldn’t be talked about internationally if he has a good season.

I thought the whole point of messing around with it at the back was to tempt players out of position, would lead to quick incisive attacks of the space, with the risk a few goals when we get it wrong. Also opposing teams would tire and we’d score late goals. That’s kind of how it started first 4 games. I’m now seeing a lot of the latter, but little of the former which doesn’t make sense. Teams are still pressing us knowing we’ll make a mistake (and are), but when we do play through we seem toothless. I can’t work it out - my hope is it’s just the players aren’t quite right. I think if we try Charles, Downes, Edozie, Alcarez and Stu in midfield we may suddenly look a lot more potent. Martin and Wilcox have made such a big deal that they will not change this style - they will just double down on it.

Its on nowTV for anyone who has it - right at the bottom - I almost missed it !

KWP was totally nullified by Mavididi (who at £7m looks a great signing - what I’d hope Sulimana would be) - couldn’t really go fwd because of his threat so they essentially took our best player out of the game (as did Sunderland). Ndidi, Winks and Dewsbury-Hall looked a league above our midfielders - playing quick incisive forward passes. on Martins ludicrous post match comments. I’m assuming he made those so the players don’t totally abandon his style and keep trying possession football. That’s fair enough but what was missing was any kind of acknowledgement of incorrect player selection / poor tactics and frankly players who looked like they wanted it less.

Probably our best player today - kept the score down. Could criticise him for the 3rd as he seemed to offer up a lot of the goal - but when you have 3 players running unopposed at you can see why your positioning may faulter. Was especially pleased to see him get good hands behind a well hit shot pushed out of danger for a corner. I’m hoping that ironically despite conceding 4 tonight will build his confidence. I’m unconvinced he’s a top 6 keeper in this league but so far he’s far from the problem.

Hard not to over react after a couple of deserved hammerings - where to start? so mitigating circumstances - we played probably the best team in the league with some key injuries that said there are some ominous things building. I suspect most saints fans looked at that midfield before kick off (like at Sunderland) and feared the worst. If Russel can’t see the problem it’s a serious fault. Simply put - like last year - we’re reliant on a rookie Man City midfielder to be our def mid - we have no other players in the squad who can do that job. We’ve learnt nothing from last year. I don’t care how bad our cb options are - Charles had to play in front of them - sticking him in defence makes us poorer. You cannot expect to go up if you have no defensive shape whatsoever. One game can be excused - two speaks to underlying problems - I genuinely rarely see teams give away a 3 v gk in professional football. That whole thing was a joke and having Smallbone who can’t tackle or intercept and isn’t quick as the last man was frankly negligent (where was the defence ???) too early to make any judgements but I have no idea what Downes is - so far he looks like a very poor man’s JWP - I’m hoping he’s victim to poor set up. im not buying the ‘Sulimana will instantly replace Tella’ thought. I don’t get the Sulimana love in - he clearly thinks he’s too good for this level and I’ve yet to see any real end product - unlike Tella at this level. There is no way that Armstrong is captain material, and I doubt he is the attacking midfielder Martin thinks either - hope I’m proved wrong here. On that front - again who of this bunch is captain material or has leadership qualities ? Another lesson we seem to have failed to learn. I still believe that the squad we have is a top 4 squad. I also think we need to give Martin until at least Christmas to get his team playing. But there are worrying signs already that he simply can’t adapt and is quickly being found out. Final comment - is this a happy camp post window ? Do Downes / Adams / Sulimana etc really want to be here ? Since the window closed it genuinely looks like a fair few of this team couldn’t give a shit Ipswich will be interesting - hopefully positively surprising…

It’s a fair shout - Dawson has had a few chances, but like Vince you have to say there are bigger shouts. Ahmed is clearly destined for big things and there are arguments for others too - Jacks is handy and a much more explosive batter. The shame really is that we have two players who are class but just outside England quality and we haven’t taken the clear advantage of having them all season. I’d love to see Hampshire developing a genuine young spinner - outside of Dawson we seem to have Organ who is a bit of an inconsistent all rounder and Prest who is a batsman. Crane we don’t seem to know what to do with / don’t rate highly enough. It’s a bit of a gap but it wouldn’t surprise me if we poached Rahim given his Brave link.

Listening to TSP Leicester guest - unsurprisingly they sound like the exact same as us. He commented on their inverted full backs, really slow build up to draw players out, giving chances away and being strong at the end of games. He said he thought they had been a bit lucky with some results and that Winks was a complete class above. They’ve also got loads of Gks on their books they want rid of and have put a ball playing youngster there who by all accounts they highly rate. I think it might be a real cat and mouse game - you can’t have both teams having 70pc possession so something will give. Tactically if we’re smart you’d want to take advantage of the open wings quickly when we turnover the ball - as we know that works against this system !!. going to be a fascinating game - battle of the Poor Man’s Man Cities !

