Saint86

Which games had Lavia playing?

I don't understand... "just in case he might"... do you not have eyes and/or a memory?

Important to remember that Rasmus doesn't fancy him. Wanted to give the job to Marsch and only pulled the plug because we couldn't afford the compensation / financial terms. Hired Jones... and kept him for far too long though - this is the guy running our recruitment 😰

Road our luck there, but an exceptional result all in all. In Selles we trust!

Any functional streams, really struggling today and can't get any of the above to work?

Also extremely knowledgeable, calm, and thoughtful. Not shouting welsh mining town 1 liners at every opportunity!!

Just watched the first part of the selles press conference. I have to say i am actually very impressed with him. We can certainly do worse. If his tactics are as good as his speaking he could prove to be a real diamond in the ruff. Interesting that he took numerous opportunities to praise Ralph unprompted, even calling him one of the best coaches in the world. Doesn't quite fit with the narrative on here / leaked by a few disgruntled players, and Selles is very much someone who was inside that camp 🧐 Also, in the way Saints fans get on board with promoting academy players to the first team and giving them a go, i can see the fanbase getting on baord with promoting Selles from within - ofc subject to on pitch performances!

You've dropped Edozie and Salisu? Two of our better players recently. Doubtful that ABK is fully match sharp, and Orsic certainly won't be.

Is there a pre match press conference for this impending slaughter? (in selles we trust) 🤔😅

I can offer one potential way to phrase this... Its incredibly bold/brave to give Selles his first taste of management in what is arguably the toughest league in the world. Let alone with one of the most inexperienced squads to ever grace the division.

I agree, and perhaps more to the point, why is Rasmus wasting time chasing after a manager that he apparently considers good enough for the premier league, but too poor for the league below... JM was happy to take us on and stay with us if we go down. There is minimal incentive for a manger to keep busting a gut if we're still struggling come april and he knows he's leaving in 1 month, its an utter nonsense strategy from the club - if that is all we are after, either go for a BFS style survival specialist for 6months (with a premium bonus for staying up)... or stick selles in charge and be done with it.

We can be pretty confident that article is rubbish tbh. They're not convinced by JM but were happy to see Jones hired, and dressing room moral improved? Ditto no one ever said they didn't like the tactics under Ralph, Marsch's are basically the same. Also, we're bottom of the league - the players aren't thinking about any "project" other than staying up and maintaining their wages... 😂

This. Rasmus has suffered one hell of a tough learning curve. Nowhere near as clever as he thought he was... Also, if they think Selles is the right man, they would have given him the job in November - there is no dressing up the abject failure they've made on the management front if they fail to get someone good in now.

That's a stretch. They failed to back and then fired a decent manager who would likely have kept us up, wasted the winter break hiring an awful manager on a long contract, kept said numpty for far too long (wasting valuable games), sacked him without a replacement in place, and are now currently failing to hire a replacement despite the club being rudderless and running rapidly out of time.... Far from acting properly, you have to surely ask WTF are they doing if they're wasting even more time now (which we don't have) talking to managers that they aren't happy to have in charge in the championship or who have no interest in a short term deal... IMO the timespan should be made clear at the outset, and they should really be talking to managers for next season - then if we stay up its a bonus... Seems likely something is amiss on one of those points since we've wasted 4 days on Marsch only for it to break down over contract length... talk about fiddling whilst Rome burns.

Interesting Selles was assistant under him at Copenhagen.

If we go down, we'll be one of the most attractive propositions outside the top flight. A lot of pessimistic bed wetting going on here imo - not sure how some of you think other championship clubs attract good managers? Or whether people are aware there are good manangers outside of the Premier league... Saints will be the very top of that market. 🤔 The only way that changes is if SR have pulled a superb cover up on the club's finances and their intentions re backing the club... For all we know, the club have another candidate lines up who isn't available until the summer 👀

Interesting video - some similarities with Ralph but some noticeable differences. My takeaway from watching Leeds this season was that they plated some great stuff but conceded incredibly simple goals.

I'll say this.... YouTube's subtitles needs some work... Or maybe they don't - In which case press conferences could get interesting.

