Saint86

Imagine being a premier league level footballer and being unable to handle criticism on an online football forum... tough old life.

http://european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/league/soto.htm Think those attendance numbers hide how much our return to good form impacted things. 2007/08 - 21.25k average - Hit by start of financial crash. 2008/09 - Championship relegation season with 17.8k average - Also feels the full impacts of the global recession i would guess. 2009/10 - league 1 -10points we had 21k (matching 2007/08 in the champ) 2010/11 - Promotion season on the back of the EFL Trophy win we average 22.1k (a 2k jump related to form and fan enjoyment) - Comparable to lower championship attendances. 2011/12 - Champ Promotion season - 26.4k - A further 4.3k jump due to improved form AND competing at a higher level. This was circa 3k higher than any previous championship attendance - including the playoff season (23.6k) 2012/13 - Our return to the prem - 30.8K - A further jump of 4.4k due to improved form AND competing at a higher level. Lighthouse's comment about larger away attendances holds true to a degree for the prem, although not as significant as first suggested i think. But if people are going to attribute a 4.4k jump as being just down to premier league consumers magically turning up, are we also saying that the championship is equally as popular with its 4.3k jump in attendance in 2011/12? - fans that weren't there for the previous championship playoff season? Hmm.... I don't think its as simple as that surely. As a regular and season ticket holder throughout pretty much all of that journey, i'd personally say that trends in attendance (certainly post administration) have a lot to do with the phoenix atmosphere, general momentum, and feel good factors around the club, as well as good quality attacking football, some fun cup runs, the exciting young players coming through, and in us generally being competitive (and on form as a result). That carried through to the prem with a strong fan bond and people keen to see what the side could achieve in the top division. 🤷‍♂️ Equally our prem attendances up to 2017/18 were at 30.7-31k, and since 2018/19 they've dropped down to circa 30k or lower quite consistently. So not just premier league consumers, but fans not happy watching a struggling saints team following the heights of European qualification and the EFL cup final.

Yeah, but how many of them do you want to see lining up for us in the premier league? 😆

Lambert was the best striker in League 1, arguably the EFL. The parallel for in the premier league would be going out and signing Haaland. Which obviously is a non starter. Moving from the lambert analogy to just a "proven goalscorer", that is surely something that can only really be said in hindsight - after all, Che and Adam Armstrong both had pretty good scoring records at their respective clubs? Ultimately though I don't think Saints can afford to go out and buy a proven premier league goalscorer that routinely bags 15goals a season etc. The last one we had was Ings - he cost us £20M because of his injury troubles and lack of game time. It was a gamble by the club really, but it worked out well for all parties and having proven his fitness and form; he was then valued at circa 30M as a 29year old who was intent on seeing out his contract. What injury prone 29year olds with a short contract should we be going out and spending £25-30M on? Gakpo and Ramos were good targets for Saints - obviously they're now out of our league. But not signing anyone was a huge error. Proven low cost goal scorers were available this summer, perhaps not quite at the Gakpo/Ramos levels of future stardom, but even Openda (£7M from Vitesse/Brugge to Lens) would have been a good addition to saints. A young player that's now averaging a goal every 2 games in Ligue 1 and had a better record than Broja at Vitesse (who he played alongside partially), also been looked at by Leicester. We seemingly had no plan B and went for the moon or bust. Maybe we never really had the intention to sign Gakpo/Ramos, and this is just a classic case of looking like they tried to appease the fans. But not signing anyone of the retired level was absolutely schoolboy. Only saving grace is that if we go down, we've got a great bunch of kids coming through, as well as a decent youngsters in the first team. Although it would be just like saints to lose another golden generation of academy players because we're struggling in the lower leagues.

Yeah that comment did make me laugh... It was posted on the same day Germany had nationwide arrests against a far right ex military group plotting to overthrow their government 🤣🤣. On the personal terms front. All we can go on is what our owners have said - that we agreed personal terms with two strikers playing in champions league qualifiers, and whose teams then qualified. Which basically fits Ramos and Gakpo, of which there was an awful lot of media buzz about us signing them.

Regardless, it seems unlikely. https://talksport.com/football/efl/1240325/blackburn-ben-brereton-diaz-staying-leeds-blow-transfer/

Keept it realistic you say? That will be Liam delap and cole palmer knowing our scouting...

I assume that's Diaz. In which case yes please!!

Pahars would be a start, is there anyone in the fanbase that wouldn't swap peak Pahars for Armstrong? 🤩🥰😍 What we really need is a Davis or Beattie (if we're sticking to parallels with those days). Coincidently, both 20years old when they signed for saints. (Aka 5-6 year olds by this thread's counting 🤪)

FWIW - MLG liked my post 😎😙 (and thus my saintsweb career is now complete)...

