Saint86

West Brom with a morale boosting takeover, just in time for friday... 🤣

We'll be dropping points vs West Brom like as not.

Going to go out on a limb and say we won't be winning this one sadly. Team looks very jaded and disjointed recently. A lot of change and inability to rotate efficiently looks set to hurt us in the short term. Need to mitigate the damage and stay in touch with leeds until our respective forms recover.

Yeah right. If we rotate the hell out of the team in one go, change up to play really defensive, and generally unsettle the team chemistry... Then yes... We won't be going into those games sitting above them 😂🤣

The Liverpool game is going to be horrific.

Its inexcusable though isn't it. We had charly as a sub for this level... We got rid of him to sign Rothwell, using up a loan spot... When literally everyone can see we have no serious cdm cover, shit at left back, and no RB cover to speak off. Kwp has basically had no rotation and is clearly off his peak.

I don't accept the comments from people saying no effort or passion from the players today, particularly on twitter etc. They've run their socks off and brooks almost injured himself trying to score ffs. But tactically this was so so poor today, and that is all on Martin in my books I'm afraid. He's changed his tactics to be less attacking and more defensive, and ultimatley bottled this big time. I get we have to lose, but it's like he couldn't be arsed to correct this tonight... How many times did Bristol city do the same attack? Must be over 20?

Its happened right before kick off. Should fire us up and make it absolutely clear what is required.

Leeds already winning... Should focus the players' minds pre kick off.

The green party candidate has resigned for similar comments as this labour MP candidate. The absolute joke of it is the labour guy will probably still get elected as an "independent" as he'll show as labour on the ballot, and no other labour candidate will be presented.

The away fixtures don't worry me too much. As it stands we'll go into them happy with a draw vs Ipswich and Leeds... Whereas they are chasing us and will have to win and will be going for it. That suits the way we play as opposed to teams that park the bus. The likes of West brom are teams we should be beating if we turn up, and we shouldn't be losing to them at any rate. And equally, that playoff race is going to be tight and they'll be feeling the pressure whilst we'll be a scalp well out of their reach etc. The leiceater game is important however, I could see that one definetly eating into our game advantage over Leeds... But similarly, Leeds aren't going to win every game they've got left.

It is mad that this has to keep being said 😐

I'd rather win the playoff final than finish 2nd, but i'd rather finish 2nd than lose in the playoffs... I guess we'll see what kind of season its been on May 4th or May 26th. I know people are feeling very confident at the moment, but we've got harder fixture than leeds and they're on great form at the moment. I think there are a lot of twists and turns ahead, and we've got to go to Leeds last game of the season.

Hah! Fair, although we signed him as like a 10-11 year old though, which is a bit different to signing him and putting him in the first team a year later and claiming he's an club made academy player 😅 Or put another way, Spurs signed Bale at 17, it would be a bit of a cheek if they'd been calling him their academy player.

Fortunately FFP / Sustainability rules mean its advantage to saints over clubs with filthy rich owners... for now at least... even if we had to sell £170M of players to balance the books... But again, it highlights the need to get promoted, and further hammers home the point (for the few that strangely desire it) that its very unlikely there is a happy ever after where saints stay in the championship long term and keep pace with the top end of the league.

Meghoma isn't really from our academy. We signed him from Tottenham in 2022. Don't get me wrong, its great to see us developing and playing young talent, but lets not do what fans of bigger clubs do and start citing saints youngsters as their academy products. Would be like Chelsea saying JJM was from their academy, or Brighton trying to do similar with Doyle!

Trying to set a new club record... A reasonably avoidable loss before Liverpool away would therefore be very dissapointing.

Agreed. Needs a song!

https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/133863-who-can-catch-us/ Despite actively disliking Leicester as a club over the whole Vardy VVD Injury, the 9-0, the Wes Morgan foul goal that possibly cost us CL... I think their fans are actually alright. Been trying to see what's going on with KDH's potential transfer, but this thread highlights just how good they've been this year and what an achievement it will be to catch them (if they don't implode). I think we'll catch them for the record. (EDIT: or catch them enough that the pressure will tell and it will be a tight run in). Also, "is it possible to lap Rotherham" did make me laugh 🤣

I am excited by Brooks, but he is new to the system and will play on the wing in a position where he have relatively good strength. Rothwell doesn't interest me at all as a starting 11 player. Maybe early days to write him off but wasn't excited when we signed him and haven't been impressed so far. I hope he is purely here to add depth rather than to become a starting 11 player. Alcaraz is a class player, puts his all in whenever he is on the pitch, and has that ability to turn and drive with the ball or pick a defence splitting pass or quality finish. So he gives it away a few times... Equally he tries to do what precious few other players do, and often moves fail because other players just aren't as quick as he is / on his wavelength. Long story short, i think we've effectively weakened the squad somewhat over the window. Rothwell shouldn't be in the side over the alternatives we already had on the books, and Alcaraz should have been getting more minutes imo. Only conclusion i can draw is that either Martin doesn't really fancy him, or that Alcaraz wants out (but then why the contract extension). Brookes is an uncertainty re how he will impact the team, he was a very good player and i like that we've signed him, but is he any better than Alcaraz?... and equally we're 22 games unbeaten with Adam Armstrong largely playing on that wing, that will change with Brookes if he plays there, and there are no guarantees that will make the team better or more effective. And underneath all of that, Alcaraz seemed to be committed to the club and a player with great potential - someone we could have developed and built a team around in the future - so i'm disappointed to see him leave, although hopefully he can come back a better player. Perhaps, flipping it all around... we're going to get promoted with a lot of loanees, many of which we'll struggle to sign or who will need replacing. Alcaraz might benefit a lot from 4-5months in italy and then come back in next year, and perhaps the seemingly very high transfer clause is to discourage a transfer / make it worth our while.

Can Juventus realistically afford him for that much? Who knows, maybe we get promoted and Alcaraz is starring for us in the prem next season. Eitherway, a side with Aribo or Rothwell starting over Alcaraz is a weaker side... let alone factoring in future potential.

He's been getting more game time recently with the cups, and he's done alright tbf. I think he's got potential but just needs a solid run of games - which he is unlikely to get.

Looks like he's back for for Blackburn, just put them 2-1 up against Wrexham!

Not really. We put out a very disjointed and much changed side that struggled to perform at tempo or string many cutting passes together. He's already showed he can do it at this level, and indeed the prem level... what he needs is a good run off games. If he was playing (rather than Che), in front of our normal midfield, then i would expect him to be more than fine at this level.... the issue being that we are playing very well and its hard to get into the side. Indeed, if we don't get promoted then he is exactly the kind of half decent striker i could see a long time championship (occasionally flirt with the playoffs) southampton side fielding... He's a fine 3rd choice for this season.

Extremely disappointing from Martin tbh. Historic moment to set new club records, winnable cup tie, decent chance of a good cup run, 5k away fans... and he fooks around like this. Impressive disrespect. Needs to fix it second half. I will never have any time for saints managers that throw winnable cup games with shit like this. True of Poch vs sunderland, and its certainly true of Martin - who has no right to be cocky about anything yet.