We won’t win every game, and players won’t play that badly so no need to panic. But some alarm bells ringing for me on RM. That starting line up was asking for trouble, debutant in defence, away from home and you protect them with Downes/Armstrong/Smallbone ??. I called out a Tella shaped right wing concern pre this game, and that did nothing to convince me. Mowbray also ruthlessly exploited the inverted fullback idea - drilled his team to get it wide early with wingers hugging the touch line, we had no answer at the start, and still no answer at the end. Many managers will have taken a note. mitigating circumstances given the transfer noise and changes we’ve had (yes so have others but I think we’ve had it especially bad). But post international break there are no more excuses

Sensible, strong window that even if some players don’t perform as we’d like - clear rationale and strategy behind it. On paper the squad should be challenging for automatic promotion which was the aim. Still a couple of question marks / worries - I’m not sold on our right attack - if Sulimana knuckles down (does he really want to be here?) he prefers the left. Stu or Aribo could also do a job there but it does look our weakest position. The other question is around Adams, I’m hoping his response is ‘I’m going to score a hatful then have my choice of clubs when I can sign a pre contract in Jan”. Overall though hats off to Wilcox, Mowbray and RM - excellent job

Great win - getting to the final here and the t20, and being competitive in the championship is pointing to another good season. Really good to see some young players come through / progress. and if you also like t16.4 then Brave women’s finally won and men did pretty well (although no idea how Weatherly ever makes a franchise cricket team…) Can we go a stage further and finally win the championship next year ???

Pretty awful bowling so far by Wheal, Worcester batters looking very comfortable so far and well on track.

Glad it’s working out for him. For whatever reason a decent number of our fans never rated him.I think he’ll have an excellent season at West Ham - may even sneak into England squad, he’s clearly a very good Premiership player at the minimum.

This is the gamble I don’t get. From the start we’ve seen and recent past history those two are pretty much 40 plus goals (they’ve already got us 5 points of our 7). That puts you in top 3 contention and a highly likely £150m plus Prem jaunt (even if we go straight back down). But we’d rather get £35m in and risk it all with an at best unknown recruitment ability.. Just seems completely unnecessary. I get the counterpoints, but ultimately this is a decision we have chosen to make and are in complete control of. It’s almost like keeping them is too obvious and we’re far too clever for that - let’s hope so. I don’t believe for a minute that given the choice RM would want to lose either and he is ‘relaxed’

Yep - he’s scored 2 goals and got us 4 points, that’s not something saints wingers do…..

I’ve been a big critic, not of his effort but his ability. He’s not a prem player, but has enough ability for this division, and his commitment this season has been fantastic - last minute tackles, winning that header, driving at defences, great free kick - was my motm today and hoping this form continues.

That bench is pretty shocking. Needs to be much stronger to navigate a 50 game season

To be top 2, even as things stand, we need a better gk and 2* quality big powerful players - one cb and one dm. I’m not convinced we’re looking at any of these positions though. We’ll also need a rb and st if KWP and Che leave (looking likely). So a lot to do but quite possible if the recruitment team are competent and given money

He was excellent, no ball aside he was instrumental in their win. Begs the question why the Brave didn’t get him

Let’s be honest - Caicedo is the finished product already, with improvement to come, he’s much better than Lavia currently. It’s a move that makes sense for a Chelsea / Liverpool - it’s gamble free (bar injury) on a player who will have immediate impact and it’s an investment they can make as it’s probably the difference of silverware/champs league or not. It also means Lavia is worth £50-£60m as if he progresses as expected in the next 2 years he’ll be a £100m player too. But that remains a bit of a gamble.

Massive shame as he would have absolutely thrived under Martin. Think he’ll do well at West Ham though - great signing for them at a good price. We’re going to need a lot more than Smallbone and Charles in midfield - that’s if Smallbone stays. Also everyone knows we have cash so expect massively inflated prices. Stephens captain - let’s see if there is a marked improvement for on field captaincy given most on here felt JWP couldn’t do that job.

Manji I think is suggesting that SR will continue to back us financially so we are ‘strong’ in this division irrelevant of our huge drop in income (ie we don’t need to fire sell our talent to survive). But yes I struggle to see how anyone could suggest relegation hasn’t massively weakened our finances (plus removed opportunity costs - ie we are not exactly shop window for attracting the best young talent in the championship). As per the original post - most annoying when the Prem this year looks really weak - but no point going over all that again.

Norwich look interesting - people will see a last minute winner but by all accounts they battered Hull and played with some style. Think Sat will be a good indicator of if we can bully a good Championship side - also looks like it’ll be an entertaining one to watch.

Very happy with that - clear intent and fantastic execution. Of course there are worries - Jwp / KWP / Alcaraz / Adams made a huge difference - will they be here come Sep ?. Also that team us far too small for any long ball merchants - we look incredibly weak at corners. But let’s enjoy it whilst it lasts - statement win and a really enjoyable watch.