Saint86

They can't appeal to CAS apparently. They're accused of some shady stuff. Listened to talk sport earlier and apparently Mancini had a shadow contract that paid him more than his man city contract... for 4 days work... if they've done this with key staff and players going back to 2009, they're simply no way they don't have their titles stripped and get demoted. It would invalidate their league finish in every season since... Its an entirely separate issue to their fake "sponsorship" deals - but that in itself is worth sanctions if proven. If they have had shadow contracts for players and staff, i would imagine they'll be further repercussions on those individuals as that breaches 3rd party ownership rules. They haven't provided evidence because presumably they don't like what the evidence shows... Added to all of that, the government is now looking to take controls from the premier league and has accused it of not being able to police itself. Up steps the perfect opportunity after 4 years of investigations and 100 allegations... they're deeply in the shite as it stands, and they need to find some pretty compelling evidence to defend these various allegations... evidence that they've already been sanctioned for withholding 😆

That doesn't even bear thinking about!

Leeds have acted and sacked Marsch as well. Wonder if they consider / can tempt bielsa back.

Agreed. The only thing that needs to be conveyed is the dissatisfaction with SR's running of the club. Jones' position, troubles with squad harmony, the wrecking ball they've taken to key backroom staff in the academy and scouting sectors etc. The scatter gun / panicked approach to recruitment could be mentioned, and i almost don't want to know what a financial shit storm is going to hit if we end up in the championship.

I'd give him a go tbh, he'd certainly sort the atmosphere and the dressing room out here. Only question is whether he'd by into doing what SR want re selections and asset development.

Obviously I would also support this 😊 as I don't think we should have sacked him in the first place. What should have happened is SR should have given him the godamn striker they promised as well as a CDM - instead they hung him, and ultimately the playing squad, out to dry - sending them off for half a season with a sieve for defensive midfield, and a bunch of blunt wooden spoons in attack. I still don't personally understand how as a fanbase overall, we seemingly expected to stay in the premier league whilst starting Che Adams and AA up front, Ely / Aribo / Walcott as wingers/attacking mids, and Diallo and AMN in central midfield... That just isn't a thing. And yet, Ralph had us 3 points off 12th with that squad, with our makeshift selection of blunt attackers somehow sitting 13th for xG, and truthfully 15th for goals conceded isn't that bad... Neither of those stats sits you in the relegation zone, it was our 18th for goals scored thats seen to that. But he also had bad injuries to contend with (KWP, Lavia, ABK, and Tino), as well as having to gel a lot of young and inexperienced players this season (something Jones should be getting some benefit from), and not to mention having played all the best sides in his 15games. Just for reference, Jones' tenureship has seen us drop to 15th for xG, and 19th for goals against. We're now 17th for goals scored - technically a slight improvement, but actually we're level with Notts Forest on 17 goals each. Only everton and wolves have scored fewer. So jones' has had easier games, a prolonged period to work with the players, and we've very clearly got worse. Also in defence of Ralph, he never had Ings properly replaced by the previous owners (or SR), and then he didn't even get the 20year old sporadic loanee broja replaced, he lost his defensive Midfield lyncpin in Romeu which was bound to upset the side's balance, and then he lost his replacement in lavia with no cover seemingly provided - all of which meant he had to either play Diallo or AMN as our anchor, or sacrifice our best player attacking/creative player in JWP as an anchor man... To justify his sacking, as a fanbase we must have deemed him to have been doing appallingly against the expectations to warrant sacking? So i can only assume we were expecting the side to be top 10 or chasing europe?!?! Esecially when you consider the above mitigations. In his last game with a fully fit squad he beat chelsea and we played superbly - but that ofc was the last game Ralph played with a Lavia. The weak before that we comfortably outplayed united and we were very unlucky not to win that game imo, let alone lose it. But with a full strength squad, let alone proper backing this january, its extremely unlikely he'd have taken us down... I would have backed him for midtable with a striker and CDM cover in the summer... Maybe ralph suffered because of how good the team played when they were full strength and had a quality striker at the top end... For periods he had us playing like a European chasing team - some happy memories there. Its a real shame, because if we'd kept him we would very likely have stayed up - even if he was starting to show the strain of the fans turning and the good backing by SR. Now the writing really is on the wall, and unless the manager situation and fan toxicity is resolved PDQ, we're staring into an abyss. Anyway, it is done now, and Jones is certainly a car crash that the fans have entirely united against. I agree we could certainly do worse that reapproach ralph - Presumably we are paying his wages at the moment anyway? 😆🤣 But whoever we turn to, it would take a miracle to turn this squad / season around now. As a fanbase we will badly need to be more realistic for the next manager. We turned on a manager that would have kept us up, and then we've given his replacement (not that he is very likeable) no real chance... And now we have a unanimously toxic atmosphere amongst the fans and a fractured dressing room... There are precious few managers in world football who could turn that around...

Not a chance in hell i fear Clarke, not when you add in our Jan signings and DCC (who you neglected). We're in the shit if we go down. Would maybe have been okay prior to the panic buying this january, but SR have really scatter shat the toilet this past month - so when we go down with their beloved hand picked manager, we'll have a huge set of wages and transfer fees to cover... The result will be that if/when we go down, there will be massive player churn - we're living beyond our means this season and that will have to be cut hugely to meet championship revenues and the EFL's FFP regulations. People seem to be forgetting the circa £80M loan against the club as well... We were planning on adding value to our players and selling them for a profit... not covering for relegation's drop in incomes.

