23rdSaint

Mini interview on the club website: https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/eckert-calls-for-energy-and-fight

Have I missed the pre-game press conference or do we get to skip it given the manager situation?

Not sure it's quite as bad as suggested on UI. Direct quotes taken: "Not a single one of us goes out there and says, 'I'm not trying today'. That's our job. This is what we get paid to do. We have to perform on the pitch. If we're not performing, we have to give 100 per cent work rate. At the minute, we haven't been doing that. That's the kind of thing we have to drill into the squad. If we're not going to win games, we have to work hard for everyone. Everyone has to see that we're running our balls off for everyone and for the fans. Things will start to change when we start doing that. That's the conversation we've had in there. We have to dig ourselves out of this hole. Keep working hard. Games come thick and fast. I'm p***** off. It ain't good to be in. I'm the one around the leaders. We have to get going again and bring it back on Wednesday night. There are enough leaders, but I think the leaders in there are p***ed off as well. It's kind of a hard one. You have to choose what you want to say because there are a lot of young boys in there. I always touch on that. We haven't been good enough. It's as simple as that. You can say, 'Oh tactics this, tactics that, formations'. But we haven't been good enough. I think that's the thing that we have to get out of. It's only us that can do that. We're the ones on the pitch. It's a s*** one. We have to take it on the chin and f****** go again." I think it's everything. I think it's everything in one. Essentially, we're the ones on the pitch that have to do it. You can say it's other people or anyone, but it's us on the pitch. I think that's the only thing I can go off. We have to be better. It's so frustrating when you look at a squad and you see them training every day, and the good players that we've got in the squad still. We just ain't doing it on a Saturday afternoon. Until that changes, we have to dig ourselves out of this hole."

Supposedly good with youngsters, too.

You might want to calm down a little bit. None of those sources are credible 👍

Some good news. Give him the captaincy, too.

Not on Twitter. What end of the credibility spectrum are TEAMtalk: Echo/Solent/Athletic or Dave down the pub?

Without wanting to get caught in your pedantic web, there's a difference between a purely data-driven model vs. using data (in whatever broad and pointless guise you're boringly trying to present) to supplement decision making. It would seem we have failed to use any context or reasoning in so many of our data-driven recruitment decisions under SR.

Jesus fucking wept.

"Today's starting lineup on Saturday" would've saved you some typing there. And Fraser's been our best player of the season...

Oh Jackie 😂🎣

Meant starting XI

Can't see him getting back into the starting XI any time soon with Jander here

Impossible. I thought he was better than Bazunu?

I mean that's wrong, but okay I saw your sneaky edit, but still wrong

My immediate thought, but also suggests that we did have Prem-quality players last season. Imagine what we could've done with a pragmatic manager

Yeah, I agree. Why aren't we trying to sign players like Garnacho?! He's for sale and fits the profile. Can't believe we've signed unproven Championship talent like Roerslev, Azaz, and Fellows. FFS

I think it will only be Azaz. He's already been given a squad number, whereas the others haven't. I'd suspect they're now waiting for others to leave (Aribo and Smallbone) before reallocating their numbers.

I think he'll sign for us fwiw and I'm just posing an alternate point of view based on the latest round of "ITK" tweets. But to activate MLG mode, all of the clubs you mentioned were significantly bigger Prem Clubs than us at those times

I can understand why this one might get tricky. Fellows is an Albion academy graduate. If the rumours are true and WBA have agreed to the deal without personal terms being agreed, what's stopping him from being loyal to the club he's been at for 10+ years? We'd expect (hope) for the same from one of our homegrown players if in the same situation. Of course, speculation until we get more details from a credible source.

I know a fellow

When's the right time to start quoting some of the more hysterical posts from this thread over the past few days?

Athletic journo

BOOO! Buy some players. Booooo

Boo! Saints score. Now what can I moan about?