Saint86

I've been more "are we there yet" than upset. Most of us watched saints go to the wall last time, what's the worst that can happen?

We have fans that are now calling are dedicated away supporters c*nts and noddys. We have a fanbase that booed this young and inexperienced team from the very first game of the season when they needed support. And we have fans that wanted a loyal, passionate, and good manager sacked - a decision that has most certainly relegated us. As a fanbase we're reaping what we've sown. But I must say i'm looking forward to the, "anyone would be better than ralph / JWP / INSERT OTHER" finding something else to moan about in the lower leagues. Without doubt, their unrealistic expectations and impatience in "supporting" this team, and the negativity they created, are a part of why we're going down. Commentators calling on saints fans to be a "12th man" this season 😂

In all serious, rather unlucky tonight. Lots of injuries and blunt tools. Players did give it a good go. But at least now we know we're down and can rebuild. Will hate watching JWP playing for someone else next year, would love it if he stayed and we appointed an attacking manager again.

Played Macca, let in shed loads of goals... hardly a surprise is it.

What we've seen here, is one club that went out and got proper attackers in the summer, vs one that hasn't managed it all season...

Unlucky tonight in fairness. 1st goal was a joke off a free kick. Pen was unlucky. Always been chasing the game. Still. We deserve to be going down.

How predictable was that!

Navas is only 6ft 1", Paul as 6" on him without even jumping ffs!

If ever a game there was a time to play Tall Paul - its vs this defence....

how is that not accidental handball - would never be given as a pen ffs!

One of the worst teams defensibly in the league... why are we not playing Tall Paul - adams has done relatively little regardless!

yes, we've been down since we sacked ralph.

Thats unlucky tbh

Bednarek with his great trademark covering block/tackle/interception. Watch him pass the ball away / score and own goal in a minute 😂

Not that it matters, but absolute joke refereeing. Never ever a foul by Che Adams to launch that fast counter, and was the ball moving when they took the freekick?

Always felt like Sheldon was using saints as little more than a career ladder, he seemed quite happy to put the club down if it suited, and by all accounts he upset a few behind the scenes (minimum). Never felt his analysis was being close to on par with any of the other journos we've had and I would have cancelled my Athletic subscription had he continued. Tanswell is certainly a step up but still fairly average overall - although improving. I find he holds some quite partisan viewpoints about the club in some of his peices, but he does at least seem to hold an affinity for Saints, and he does have some decent analytics in him. Agree with others that say both Sheldon (particularly) and Tanswell tend to write stories out of / about nothing. Alfie house has been very good and has impressed me a lot this year, and works with less resources that the above - without doubt the best current journo dedicated to saints (imo) , probably since Anka.

What?! No. You would have to be one of life's greatest ever optimists to have hope now.

Kevin danso assist and Lois Openda (😭 - £7m last summer) goal to give lens a 2-1 win over 3rd place marseille in ligue 1, moves them up to 2nd and 3 points of PSG. Missed opportunities 😭

I've been saying 33-34 points for weeks. But our goal difference means we'd be at the bottom of any team on that points total. We're done now, can stick a fork in it. We'd need minimum 3 wins and a draw from the last 4 games to have a chance.... I think it would be a literal miracle to survive, and that's ignoring the way we're playing and our total lack of attacking identity. I could even see us even needing to get 4 wins as I'm not convinced we'd get out of it with 34 points and our goal difference.

Results not bad today, would have a chance if we had just 3 more points, let alone hadn't sacked hassenhuttle Would be sods law that we get results out of forest and Fulham and then go down to the dippers last game. 😢

I don't have a huge issue with the royal family as an institution. If its a choice between a largely politically independent monarchy and President Tony Blaire / Dave Cameron / Boris Johnson / Nick Clegg etc then its an absolute non starter... But as for treating them as anything other than a token head of state that represents Britain internationally and brings in some tourism.... such as swearing allegiance - No bloody chance. If its not something Charles wants and has come out of some hair brained plan from the Archbishop (as that Dimbleby implies above) then fair enough... but i still think anyone who does it is mad...

The athletic journalists are a mixed crowd. Anka was quality and it was great when he covered us - he had a lot of tactical and analytical knowledge and was able to write about it well, also embedded himself well with the overall club, fanbase, and ex players. Dan Sheldon certainly had no love of saints / ralph (especially) as far as I could see, and the quality of his analysis (when it even happened) was pretty poor. Jacob Tanswell is okay, he does some data analysis but i can't think of a single article where he has added anything of merit on the tactical front. And as you say, he manages to write an awful lot about nothing, or stuff that is very obvious.

Dare i say... "the league table doesn't lie"... 🤣

Isn't it lovely that the season has effectively finished for us now, and instead the saints games serve more as a distraction (as we await the summer rebuild) than anything to get overly stressed about?

I've been as harsh as anyone on reviewing sports republic's (mainly rasmus') decision making this year... But i think having a go at them and saying that targeting player trading as a route to improve the club isn't having high aspirations is unfair. And who is to say they didn't target squad needs? We know we tried to get some good forwards in the summer (but failed), and in january we signed Paul and Orsic (albeit too late and mismatched to manager styles). Also, players having value for resale will only happen if the players are good... (i am okay with this 😄). Look how much trouble we had trying to sell Lamina, Boufal, Carillo, Heodt etc... On "This is not about the long term development of saints as a competing club" - I think Brighton's and Brentford's owners have high aspirations, and a big part of that is through a focus on recruitment and player trading? Reality is that clubs at our level don't have access to the huge commercial deals and other income levels of bigger clubs. So the only real ways we can compete are through clever squad development (and player trading), or through sugar daddy ownership. We don't have the latter. Reality is the squad did need significant investment - we'd survived quite admirably with negligible investment (relative to the rest of the league) for years under Gao. SR came in and did the right thing in investing in the squad. And in fairness, a lot of the players we signed are mostly very talented young players with the potential to improve significantly - as opposed to older players nearing the ends of their peak period / careers that we will struggle to generate additional income from. Also, some of these young players have proven to be our best players - Are we now saying that we shouldn't have signed Alcaraz, Lavia, ABK, Sulemana etc? Or in recent seasons under Semmens/ralph, players like Tino, Salisu, KWP? No, i think the idea and aspiration was correct from SR. But sadly the execution has been very poor.