Daft Kerplunk

Adam Blackmore saying on radio that Ralph needs to have better coaches around him, but that he also would need to listen to them too. His lack of interaction with the staff compared with Bielsa and other managers shows either he doesn’t trust them or that they don’t offer anything other than putting the cones out. If Ralph continues on, which is likely because we can’t afford to let him go financially, then surely he needs to be able to appoint his own quality staff instead of this lot that Les left, or be told that it clearly isn’t working well enough with him and this current coaching team. standards need to be raised where we can afford to do it and first team coaches and fitness staff won’t cost the same as a substitute midfielder and could be more impactful.

No decent team needs to get out of second gear to beat us really. Do the Saints board have the honesty to challenge themselves to make things better? They talk a good game but results ain’t lying. All the nice pies and graphics in the world won’t make up for a hungry team competent enough to make it harder work for the better teams. We are still on relegation form and wins against Palace and Fulham hardly scream rejuvenation. It’ll carry on over into next season unless serious changes are made to coaching staff and players.

With this current crop of players, no Ings, no survival. Vital.

Players can either relax and play well or relax because they are now on their holidays and don’t really care where they finish. Be interesting to see what happens for the last four games. Our momentum is downwards, time to reverse it, sign some strong players, move the crap on and restart afresh with some hunger.

Getting kids from the west is fine. The coaches, especially those that have joined in recent years, are the real problem, nowhere near good enough but given jobs because they’ve been at Bath or know Matt personally/played for Bristol or Yeovil. Fine if they are brilliant but not if they aren’t. Need to take on the best coaches to get the best results.

Does this signal the end of the Matt Hale West Country cartel! 🤔

When you look at the u18s and u23s you’ll see that most players have been purchased from other clubs or are rejects from ‘better’ teams. Recruitment hasn’t been great but neither has the coaching, which has dropped hugely from the pre-Les era level. Both of these things are of huge importance to our model so need a massive overhaul starting from the top.

Will Kami sign for Saints though? He can’t have a pro contract yet. Word is that other better clubs are looking at signing him/talking to his people already

At least we don’t have to worry about Ings being the only player who scores reasonably regularly

Seeing as Martin Semmens was instrumental in the selling of the club to Gao, hopefully he can take him with him...

It’s an interesting question. We should be fine but we’ve run into trouble because Kat was desperate to sell and took the money of someone who was not fit for purpose in any way. Add this to what is essentially a club that despite all the PR, is run really badly. I know a few people who work for, or who have worked for and some of the things I’ve been told are laughable, baffling and incompetent. And this is from the very top, across football and commercial. The saving grace is the people at the lower levels give a shit and somehow make things work as best they can. In some ways, the football club is a reflection of the city it is in: has opportunities but does it’s best to avoid taking them and makes it harder/worse than it needs to be. But as long as we are in the Premier League with its TV money, it can survive as a shit show because it doesn’t really need to be well run.

That was incredibly embarrassing but the performance against a 10-man Arsenal was indicative of the bottling style that was at the heart of this pathetic team

Dog poo. Ah well, at least we still have the league. And net spend trophy to play for

Bundesliga sides are opposed to the plans because the German model means commercial investors cannot have more than a 49% stake in clubs, so fans hold a majority of their own voting rights.

They’ll all want back in to domestic football when 11 teams realise their chance of winning has significantly decreased 🤣 Shit idea really but leave ‘em to it.

Dortmund is also about as good a club as you can get to jump off to the big time. Proper football club. We had a brief moment in the sun as a jumping off club when Paul Mitchell was here and then Les fucked it up because he thought he was football’s Billy Beane after watching Moneyball.

Shades of Pellegrino?

But how do you get exposed to gambling? Is it hereditary and not influenced by availability of messaging? Of course a compulsive gambler will gamble regardless but how would you know where to go without marketing? Not a chance that millions are spent on advertising if it doesn’t work, the people that work this out are very intelligent.

You guys should definitely not tell all of the betting companies that sponsor football this secret this because they think it helps sure people know who they are so they use them/legitimise them and encourage them to bet more 🤣 they’ll be gutted to know that all the data that has helped them make the decision to spend millions on football sponsorship is inaccurate nonsense 😎 No personal judgment from me, it is what it is and it’s where money is available right now for clubs in the lower to middling level. But values don’t actually count in premier league football clubs when it comes to money. If crack was legal, they’d take money from that.

The values 100% go out of the window when it comes to money. Anyone who thinks otherwise is very naive.

The fight will be there from WBA but it would be nice if we can compete like we did yesterday and put a further dent in the reputation of Allardyce and make it harder for them to beat relegation

I think we as fans need to be prepared for a pretty hard summer. We will lose our best players who are close to the end of their contracts because we have to fill a serious hole in the finances and there is zero investment from Gao and no sale unless he recoups his money fully. This may become a reality if we get relegated next season because we might not have the quality of players needed to stay up. It’s going to be a rough ride. Buckle in.

What a day! Was significant because it confirmed we were on our way back to where we belonged. What football was all about.

Consistently producing is the only good way to assess. Dropping in players to the first team to improve academy stats is a fallacy. “Valery, Sims, Vokins, Slatterly and Hesketh will all make it with EPL or Championship clubs” Championship possibly, Premier League is very unlikely. Some of these players aren’t that young anymore.

Saints probably don’t mind a transfer being in the media if it helps drive up the price. The club absolutely needs the money so I’m expecting Ings plus others to leave with no effort to keep them because we can’t. There won’t be significant incomings either. Club’s finances are screwed and neither Gao or an inept commercial boss help.