mrfahaji

It beggars belief that the only position (of the AM-3) Tadic hasn't played this season (maybe he has for the odd half, I can't remember) is his best position...

That is probably the biggest downside to the NFL for me, the QB is such an important position. It's possible to win with an average one if the rest of your team is exceptional (eg Ravens), but extremely difficult. I know that there are certain positions which have a bigger bearing than others in football (GK, CF?) but not to the same extent. And it's also a factor which lasts a decade, not a couple of seasons.

I learnt as an 8 year old that the defence goes up together and back together to avoid leaving a striker alone and onside. You'd hope professionals being paid millions a year would have learnt that by now.

We also seem to be a bit unlucky with long shots. I mean, I know that having a terrible goalkeeper and not putting pressure on the ball are two reasons why we concede them, and maybe the fact we never score any ourselves makes it seem worse than it is, but it feels like every other game someone bangs one in from 25+ yards against us. Doucoure, Janmaat, Hayden, Sigurdsson, Milivojevic, Sterling, Alonso... Ok, maybe not every other game, but still quite a few? Not that that excuses anything we've seen this season. It has been truly appalling.

Eric Black?

Not sure an away match would have much impact, but for a home game, maybe supporters should gather outside the stadium or in the concourse and not take their seats for the first half. By all means go and cheer the team on in the second, but would be quite interesting to see an empty stadium at the start/middle of the game. That way people would all be doing it together, and would still get something for their money, rather than boycotting at home wondering if other people would do the same - kind of the prisoners dilemma, no-one takes action because they know their action alone won't do anything, so don't want to be the only one to miss out.

Accurate as always, good point about the Davis-JWP substitution taking so long, and then not changing it despite the equaliser. It's these little things that give him away as being clueless, as well as the obvious things like poor performances and bad results. I think back to Stamford Bridge where it took him a good few minutes, lots of Cedric waving to the bench before eventually sitting down before he was subbed, and then the players all looking around asking each other who was playing where etc because there was no instruction from the sideline... you wouldn't even see that in the Tyro league ffs.

While all that is true, surely it is up to the manager to find that balance and get the good players working together? Having an unbalanced squad might explain why good players aren't doing quite as well as they perhaps should, it doesn't explain why players who have taken the interest of Champions League sides should be battling relegation. Of all the things you've listed, I think the lack of pace in our squad is a major deficiency. Whether it's to have as a regular tactic or just someone to bring on to give a different dimension to the play. And before anyone suggests him, Nathan Redmond has been tricking the world into thinking he has pace for most of his career...

Split the games into four categories: City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham (H), Arsenal (A) - maybe 1 point from one of these games somewhere. Everton, Leicester, Burnley, Newcastle (A) - difficult places to go, might get a win or a couple of draws at best. Watford, West Ham, West Brom, Swansea (A) - probably our best chance of picking up points away from home, but if they're still in the relegation dogfight when we play them won't be easy. A couple of wins and a draw, optimistic? Stoke, Bournemouth, Brighton (H) - must win games, but I doubt we will, especially as Bournemouth & Brighton have extra bite. 2 wins and a draw. So, being fairly optimistic - because, given what we've seen this season, what evidence is there that we can beat any team that isn't in disarray? - that gives us 5 wins and 4 draws. 20 + 19 = 39. Jeez, that's not good. Not good at all. If Pellegrino stays I can only really see us picking between 10 and 15 points and therefore going down.

He's taking us down He's taking us down Pellegrino He's taking us down

The depressing thing is how we shouldn't be in this position. In the 90s it was nearly always a battle, but you accepted and expected it because we didn't have much money, didn't have the best players, and 17th was about our level. We now have a squad of internationals, have finished in the top 8 for the past 4 seasons, have qualified for Europe twice, reached a cup final and are balancing the books (and no, I don't believe that balancing the books is the reason for our struggles). Last season was clearly a downturn but it should have been a bump in the road, not the edge of a cliff.

You're taking us down You're taking us down Pellegrino You're taking us down

Exactly. How many of our team would stay if we went down? Not many. Why is that? Because they'd be wanted by Premier League clubs, and not just ones scrapping at the bottom. Ergo, we shouldn't be anywhere near the bottom three with our squad.

