Saint86

Poch was recognised as a very promising up and coming manager who had been name dropped and praised by pep at barcelona.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-15203225/England-Liverpool-footballer-Adam-Lallana-Dorset-mansion-12million.html Looks like he's on the move...

Some people will scoff at this. But i want to see him in the matchday squad this weekend. He cannot have less impact that Downs... when downs plays we are worse than having a man down because he actively loses us possession and stops attacks, let alone the fact that he isn't aggressive against the ball and simply doesn't even present for duels and 50/50s. Give this kid a chance - we have until January without Stewart and we will need to dip into the transfer window if we can't find a solution from withing the squad.

Lost count of how many saints fans/pundits were saying this was a risk before we then played him in that 3rd game and he got injured. Apparently obvious to everyone bar the medical team and coaching setup.

Yeah it really is this. It's utterly delusional to think saints can stay in the champ and be competitive long term, let alone with sports republic running the show. Every year more clubs come down with better squads and more money, some get promoted out of league 1 every couple of years (Ipswich, Brum, Wrexham etc.)... Saints get promoted, or we do the championship equivalent of koeman to puel and Hughes. The fans that want us to stay down, or who don't see it as a bad thing, live in absolute fairy land. As an absolute minimum, we can afford a 2 season rebuild and get promoted next season - after that, we are turning into Stoke etc.

Lets be serious here, even if Charles is exhausted, a midfield pairing of Downes and Jander is far superior to anything Swansea can field. Ditto our wingers/attacking midfielders. A failure to beat Swansea will only come from tactical incompetence or poor player performances - turn up and get it right and we should comfortably beat them - and that is true of any 11 we will realistically field. We're at a point now where there can be no more hiding from these realities.

Who, or what, is the 15 brothers? Sounds like some kind of new portsmyth firm...

I think we might also be a 2 year project - the state of the squad (quality / fitness / morale) after last season's debacle shouldn't be overlooked. We're almost starting from scratch, and as I feared over the transfer window - we left it right until the very end to get most of our key business done, which means we didn't get a proper pre season and look very disjointed as a result.

January will have to be a striker and a GK... good luck affording that 😅 Or can we cancel Ramsdale's loan?

He's a much younger player and clearly something has happened to damage his confidence early doors - he played much better in pre season. But right now he lacks confidence, aggression against the ball, and any kind of touch... terrible for us recently. Its an issue now for still to utilise him somehow.

I think downs is the bad one frankly. The rest are good players. Scienza is quality, fellows is very good at this level. Jander is going to be a very good player if he can fill out (in the morgan mould with already better passing potential).

I haven't followed this policy at all but did a quick google. The independent is reporting she wants to double the apprenticeship budget at the expense of 100,000 student places. I work for a leading engineering consultancy. Apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships are fantastic and a lot of our best young engineers come through this route (to be blunt, most of the best ones at this point). I would strongly encourage parents to consider them for their children - not only are they earning rather than accruing debt, they're also getting years of workplace experience, developing workplace relationships, and are essentially guaranteed a job out of it. A graduate is 100% disadvantaged on the debt/experience/relationship/job prospect front - and you pay for the privilege. That's all in the service industry by the way. I have two degrees, both stem fields - The 2nd one sponsored by my current employer - and despite working in one of those fields actively, i barely use what i learnt on the two degrees - unsurprisingly looking back, it was the year in industry that was most useful. But regardless, that is years of my life, and the associated debt and interest etc., that were in effect spent chasing a technical knowledge that i could happily have learnt on the job ultimately. Had i gone on to be a research scientist then it would have been different, but i didn't - and most people won't. I am not saying that university was completely useless, but certainly not worth today's costs outside of very specific fields and career paths. This is our kids and their futures we're talking about, and taking politics outside of it, not essentially forcing them to go after high debts and expensive degrees is a good thing... Looking back, i think that Blair did a lot of damage to this country what ultimately became essentially mandatory degrees - all its done is push debt and reduced short and long term earnings onto our younger generations, and in many cases all for devalued degrees that don't help them stand out in the jobs market. Apprenticeships are a great alternative; offering on the job learning and experience - and ultimately, for a great many careers degrees aren't (and shouldn't) be necessary. Focussing degree places and boosting apprenticeships. I can't remember exactly when they were introduced in their current guise, but from memory it was under DC and i would guess either his first term proper or the coalition government. They are a good bit of policy and they're a great route into productive careers that the country needs to remain competitive. I would fully support anything that strengthens them and reduces dependence on a higher education system that is becoming more and more a playground for the rich.

If? 🤣

Should be given a chance in the squad over Downs on current form. Whats the worse than can happen? He's as bad and we're still playing with 10men? Note, i would argue downs is worse than playing with 10men - all he does is lose the ball, and if he wasn't on the pitch we wouldn't pass to him, which means we wouldn't stall our attacks or give the opposition the ball back...

I can't see this war ending whilst Hamas exist.

Not seen much evidence of that frankly. Looks totally off the pace, lacks composure, and doesn't have the same movement and instinct as AA - at least we can sit here and moan about AA's finishing... Archer doesn't even generate those chances. At this point I'd say we basically have to spoon feed it to archer. Our best strikers are AA and Stewart, without question. Could happily sell the rest of them and start again... Downs is meant to be a player in the Stewart profile... But looks like we bought the wrong American. And archer is a poorer Armstrong.

In fairness to him, we were 1 - 4 - 2 in the champ after 7 games, so his Rangers side had more points that we did at that stage - i think thats fairly comparable (given we're a newly relegated side spending tens of millions on our pick of players)....

If we are mid table, it can only be down to the manger frankly. Our squad is far better on paper than most other teams. Derby were in league 1 18months ago.

Imagine being Jelert and being kept out the side by manning. He is levels ahead of him.

Derby should have been winning whilst he was on in fairness... macca only reason we drew.

Shit i'm afraid. Macca the only reason we are getting any points. At what point do we say "the table doesn't lie". Reality is that we should be doing a lot better than this.

Schoolboy defending from wood there, Macca saves the day.

Downs is struggling - no confidence or aggression against the ball. He's killing us in an attacking sense.

Derby are tired now, time to go for the jugular with some fresh attacking legs..

Why does fellows not take our corners?