Saint86

Dusic what? A year being regularly exposed to championship football, developing physically, and excelling and building confidence is fantastic for a players' development... just look at players like lallana, Grealish, vardy, Eze/Olise, bowen etc. If I was Dibling, i'd get a an improved contract out of saints to get paid what i was actually worth (rather than the £1.5k per week slap to the face he's rumoured to be currently on), and have a "higher division club" release clause (etc.,) inserted so he's got the option to move if he wishes. Then he's free to play and develop, and he's got an exit if he feels he needs it / wants it. I personally don't think he's good enough (yet) to be starting regularly for a better club than saints, so playing regularly in a league where he's one of the better players and hone his skills at beating players etc. whilst developing physically will be great for him.

Could easily see him being sold but we have him on loan for the season.

Yeah, don't get me wrong - should have prefaced the above with a "take with a healthy dose of caution". I suspect something has gone on, but equally i also strongly suspect their owner is an utter nutcase who lies to the fanbase to try and manipulate the narrative and get the fans onside.

Reading the Wednesday forum it sounds like we've been up to some right antics with them - similar perhaps to the way we carried on with Swansea that saw Martin being sued. I wonder if this was possibly related to Kraft's departure. https://www.owlstalk.co.uk/forums/topic/336439-charles-southampton/page/7/#comments

Is Fernandes likely to be here in August though? And equally, can he really play every minute of every game between now and May? Getting the lad in now and seeing if he's a good fit for next season isn't bad. And like it or not, we do struggle when Fernandes comes off, so adding extra depth to the midfield will help (assuming he's good enough).

Probably as good as gone then with SRs view of the academy.

Whilst detailing how much of a basket case club Montpellier are currently (there game with Monaco was temporarily suspended because the fans staged a dance music protest - that was so loud the ref had to stop the game), Montpellier were described as "the Southampton of Ligue 1". This was on national radio (talksport). Its pretty grim. My 6 year old is getting regular banter from all the Liverpool/Arsenal/City fans at school - I think the main reason he's still a Saints fan is because he got to go to Wembley, but without doubt this current team/run is going to cost the club a lot of future fans - which is the lifeblood of the club - will become even more problematic if Brighton and Bournemouth continue to excel in the top flight. The sad part is i think we could possibly have stayed up under Juric - had he been appointed earlier, or if we could have picked up just a few points from the fulham - forest games. Possibly attract 1-2 decent players in and made a fight of it. But the best thing we can do now is something get to 12 points, and make sure we're ready for next season. I really hope we keep Juric though as it stands.

Played for half a game again. But when we play we're good. So frustrating that we kept Martin so long that now its too late and the player's mentality/morale/confidence is shot. Great to see taul paul scoring at least. Lesley very very good when he came on. More bad luck really at the end with that clearance off the line. Its just one of those years for us sadly.

How was that a foul on Sels ffs.

Santos scored the winner for Goztepe today at least... So i guess at least we've done some good for our sister club.

We've lost basically every single proper talent from that youth team because SR refuse to pay the going rate. Let alone Gomes (who is potentially a generational talent) for free to Lyon. It shocking, not something to praise. They'll sit there and sign (utter shit) like Mara for £12M, and the likes of Larios and Edozie, but our own youth players (who have all moved to more successful clubs than saints), who were more committed to the club and on lower wages are gone. And now, when we get relegated, and look to the academy for squad players and potential breakthrough players and future sales - we've already let them all go for peanuts. You and fabrice praising this strategy is utterly mad to me. We're going down with a bloated squad on large wages, and nearly all of those that stay have shown they're way off premier league level and are not players with the potential to develop... The ones that might tick that box will leave - and despite having the 2nd best u18 side in the country a couple of years ago, none of them will still be here to step up. And for context - Dibling's rumoured original £3k per week is £156k a year. If you consider we now apparently are paying him half of that, its £1.5k per week. We signed Mara (£12M), Edozie (£8M), larios (£6M), stewart (£9M) etc. In fees alone, that is Dibling's 3k/w salary (or insert other youth player we didn't bother keeping) for 224years. Its a good job those 4 players are contributing so much more than Dibling to justify their cost... And that ignores the wages for these signings, all of which will be higher than our youth contracts. We also won't be selling the above players for a profit - but the academy players certainly would have done. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Dibling alone raised more than those 4 combined. The entire approach is a car crash from Sports republic.