I disagree. If we had the best strikers in the land playing for us our fortunes would only marginally improve. Austin is a goalscorer. Gabbiadini is a quality player who has an eye for goal. Sure, maybe we need another one to cover for injuries, or to make better use of subs, but I really don't think a good striker would solve our problems. And it's not easy to find a guaranteed goalscorer, certainly not one who is affordable. How many sitters has Gabbiadini missed? I can't remember many. He's clearly not in form but that's largely down to a lack of confidence and not playing to his strengths (or not playing him at all). You don't become a bad player. At Chelsea he barely put a foot wrong when he got the ball, but just wasn't given the service. Yesterday he was put on for 10 minutes as part of a bizarre substitution that caused us to completely lose grip on the game.

I heard a snippet, I don't know how reliable the source is, maybe some actual ITKs could confirm it. Apparently Puel signed the GK Hassan with the idea of playing him, but was told by the board that he couldn't. Presumably this was to keep Forster's value up (and also why we gave him a new contract, and why we haven't given McCarthy a go until we're in major trouble). I firmly believe Puel was told to do the same with Rodriguez (i.e. play him) so that we could sell for a decent fee. You could argue it was worth it in J-Rod's case, but not sure, if this is indeed true, that it's the best model of running a football club. You should play to win matches, not to keep your balance sheet as healthy as possible.

In his defence, we didn't have much money anyway, and the absolute worst thing you can do is spend loads of money and still get relegated. Obviously spending boosts your chances of staying up, but if you don't manage it the entire club is screwed for years to come. Where we really ****ed up was spending loads of money in the Championship and banking on getting promotion, which had the same effect. I'm not unhappy with the board because of player transfers - though there have been plenty of frustrating moments, and it annoys me how great they think they are with all the tripe they put out about the club and their 'strategy' - I'm unhappy because the single most important responsibility is appointing the right manager. They have got it hideously wrong and are refusing to acknowledge it.

I put £12 on at 16/1 after the Burnley game. Doesn't seem enough now! Also put a couple of quid on Derby to be promoted in September at 9/1. Definitely regretting not putting more on that!

Yes. Without doubt. Was talking to a Boro fan at work (who hung his head in despair when I said some people think we should get Monk) about the importance of a good manager, and he asked me, "if you could sign no players but get Guardiola or Conte, or keep Pellegrino sign Harry Kane, what would you choose?" For me the answer is definitely the former.

Couldn't stand him when he joined but I thought he actually played pretty well for us.

I wasn't really referring to City Centre/High Street to be honest. More a comment of the general quality of people that seem to be from there. It is of course possible I am unduly influenced by the constant barrage of scousers in the media, like Mick Quinn and John Aldridge... but in general Liverpool and Everton fans seem to have a delusional high opinion of their club, and people from Liverpool (in general) have a delusional high opinion of themselves and their city. Agree that Southampton isn't great though...

The sad state of affairs is that at the time that people were talking about BFS, pretty much any manager could have come in and steered us to a midtable position. Because we have left it so late, we now may be faced with having to appoint a manager with a short term objective rather than getting the best manager to take the club forward in the long term. How we laughed at Crystal Palace for getting rid of Frank de Boer so ridiculously early, and then turning to Roy Hodgson, of all people! to save them.

Pellegrino doesn't rate him. That's right, the manager of a relegation threatened side can't see the use of a player who a few months ago was centre forward for Italy. Having said that, we could have Harry Kane up front and still not score goals.

I'm going. Thought I'd take my missus to her first ever Saints game (well technically second, because she sat in the Fulham end, a week before we met, in our 3-0 win on our last visit). Thought it'd be a fun day out, but I've already apologised that it is going to be the most miserable football experience she could wish for!

The best way we can, and the first way we should spend the van Dijk money, is paying off Pellegrino's contract.

Well that's just it, I don't think anyone played particuarly badly. We were playing quite well first half, and leading, yet we sat back and let them seize the initiative. Then after they inevitably equalise, he takes off Hojbjerg, who is having a good game but more importantly playing as the central midfield engine and puts on a striker. We completely lost control of the game then, it was easy for Palace. It was typical that the winning goal came from a position where we would normally have had a second midfielder covering/blocking.