Saint86

Penalties aren't included in xG 😇 I'm not defending Jones, we were far to easy to play through. But we did do some decent attacking and with better players up front we'd have generated more chances / taken more of what we did generate. We were still to easy to play through, and the goals we conceded were embassingly soft.

Tbf to Jones, there was some promising signs against Brighton... We attacked and created over 2xG, we limited Brighton to under 1.... The issues were that we had no central defensive holding man, and our attacker's are all utterly shit at actually scoring. Plus bazunu looks like a broken kid at the back atm. We all know the issues. No CDM, and no strikers that can finish... Plus recalling tella is an absolute no brainer... Sadly I doubt we have the time or funds to get men in to address that and gel them together.

Main issues with this analogy. 1.) Hassenhuttle is a far better mananger than Jones. 2.) we need another ings, and it's going to cost serious money at this point - if one is even available and interested.

The rot started the summer les Reed told the fans, "no one will be sold". And then sold lambert the day after season ticket renewals closed. The rest is history. That summer absolutely shattered the bond between the fans and the promotion team and our atmosphere and chants have been poor (and getting worse since). The period that followed got us used to our "lucky to compete" mentality, with players coming to the club seeing us a stepping stone, only to be sold/leave at the first opportunity - to the point that now we have probably only one player that truly cares about the club (JWP), a load of disinterested average squad players, and some kids. Huge air of deja vu for me. We've appointed a weak mananger who is out of his depth, have a load of average squad fillers in the first team, and a fanbase that is so sick of it / apathetic that some of them would quite happily rip it all down to start again. Bleak years ahead I fear... But then we aren't down yet and we do have a January window to try and save the season. What's worse is we seem to have a total lack of leadership and direction - a chairman who is playing fantasy football with a cherry picked yes man mananger who is out of his depth, and signing players that aren't good enough for this level with no independant head of recruitment. Grim.

Koeman's Shane long would have been one of the best players in our current team.

By definition, a yoyo club is one that aims for 17th and misses 😅😜

If the club consider that we are going down (which looks like a close certainty), then they may well unfortunately be preparing for it now... And under than line of thinking there are definetly players they will want to shift off the wage bill - and for as much money as we can manage... Salisu sadly would be a prime example - contract running down and his value will only drop if we get relegated. Unlikely to renew as well given what a car crash we are as a club. I think it's therefore unlikely he will be here next season so the board could sell him now. I doubt kwp will stay to play championship football and is also probably on a fair whack, so another the board may decide to cash in on now... Grim times ahead regardless. Regarding funds for a rebuild, what happens with that £70-80M loan of we get relegated? Just an additional ball and chain around the clubs neck that we'll have to find the money to pay off whilst also cutting costs and trying to rebuild?

JWP is perfectly fine with a solid CDM next to him. But lavia is injured and we sold Romeu. So the reality is that next to him he has either diallo or ANM (both awful in that role), and in front of him he's working with Moi, Adam Armstrong, Che Adams etc. In the long list of issues Saints have, JWP isn't one or them.

Ideally we want forest and Bournemouth surely? Don't want to be competing with Everton in the championship personally.

Tough to disagree too much. I'd move DCC and S. Armstrong into the top bracket. I also think perraud is good enough for the prem (but he'll never be one of our best players). Edozie (at current level) and moi are passable for a relegation scrapping team... But when you have moi, edozie, Che, and Armstrong as your combined set of attacker's it's basically fatal to our survival chances sadly. We'll waste so many guilt edge chances it's not even funny. We only have lavia as a competent CDM. This is shocking from a recruitment perspective and a massive reason for why we have struggled. Defence should be fine. Not sure why Jones started lyanco though... GK needs to be better. We need reinforcements at the start of January regardless of who the manager is.

The JWP header is a clear 1.0 on the xG stats (or near enough), and we had several other chances that would have pushed us over 2 - not least a couple of decent attacks soon after half time. We had 14 shots yesterday, 4 on target 🙄. As before, our finishing is horrendous. If anything you've just highlighted the value of xG as a stasticial viewpoint over supporter perception. Nice one 😜. Brighton's 0.91 total really does highlight what a horror show we had at the back for the first 2 goals yesterday, plus ofc a very tidy long range strike. Time to give bazunu a break surely? And we really cannot be dropping ABK for lyanco!