Well for starters it's utterly irrelevant where a team's form ranks vs a bunch of random other teams given we only compete with 19 of them.....😆 Clearly any side that is struggling in their league would have poor form compared to a team sitting say mid table in league 1 or chasing promotion in the league 2... and similarly, there are less teams in the premier league so extremes of form will likely be amplified relative to a 24 team league. The only thing that actually mattered was our performance in the league this season - and the reality was that Ralph was doing an okay job with what he had - 3points of 12th when he was sacked, despite gelling a young squad with limited experience and having played the best sides... Seemed fairly reasonable given we had key injuries to critical players and no premier league level attackers to speak off - Indeed, the last 2 games where Ralph had a fully fit squad we beat Chelsea and outplayed United - And that was still with the likes of Che, Armstrong, Ely etc as attackers. Rumours are that Marsch is the candidate that Semmens/Ralph had earmarked to eventually replace him. If thats the case then hopefully he can deliver some of the more successful football that Ralph managed - free from the relationship/morale fatigue that eventually crept in over Ralph's time, and with a fully fit and stronger squad (notably including good attackers). I'd like to think that the fanbase's recent dose of humble pie (i.e. "can't do worse than Ralph"... meet Mad Nath) will be enough for the fans to settle down and support the new manager - we need to if we're going to have a chance of staying up. Something to actually look forward to - technically, we're basically one game away from Wembley in the FA cup... unless we somehow conspire to lose to Grimsby... which absolutely does not bear thinking about! And there are only going to be 3 tough teams in the quarters - City, United, and maybe Brighton. So there actually is a decent chance of an FA Cup Semi this year.

Trousers is taking no prisoners today...

Failed at Leeds is a bit harsh though isn't it. He had his best players sold and Bamford has been missing basically all season, other injuries as well. Reality is that he saved them last season, and he had them staying afloat this season despite the above... #Failed 🙄

I would love to see that "i believe that we will win chant" sung passionately by an American team's fans in a match in this country.... just to see what kind of response it gets from the home fans.

Think/hope this may be overly pessimistic. It stopped working for Ralph because he largely had utter dross to work with up front for a prolonged period. He overachieved with what he had, but there is only so long a team can keep working like they were, and losing, without morale suffering significantly. The fans turning wouldn't have helped either lets be honest (rightly or wrongly). Marsch will have Sulemana, a fit Lavia, Alcaraz, Onuachu, a bedded in Edozie, KWP back, and hopefully ABK back. The main point being that he won't be reliant on AA, Ely, Adams, and Aribo for goals. Plus he'll hopefully be able to avoid relying on Diallo and AMN as central midfielders - freeing up JWP... May even get Stu back fit. Ralph's last games with a fully fit squad (which was weaker than the squad we have now), were the unlucky loss to united (who we outplayed), and the Chelsea win... Marsch plays a very similar style to Ralph, so if he can get us back to anywhere near that level he'll have a chance. He isn't as good as Ralph granted, but Ralph with a fit team and a class striker basically achieved a top 4 points over a calendar year... albeit that was before ings got injured / left, and before the injuries and progressive weakening of the squad was exposed. If Marsch comes in and hits the ground running (a big ask with no time to work with the players), there is a chance he keeps us up. Slim, but its there - he'll have to beat all our relegation rivals... The chelsea game is basically a warm up game for him at this point. Very unlikely to get anything there and the leeds game is the important one. Leeds away (25th Feb) Leicester home (4th march) West Ham away (1st April) Palace home (15th April) Bournemouth home (226th April) Forest Away (6th May) Some of those are a tough tough ask. Other possible wins are Fulham home (13th May), Brentford home (15th march), Tottenham home (18th March). Last 2 games of the season being Brighton away and Liverpool at home... highly likely both those sides are chasing european football. If we're lucky Liverpool's season will have petered out and they're on holiday. But i wouldn't want to rely on getting more than a point from those 2 games. Grim really.

Fair enough, he's a class signing tbh. They've done well there.

I haven't said i don't like Marsch, and I have posted my thoughts on potential managers... Just in the new managers thread, not the Jessie Marsch thread... Imagine that. 😘