They very nearly refused to take him back, then they significantly cut the already relatively modest salary they had previously offered him, and then they made him train with the youth teams 😄.

Sports republic have basically got rid of all the ones that were really something. They'd far rather have spent millions (fees/agents/wages) on players to block their development pathways, than just pay the best u21 / u18 players a serious wage relative to their ability. Given we've got a squad full of dead wood and will be playing the champ next season, it's shown itself to be an incredibly poor bit of strategy. Not to mention the loss of gomes and the fact SR went out of their way to piss of dibling when he rejoined 😂🤣

We have a 25% win rate at the their ground 10/41. They're also on fire in the league... https://www.transfermarkt.com/southampton-fc/bilanzdetail/verein/180/plus/0?gegner_id=703&saison_id=&wettbewerb_id=&day=&heim_gast=gast&punkte=&datum_von=&datum_bis= Chris Wood also had a 50% win rate vs us in the Premier league, with a 25% scoring rate 3 goals in 12 games). Hard to be optimistic. Who knows, maybe we'll scrap a draw to make up for the 3 points we threw away last night 😂

Yes, the smallbone sub was just all wrong sadly. Armstrong up front would have carried the threat of pace and hastled at least. Similar Archer. Even lallana sitting behind the other 2 would have kept the ball and has the guile to find those through balls.

I'm merely highlighting that people are buzzing over something that fundamentally isn't good enough. He has to do better - multiple times last night (the whole team does). There is no point trying to dress up 3 missed points as anything but a failure sadly. He's on that pitch to score and make goals. I agree with you, great approach play fantastic pace and running at the defender. But sulemana and fernandes in particular wasted a plethora of very good chances / attacking positions. As well as they played, it just isn't good enough 😢. "We" scored one goal... A scrappy own goal. What is so frustrating is that we blatantly need a bit of quality in the form of natural goalscorer and a proper cdm - give it to juric and I think he could start to pick up wins. But we're now over halfway through January and there seems to be no intent from the board to even fight this relegation. The squad just isn't good enough.

I've read some revisionism in my time... but Martin undoubtedly left the club in a better place than he found it. Think people just need to let the big chin go with Martin. He was married to his style of football and totally inflexible - making him an incredibly flawed manager for Saints. What has screwed the club over and essentially wasted the season is the board's decision making (in keeping him too long), and poor recruitment. Had we had Juric from earlier in the season i don't think we'd even be in the relegation zone, and the players' confidence and morale would have been far higher. We've also had winnable games in January, and because of the timing of the board's decisions (and lack of commitment), we've made no first team transfers (and shown no signs of making any). The board have essentially surrendered this season with every decision they've made - or at least they've demonstrated no ambition or belief that we could stay up.

Yeah, and he also doesn't cross. So he's demonstrated some fantastic pace, close control, and good running... but sadly no end product when we need it most. As much of a bright spark as his performance was yesterday (in a very grim season), it still isn't good enough 😕 And the really frustrating part is that had he found a couple of crosses last night we'd have been out of sight - there was at least one occasion where Fernandes when absolutely mental at him as well 😂. In another world we would have got a 2nd or 3rd goal last night and be 7points from safety, a bit of life breathed into the faint hope that we have, and possibly able to attract a decent CDM or striker in the transfer /loan market. Sad times

One of the reasons we didn't win because of sulemana tbh, incredibly wasteful and selfish on 3 occasions that ultimately cost us. Very frustrating! Playing for his move I guess. Yes it looks good having the defender on toast at will... But it's worth Jack all if you do nothing of merit with it.

No. Was obvious as soon as the goal went in that the players heads dropped. No belief or confidence. United were shit and still beat us fairly easily.

Relegation and PSR will do that to any squad. Let alone when you're playing one of the richest clubs in world football. Its not like united have had rich owners investing in them.

Game was lost when smallbone came on. No presses made, no useful passes or tackles. just an absolute waste of space. Was a terrible sub. If the striker was tired, we should be using someone like Onuachu or Archer, with Smallbone playing in midfield if he absolutely has to come on... and to bring him on before downes was just mental.

What is the point of smallbone. Awful substitute thats cost us this game frankly.

I approve of this set of subs.

I don't want to be harsh on smallbone. But i think this is a bad sub. Will diminish our attacking threat and force us deeper. Would have gone archer/armstrong/lallana here.