Saint86

AA had one "clear cut chance" last night, and he put it away very nicely. He's actually looked sharp most of the season. He is our best attacker. Archer wasted an almost identical chance. And yet we have people on here calling for Archer to be started over AA - That talk needs to stop from now on, Archer hasn't looked fit to lace AA's boots up for the entirety of his time with saints, that isn't going to magically change now. Those 2 chances are probably a large part of our xG being up to 2 last night. Outside of that, part of the issue is that our XG stats are coming down to players that aren't the strikers - Charles missed a free header last night, jander missed effectively an open goal vs Swansea etc. There were others. And tbf, AA did take one of the worst penalties i've yet seen from a saints player - but we all know he's shite at pens.

Because we refuse to play with a fucking anchor. Does my head in. 3man midfield with 1 as a proper CDM - I would play Downes/Jander there (either of them will hoover up lose balls, harry, and can will recycle possession very nicely), leave Charles as box to box as he has a great engine and all around playstyle, and sit Azaz in a floating CM position as playmaker. Then you feed the likes of fellows and Scienza on the wings, and have AA given a roaming striker role and free to make runs as he sees fit - it gets all our best players on the pitch, puts our attacking players in the right positions generally, and means that someone is actually in charge of defending the CBs from these constant free balls into an otherwise yawning chasm of space between our current midfield and our donkey CBs. And last but not least - actually seek to play counter attack whenever its on. Let the other teams out to come on to us, wait for them to make the mistakes at times. The arrogance of our recent championship managers where they seem to think we should always be high up the pitch dominating the ball is just mental to me. We are not a Guardiola side - be prepared to mix it up.

Absolutely this. People attacking Spors for the Down signing (and yes, that appears to have been a bad gamble)... but azaz, jellert, Fellows, Scienza, Jander and Quarshie are all very good or good players for this level. Even Mads is a decent acquisition for the cost. Generally speaking, the manager has been extremely well backed. He spent pre season with a back 4, then bemoaned not having the players to stick to it and went to the back 5, then signed the likes of fellows, scienza, azaz etc... (any squad in the league would bite your hand off for that level of player) and yet he continues to play a back 5 and benches 1-2 of them on a weekly basis - last night playing an unwell Fellows at fucking wing back in a back 5 when we were chasing the game. He style is inflexible, incapable of breaking teams down, incapable of baiting teams out, and cannot defend. All anyone has to do against us in maintain a disciplined shape, wait for us to tire and make a mistake, and then smash us on the counter - upon which are lackadaisical centre halves are exposed. And Macca may be a good shot stopper, but he's awful at coming off his line, defending vs counter attacks, and/or handling one on one situations - which is invariably what he is being faced with. And god alone knows what he was doing for that rebound last night, looked like a FIFA GK error it was so bad. I am not defending Martin - but i will say this for his tactics - we would routinely stop or walk the ball around at the back... force the other team to come out, set traps for them etc. Still does not do this. We push all the way up, and then are happy to just pass the ball around the opposition box whilst they set up camp inside it. He has arguably better players than Martin, yet his tactics are less effective.

The blame for any major errors lays squarely on Nathan Wood, not only for the awful goal, but also a lot of sloppy decisions and passes that crept in under 2nd half pressure. To go directly after THB is a somewhat harsh narrative.

Ultimately the fanbase can't cry too much. We had a manager that loved the club and had been over achieving with the players he had, and yet the fans booed his team from the very first home game of the season, hounded him out, and were even declaring that "no one could do worse"... In came Nathan Jones, selles, Martin, juric, rusk, and now Still... And the club is now a husk of what it was under Ralph - despite spending hundreds of millions in that time frame 😄

Start downs... 😂 But TBF, I'll give you a 7/10, you almost had me.

If we hire another in post manager from the EFL without first trying to throw money at him, it will just show yet more ineptitude from SR imo.

Not even we will lose this one...

I said it in the summer.... The manager to go for is David challinor. Sadly he signed a new 3 year contract so will have a higher exit fee - but someone is going to pick him up at some point and he'll likely be cheaper wage wise than bigger names... Ultimately he is going up the leagues and he can't get Stockport to the premier league...

I'll say this much, if we hire Southgate, I might genuinely have to take a break from saints 😂

The worst part of this, is that I genuinely think city are pretty fucking shit. Their only game plan was park the bus and hit fairly low quality counters... At home... Vs a team they're comfortably above in the league. And even then, we had to literally gift them 3 goals. Something clearly rotten in the dressing room. Think his time is up and there is no point prolonging it. Sincerely hope spots is looking at replacements as we speak.

Hate to break it to you, but Sports republic are more likely to hire Rooney.

That's just teasing. No way he's coming back.

Has downs touched the ball? It's impressive that Robinson has come on, managed to carry several attacks, and done it all whilst we're playing with 10men!

Macca just saved near post 😍

It's hard to argue... Something clearly isn't right. Would be tempted to try potter out - he needs to reboot his career, and it's not too late to turn the season around if we make the right appointment and actually sort out a striker and a GK in January.

Downs coming on 😂 Apparently us playing with 11 men wasn't enough of an advantage for city.

Charles will be gone soon, probably our most saleable asset. But I guess this is what people want right, stay in the champ every year being magically competitive at the top end, selling our best players, and using our top quality recruitment to bring in ever more new and exciting players every year.

I have zero faith that we'd get a better manager if we sacked him - that isn't how sports republic roll... It's been all downhill since that first summer there they undermined Ralph.

He blatantly is and so bringing him on is desperate stuff.

Another player better than archer.

Problem is, we always push up at attack teams... For all the faults and frustrations over Martin - saints stopping and walking the ball at the back made the other team step up and create space...

Lost to a basic defensive error and a deflection with abysmal keeping.

We really do get no luck Vs city.

Compare that to us trying to get a goal Vs Swansea. We're just not getting anything go out way this year.