This is such a bizzare narrative and one that I don't think holds up.... Simply because the "5 year olds" we've signed in recent windows are some of our best players 😅. ABK is in the Germany squad, Livramento was a key first teamer for us until injured, lavia is so good he is Immediatley our best player (imo) and Chelsea liked him so much they bid £55m on deadline day. Mara hasn't really been given a chance so a question mark on him fine... But Edozie looks decent when played and was a cheap signing, ditto larios. Salisu is also a good example of a quality young player. Whilst bazunu is certainly no worse than forster and macca in recent seasons. 👍 Our issue is we've spent too much money on older squad level players expecting them to be first team quality for a mid table team... They aren't / haven't been, and they have higher wage demands and limited resale value. Well actually, the biggest issue is we never replaced ings... But the point is, it is not because we signed a load of good quality youngsters at any rate. Ralph had us 13th for xG, if we had signed a class striker/attacker we'd have been even higher in the xG ratings and we certainly wouldn't have been 18th for goals scored when he was sacked. Its a failure by the recruitment team to not sign another promising youngster (gakpo) that's largely responsible for the impending scrap... But the recruitment outside of a quality striker was good 🤷‍♂️

That was my take on the game. At the start he was a bit of a deer in the headlights, but he grew into it and showed there is something there. Seems crazy for people to be bludgeoning such a young kid over that particularly debut appearance. And its bizarre if there were people thinking we were signing a £1.5M youngster with no first team minutes to be a first team left back in the premier league. He may be having a tough year given his PV loan, but he's got many more years to reach the required level for saints. I also thought his interviews etc showed him to be a keen player, nice lad, and perhaps a bit cocky - but that is true of a great many teenage boys and something that usually changes as they get older.

So you're saying that we're going to be in the championship unless we play a 16year old Jay Morgan... Because that's what our premier league survival hangs on? 🤣😨...

Imagine agreeing personal terms with Gakpo and then not signing him... Woops

The interview basically says that we signed players and tried to change the way we play, but equally implies that it was too much / too complex to achieve it so quickly. Reading it, the implication they give is that Ralph was fully onboard with this, but you do have to wonder. (ultimately we will never know now unless Ralph comes out and says it - but tbf it does tie in with him starting with the 5-3-2 and then ditching it early on). Another interesting quote - its positioning in the article relates to Nathan Jones - but given they sacked Ralph and hired Jones, i would say it applies to both. “You cannot change the manager’s personality,” says Ankersen. “If he wants to play this way but you want to play another way, it’s not going to work. You have to have 80 per cent alignment, then you teach him 10 per cent and he teaches you 10 per cent. I think there is a lot that can be read in between the lines of that interview. But all in all its an interesting read. Also, it states that we had agreed personally terms with two strikers playing in champions league qualifiers. Presumably Gakpo and one other.

“We have great respect and love for our ex-owner (Gao), but he would be the first to say that he wasn’t as involved as other owners. Some of the decisions we made were of necessity — some things we had to do, like being quite simplistic in the way we played, recruited and developed. It was effective within certain constraints. A lion in a zoo can only do so much. But with Rasmus and Henrik coming in, the walls of the zoo have come down.” 😵 A lion in a zoo. 😨 And by, "walls", does he mean, "floor"? 🤣

We'll meet them in the quarters (unless Southgate is worse than i think). We've got very little chance if we demonstrate the defensive nous displayed vs Iran.

Agree with this. Really is quite simple tbh, we're not as bad as has been made out and our stand out deficiency is obvious. Ralph had us 13th for xGs, and joint 15th for goals conceded. And that was despite injuries to a swathe of our best players (Lavia, KWP, ABK, Livramento), as well as trying to gel a new and young/inexperienced squad. The reason we are in the bottom 3 is that we have basically played all the big/form teams already, and more importantly, that our then 13th for xG translated to 18th for goals scored... Grim. Or phrased another way, two boards have consistently failed to replace ings with attackers that know how to convert their guilt edged chances. Now... with the cold hard facts laid before us, two questions remain. Will we sign said attacker(s)? And will nathan Jones be as effective as hassenhuttle (debatable given its his first taste of prem football and he's inheriting a young low confidence squad). Assuming Jones is decent and we sign an attacker, i think we'll be fine.

Tammy wouldn't be a bad acquisition subject to price. However the price (and wages) will probably be above what we can afford - particularly because if he is available there will be bigger fish than saints in the market. He is not on a par with Ings however. Ings' expected goals conversion rate with saints was above basically any other attacker in the league. When we had him fit we averaged a top 6 points return in a 38game period. With Che Adams, AA, and Ely we're a relegation level team. More than anything else, we need a striker who can stay fit and clinically converts his chances - it doesn't need to be a bigger name - especially if chasing a flagship signing costs us quality in AM and cover at CDM.

I agree on the positions, but lavia and abk are our two best players in their positions, and possibly our 2 best players full stop.

Eh? Would take an absolute wonder save to get that header, have to remember he has to set himself to come out and claim the ball, then firminho of all people gets a free header and sends the ball flying into the far bottom corner. And he did make some cracking saves 👍

Most of which will comfortably stroll past saints. Plus Jones doesn't take the cups seriously historically.

Gareth Southgate

Agreed on the Euros, that was Prowsey's chance and he was mugged off properly by Southgate in favour of the unfit Henderson. But re your second point, it shouldn't matter as Southgate won't take charge of another england game beyond the world cup - not unless he suddenly develops even basic level of tactical awareness and bravery.

Frankly incredible that he's picked connor gallagher and philips ahead of JWP. Philips has been injured and has hardly kicked a ball all season, how is he going to get match fit in a week.... I mean, he's played 1minute according to transfer market... on the 8th fucking july. Feel for him. But ultimately England under Southgate are shit and have zero chance of winning. First half decent team we face we'll resort to parking the bus, giving them the ball, and playing 8-2 and hoofing it to kane and one headless chicken runner. Then at 70min when we're losing he'll throw on some attacking mids and play possession football. Southgate should never have had his contract extended after Croatia, and the euro's final should have resulted in the sack. Should certainly have gone after the nations league fiasco. FA's stated ambition was to win WC2022 - Everyone knows that couldn't be further from reality under the most tactically clueless england manager there has ever been.