Saint86

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!!

Thought I'd try to put this into an office setting - He's got a team working on a project. When it goes well, as PM he's up there taking all the credit whilst his team have put in the hard work and grind to deliver... The second things then go badly, he's essentially announced to the entire company (or in this case the country) that what's gone wrong is the workers under him are shit and have done a bad job (Newcastle post match), rather than aknowledge that they were following his instructions and working practices, so if the team can't do it they weren't well enough prepared... Following that, in the background, some of his team have had internal discussions and quiet words with him, raised concerns, asked to try things a bit differently, possibly even commented on his man management style (according to some rumours) etc. Jones's response was then to effectivley kick them off the project (dump them in the reserves for a week or so), and then tell his bosses and the wider company (and anyone who will listen - I.e. The media in this instance), that he's a great mananger, that his staff aren't performing, and that some of them have been kicked off the project (without naming names but via insinuation - knowing full well its easy to see who he means). - the brentford post match. Its not great is it? Working for him you don't know if you're going to get blamed/shamed/punished following a bad result. Although I aknowledge that the dynamic is different at a football club with the aspects of player power. We can only really know what he says to us through his interviews and press conferences, those are his chance to speak to the fans. But by all accounts, my takeaway since the start is that he has a huge chip on his shoulder about his experience levels ("with the greatest respect" at Luton i was manager of the year, blah blah blah"), and he comes accross as the absolute worse kind of people manager - re what is effectivley a blame and bullying culture following bad results. Now maybe I'm doing him wrong by progressively developing that impression, but its where I am at with him now - and the rumour mill is equally circulating similar. Regardless, if he isn't going, hopefully he turns it around. And we'll see how it all turns out whether he's lost some or all of the dressing room, or whether he really was having a bash at SR...

He was happy taking the plaudits then, but now he's losing its the players' fault and he's spent 2 post match presser very publically throwing them under the bus... Can you imagine the dressing room atmosphere 😢

Yes I agree it will be interesting. Ultimatley we can all just speculate. The guy has a chip on his shoulder about his ability / experience, and has never once owned being a Premier league mananger. It's not surprising if he has rubbed up players and other coaches the wrong way! And I said all of this not even being aware he'd had a falling out will selles at Newcastle 😅😂

He spent Newcastle post match blaming the players for his errors in selection and tactics. He spent the brentford one saying it was his fault... And then spent the next few minutes saying what a wonderful manager he is and sagging off the performance from the players, says players win matches, not systems... Then says he's basically catered to the players rather than his system (but it's all his fault not the players 🙄). Add to that that on the back of dropping orsic DCC and mara to the reserves he's made his comments about not accommodating certain things etc anymore (and bearing in mind they've all been playing recently every 3-4 days so benching would have been fine). Plus you had ITKs and rumours coming out Immediatley after the Newcastle game to say the dressing room was unhappy about the selection and post match comments... And low and behold, players dropped to the reserve squad. Something had happened. Takes a very blind leap of faith to assume the dressing room is fine and it's SR he's falling out with!

It was clear he was speaking about players to me. That wasn't a veiled dig at SR.

A mirror of 2004/05 basically.