Saint86

No thread on Larin yet - which says it all. Archer and AA out, and this joke in as the only replacement, SR really are fishing for flack form the fans. Shocking bit of business.

In fairness to them. The likes of AA, Aribo, Bazunu, Macca, Edozie, Edwards, BBD, Archer are not "the family jewles". Scienza, Fellows, THB, Charles, Jander, and Azaz are - and we seem to be keeping them at least. So with the departures, it does allow a better restructuring in the summer and a chance to more efficiently allocate money where its most needed. Unfortunately we'll also be on our last year of parachute payments and facing a far harder championship next season.

No Chez, there are 19 games left.

This is a nonsense take imo. Its not remotely obvious that we can't go up this season, and the money we spent was proportional for the sales made. We are still only 7 points of the playoffs with 16games to go, and we have so far massively underachieved - we've finally switched to a back 4 and have 7points out of 9 including tricky away games at fratton and stoke. We have hands down one of the best squads in the league (before SR seemingly gut it on transfer deadline day). And the only saving grace is that we finally seem to have a quality keeper in to help at the back. But what we seem to be intent on doing here (Archer, AA, Aribo, Edozie) all leaving with a bang average 30year old journeyman striker coming in (who even RVP couldn't get firing in a weaker league) is promotion suicide. Everyone can see we need to strengthen ideally, but to weaken ourselves and remove essentially all attacking depth is mental. If this really is the direction we're taking then its SR panicking and pulling the plug on a promotion push and trying to grab as much money as possible this window - Which would be a gross error, as if we do get ourselves into the playoffs, we'd be favourites to get through them. Its that or they actually think we the squad is good enough to get promoted even if we sell every other striker and leave ourselves with only Scienza and Fellows as competent attackers with reliable fitness. And on top of that, if we aren't going to get promoted, the entire fanbase would be livid at selling AA to wolves in the summer for £7M - he'll be once again one of the very top goal and assist players in the league this season. We are not replacing that for £7M this window, so may as well keep him, let him play for his move in the summer, and maybe get a promotion out of it. As for Blackmore's post - Downs or BBD coming back in from their loans? FML, really?! If only there was a league 1 top scorer who loved southampton and who we had a buy back clause for... Better yet, if only we hadn't sold him to make way for the likes of Downs, BBD, Archer, Stewart, and now this failed journeyman to get some minutes.

Makes it even more of a joke that we'd settle for £7M. Have people lost their damn minds - he's on to be top scorer in the championship, and as Stewart more than showed the other night, AA's our only real striking threat. Not sure Stewart even managed a shot. We've also got no serious cover for Fellows of Scienza. Selling AA leaves us laughably light up top.

It gets worse and worse. FML

This is awful business imo.

This is a strange feeling. Its only 2pm on saturday, saints have won away, and the weekend isn't ruined...

Its starting to get that Tonda second half feeling again. Need more legs up front.

This ref is a joke.

Square pegs, square holes. Bosh.

We are missing AA up top atm. Stewart offering basically nothing. (Hopefully he scores now to prove me wrong) Edit - no sooner do i type this and he gets a marginal flick on assist. Who shall i criticise next? 😄

The worry 2nd half is that stoke have a good manager - will he simply tweak things and out tactic eckert?

We look much better in this formation... go figure. Stephens and THB have been solid. Jack especially - a great half from him. Wellington has look much better than manning. I like Peretz. Considering we seem more than happy to allow crosses in, i think at least he gets on pretty much every one that comes in. But until we learn to actually defend crosses this will be a recurring issue regardless of keeper. Neither Downes or Jander seems to have been told to anchor the midfield in a true defensive role - that is the tweak that needs to be made imo. Fellows very good. Azaz is having a good game, getting more time on the ball in the positions he wants. Scienza has looked odly quiet - i wonder if the outgoing rumours has unsettled him a bit, or maybe just having to adjust to having a big man up top rather than AA's runs. Stewart pretty meh. Couple of very sloppy offsides, should really have attacked the cross better and scored instead of azaz. Is Bree really the best RB we have?

Peretz great save. Stephens and THB have defended well, but we've got no CDM and seemingly no full backs to protect against crosses! Need a other 2 goals to be safe in this one.