Spotted that did you? 🤣

We narrowly missed out on champions league football under koeman, so clearly a well run club can compete in the Premier league. The sad reality is that with the academy now starting to produce again, there was a pretty good future within reach - but that looks to have slipped away now, and we can likely look forward to ballard, dibling, and Co being poached by bigger clubs for peanuts, whilst we struggle for momentum in the 2nd tier. Its been all downhill since Kat cashed out to Chairman Gao - the rest is just a history of chronic under investment and non footballing people making bad footballing decisions.

The point about Ralph is debatable (reality is he just needed an ings replacement imo), but the rest is spot on and succinct. Absolute horror show from SR. We have finally got the academy back on track as well, with the first really good batch of top quality kids about to emerge... and we'll be relegated and financially stricken at just the perfect time to see them poached for peanuts and playing for Premiership sides. Deja vu. Cruel.

Should never have been sacked when he was to be honest. We'd have picked up points under him this January. Can anyone say the same about Jones with any kind of confidence 😭

I attribute a fair portion of the blame to the fans that wanted Ralph sacked frankly. The entitlement behind that thinking, and the toxic atmosphere that was generated by those fans, has led us directly to here. Nothing can change it now, but some need to consider that before having another tantrum over Jones... After all, those fans have got what they wanted, and how many times were we assured on here that we couldn't hire someone worse than Ralph...

Wrongly sacked a decent mananger. Now we'll reap what we've sown.

Interestingly he liked my posts querying whether the 5 at the back was being enforced from on high...

That doesn't seem to be the case though? We have stated we're innocent and made a case to state we're in compliance with the rules. No evidence has been provided to demonstrate that we have breached the rules, but we have accepted the "punishment" for the welfare of the player. Its not even a meaningful punishment... the Athletic provide numerous examples of other clubs that have breached the rules and have had far more significant punishments including lengthy bans on academy transfers - something that was not dished out to us, presumably because there is no evidence to show we are guilty of anything untoward. All in all, a bit of a weird one.

So you're saying that what most people think is meaningless? You're not pulling any punches there😅

No real surprises here - we are where we are basically because of our finishing, that and key injuries across the back and midfield. Without attacking additions, its hard to see how we get out of this mess - regardless of who the manager is.

Pendant alarm - Nathan Jones took control of the team before the world Cup and managed the side vs Liverpool. Therefore a ball had been kicked... Regardless, I can certainly see the points Steve (OP) has made above, and there are some concerning signs early doors. The reality is Ralph was failed on the recruitment front but would likely have kept us up if backed with a good striker/CAM in Jan. I'd go so far as to say that if we had signed a quality striker in the summer (and not had the injuries), that we'd have been pushing top 10 comfortably - even with this young side needing to gel. But alas, we have Che Adams, Adam Armstrong, Walcott and Moi as our main attacking outlets. We all know that without reinforcements, Jones is likely doomed to take us down - hopefully he was insistent on additions as part of taking the job. But Ralph is gone and Jones is here now - and he is clearly SR's man. That he's come in and we've gone straight back to the same (I would say doomed) 5-3-2 long ball (bollocks) that Ralph mysteriously started playing in pre season is interesting to me. Could be coincidence, maybe it's the state of the game tactically right now, or maybe it's how SR want us to focus our style and recruitment approach. Whatever the reasons, its a style of football that this squad has shown is is deeply unsuited for previously, I have my doubts it will work at this level (or indeed even vs Lincoln), and that the fans surely won't tolerate unless we start winning every game. I want to say there are mitigations for why we changed our typical style and started with 5 at the back and long ball football at home vs a league 1 side... But there are perilously few legitimate reasons I can come up with for that... And from a manager who said he wouldn't change things too quick as well. So when Steve voices concerns about it - he is not going to be alone... Credit to Jones though, he did change it up eventually, and here is to hoping that whatever formation Jones actually settles on is effective at anyrate. I think he's probably a decent manager in the making, but he's going to be up against it at saints - due to the situation we're in, the poor quality attacking options, and the fact that fans will expect a certain style of play from him. Looking forward to seeing us against Brighton at anyrate (have missed saints playing regularly even if we have been pretty dire 😂), and I'm curious to see how we set up and how effective we are.

Its also not very accurate. The back 4 is the strongest part of the team 😂. We are going down of we don't start scoring our chances. The end.

I agree with most of what you've put here.... except your use of the word "if"... 🤣 We could barely beat Lincoln, let alone the best club side in the world.

If its any consolation, Brighton are no longer the team they were under Potter.