Probably ask for your SaintsWeb Id before letting you in.... Currently 11 people have to get the obligatory "don't sack Jones box" to attend....

No sadly not.

The more that comes out, the more you have to genuinley worry for the short term future. EFL FFP rules are incoming, we've made some panic buys this window (still laughing people were rating it 9/10. Fuck me), and sports Republic are not an infinite source of money. Equally SR are gutting the back room setups around the scouting and academy (in which they have little interest), and those are aspects that Ralph and Semmens had actually delivered some stability to prior to SR's arrival. Since SR have been here they have tried to change basically everything in a very short period, and none of those changes appear to have been for anything but the worst....

Agreed. He's inexperienced and overwhelmed at this level. He could have knuckled down, not worn his titanic sinking chip on his shoulder, and the fans would have had more patience. But he hasn't done that, he's been combative and emotional, highly unprofessional in his comments, and is clearly overwhelmed. Time to go. On the go to manager front. Bielsa prefers 1 year contracts - ideal if Rasmus doesn't want to commit. And he was interested in Everton and turned them down - so he is available. Issue might be that he isn't a yes man. He dies develop young players and play a high press though.

A further nod to something having happened behind the scenes I would say...

Was really hoping I'd log on to find him gone. It's the hope that gets you. SR need to just bite the bullet and throw some money at a poch/bielsa level candidate, and just accept relegation and rebuilding. Anything above that is a mercy they don't deserve. Every day they delay now is a day closer to a future abyss.

Orsic's social media post is pretty interesting as well. Clearly something had gone on. Imagine treating a world Cup semi final goalscorer like he had been. Just unreal. Must be one of the ones he doesn't want.

AKA. Should never have sacked Ralph 😪

Could be good tbh, something needs to give. Sooner the better.

ABK and Lavia are both very good players and far better than relegation level for starters. DCC is a good CB as well. Mara is still young but had potential, baz isn't as bad as this place makes out but he is still probably one of the lower end prem keepers (not his fault really - he's young), and he will develop a lot from here. Edozie again is a good winger, but his end product holds him back. Reality is SR ignored CDM (weakened it with lavia's injury) and didn't assess the striker situation. We spent an awful lot of money and sacked a mananger who would certainly have kept us up with all the transfer kitty we had this season - if only they had addressed striker and cdm. Blame lies with SR for that, and ultimatley for appointing Jones - on what seems a safe assumption that it isn't going to work out.... Really, if they want to play and develop kids and keep the fans on board, a mananger in the mould of bielsa / poch is the way to go...

Ralph also had kwp, ABK, and lavia out for those games, and had to play man City, arsenal, and Newcastle in his last 7. Chelsea as well possibly? He got sacked before he got to play the newly promoted sides like Fulham and forest.

Yeah I get what you mean about signings. All I meant is Ralph tried to put a team on the pitch that could win rather than always playing players just because SR told him to. The recruitment hasn't been great under SR. A couple of gems sure, but that's to be expected whne you spend as much as we have, and there had been a lot of fluff. And it's all been so scatter gun. Very concerned about Paul the more I think about it - he isn't fast, has a poor touch, lacked the stamina to do more than 60min in the pro league, and is only suited to "getting it in the mixer" and hoof ball style play. Saints fans will never trully be happy with that style of football ultimatley and it will limit us for managerial appointments / or mean we've got a dead weight marque signing with limited sell on potential.

Get used to it crabby, that's our team next season in the championship if we keep Jones 😂

Silver lining... This surely had to be the most harmonious thread in saints web history? 😂

Actually horrendous if it's been going on that long. Rasmus certainly has had a very steep learning curve to football club ownership. But he needs to sort this out. We aren't down yet but it's getting less and less likely we survive. He either acts now to get a quality manager in who somehow keeps us up, or he goes out and gets someone to drive us forward next season on the championship who can minimise the hit that is coming with a rejigged business model - I personally would love to see bielsa or poch back (I know it's unlikely). But if we can go and spend nearly £20m on a striker that can only play hoof ball (for a fanbase that wants high tempo attacking pressing football with youngsters), then we can damn well go out and spend it on the right kind of manager. I apreciate the money SR have put in, and I get that they need to learn and will make some mistakes, but they've certainly gone into this thinking they were a heck of a lot cleverer than they thought they were and they need to get their next decisions right or we'll be back to, "save our saints" buckets in another 5 years...

So basically, Ralph took a hard line with SR and they've gone for the yes man 😂. Should have just kept Ralph and got him the players he badly needed. If we sacked Jones I was wondering that if we got Ralph back, would we then only end up paying Ralph his contract and Jones his contract, as opposed to paying off Ralph, Jones, and a 3rd manager's new contract. What a mess though... (not that Ralph would come back or that our fans would accept him obviously).

Even MLG has been on twitter saying the fanbase is unified against him and that it was going to turn unbelievably toxic if brentford went badly... I'm sure MLG would agree those odds are now fairly reflective! 😅

I made it about 24 seconds and it sounds like he's basically going to go to war with the players. Maybe it gets better as I watch more of it?.... Man fuck me. He even gets down to talking about the players as "they"... "they've been losing games", "they've not been defending the box well enough" etc. Direct blaming/shaming off the team and players not being good enough with no togetherness with him as part of the squad. All his comments about himself are "I, I, I, me, me, me" etc. Is he trying to get the sack. Must be some serious klaxons going off upstairs!!