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Cardiff 2-1 Saints - Match Thread


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25 minutes ago, davefizzy14 said:

Really gutting this. We should have been out of sight. So annoyed. Really hope Stuart is all ok and his injury isn't serious 🙏

Blackmore saying it's a career ending injury for someone his age, could be out for 9months.

On a positive, S Armstrong was due to retire anyway, just a shame it's now.

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2 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

I think we've got one more shot next season if we get our recruitment right.

If he cock it up next season then, yeah - we won't be seeing PL football for many, many years as the gap to bridge will only get bigger. Ipswich have shown that you don't need to spend a fortune to compete occasionally, but the form horse is that the teams with the $$ will be the ones competing 99% of the time.

That is a massive if considering our transfer windows under SR. 

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1 minute ago, Saint NL said:

Just watching the FA Cup semi final, that Nicolas Jackson looks a perfect fit for saints. Clean through and ends up facing the wrong way 😂

Perfect foil for Che

No surprise then that he was SR’s top target in the January we got relegated 🤣

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8 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

May I just raise this one thought? If Leeds lose on Monday and we beat Leicester on Tuesday then how sickening is this result going to look?

No more than Rotherham or Millwall. If we had won those 2 we would not have been in the Last Chance Saloon today.

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48 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

Nonsense. There are only 4 good teams in this league and we are the worst of the 4. 
 

Our squad is better than 4th. 

Not to direct the blame away from Russell, but no chance IMO. We have the worst GKs in the league, which is one of the most important positions. 

We also have below par strikers, again one of the most important positions and then apparently, despite spending 12m on one, no back up DMs.

The rest of the squad is easily better than 4th best in the league. Problem is we’re stacked with quality in positions which are less important than the two or three where we aren’t.

So easy to identify, so easy to fix. Yet somehow Wilcox couldn’t. Even when he still had a chance in Jan.

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3 minutes ago, obelisk said:

This is the top of RM's level. We'll not make it through the playoff semis. Another season with this clown in charge and we'll be the new Swansea.

Even if by some miracle he managed to get us up via the playoffs (spoiler alert, he won't!) I would sack him immediately after the final.  His one dimensional gameplan and tactics will get easily found out in the Premiere league.

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8 minutes ago, Nemi said:

Not to direct the blame away from Russell, but no chance IMO. We have the worst GKs in the league, which is one of the most important positions. 

We also have below par strikers, again one of the most important positions and then apparently, despite spending 12m on one, no back up DMs.

The rest of the squad is easily better than 4th best in the league. Problem is we’re stacked with quality in positions which are less important than the two or three where we aren’t.

So easy to identify, so easy to fix. Yet somehow Wilcox couldn’t. Even when he still had a chance in Jan.

Totally agree about the DM situation.  That was the big hole in the squad in January. Not Rothwell. Someone like that Ralls for Cardiff, not a possession footballer but someone to close out games and mix it up a bit. 

I hope we give Dibbling some time in the next 3 games, as I don't fancy Rothwell as a Stuart Armstrong replacement. 

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46 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It's a common refrain.  Have his substitutions every turned a game around?

Thought his subs last year turned the game around in a few games. More recently, his subs seem to have made the team worse. Maybe since the January transfer window he's has more choice and he loves to tinker with the team and formation.

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5 minutes ago, die Mannyschaft said:

Too much to ask other teams to lose and too much pressure on Saints to win remaining games. Missed chances will be our downfall if in championship next season. Need a lot of luck now, did we really have 20 shots today!

21 with 8 on target according to the BBC but we all know that such bare figures don't tell you the whole story.

 

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Just now, Lee On Solent Saint said:

8 on target and only one goal. Read that and it suggests their keeper had a storming game.

He did pull off some great saves tbf, I recall one from a diving header from Adam Armstrong - he couldn't have done anymore, but the keeper got really strong hands to that.

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9 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

8 on target and only one goal. Read that and it suggests their keeper had a storming game.

Or that the shots were nothing special.  

As I have always maintained, bare figures are meaningless without context.

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2 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Or that the shots were nothing special.  

As I have always maintained, bare figures are meaningless without context.

I didn't see any of the game, but Adam Blackmore seemed to think the keeper shoud not have got near any of the saves that he actually made.

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3 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Or that the shots were nothing special.  

As I have always maintained, bare figures are meaningless without context.

Shots off target tell a big story, some were very close in pathetic attempts  

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56 minutes ago, Master Bates said:

Blackmore saying it's a career ending injury for someone his age, could be out for 9months.

On a positive, S Armstrong was due to retire anyway, just a shame it's now.

Given he is supposedly retiring at end of season it would be career-ending.

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14 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

He did pull off some great saves tbf, I recall one from a diving header from Adam Armstrong - he couldn't have done anymore, but the keeper got really strong hands to that.

Nah.  Armstrong got good contact but it was the perfect spot for the keeper to save it.  Not saying it wasn't a decent save but no more than that imo.  Armstrong should have given him no chance with his header 

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27 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

8 on target and only one goal. Read that and it suggests their keeper had a storming game.

There must be a lot of great keepers in this division on that basis... Or perhaps we're just not great at shooting?

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12 minutes ago, Barsiem said:

Armstrong got good contact but it was the perfect spot for the keeper to save it.  Not saying it wasn't a decent save but no more than that imo.  Armstrong should have given him no chance with his header 

To be fair to Armstrong, he always scores in training. 

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1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

And yet only one of them has made the team of the season. KWP, THB and Downes are top quality. Bednarek, Stu and AA have been decent for the most part. Fraser, Aribo and Adams are good on their day but those days seem sporadic at best. The rest I can pretty much take or leave.

So much of our supposed talent has contributed f**k all. Sully, Rothwell, Edozie, Alcaraz, Mara, I wouldn't care for one second if they all left tomorrow.

What is your problem with Edozie ? ( can’t disagree about the rest although we do seem to have been worse without Alcaraz around the squad?) 

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Close season we need a decent keeper and a decent striker. We've needed them for some time, but the collective clowns of SR and Jason Wilcox have repeatedly failed to deliver. Thank fuck at least one of those is out of the picture now. 

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1 hour ago, Saint NL said:

Who else feels robbed of the rare chance to see a real all or nothing game on Tuesday? Game like those are rare, it could have been something that you never forget. Instead it's a dead rubber now.

Yep. Fuck off Saints.

The premature ejaculators of the division.

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1 hour ago, Micky said:

Even if by some miracle he managed to get us up via the playoffs (spoiler alert, he won't!) I would sack him immediately after the final.  His one dimensional gameplan and tactics will get easily found out in the Premiere league.

I like Russell Martin but I was convinced a while ago SR would ditch him . I wish I can remember the details but Goetepe had a decent manager they were doing OK but there was underlying discontent with his tactics. Completely out of the blue SR sacked him some were annoyed because Goztepe were fairly high up in the league. They had a new manager lined up and Goztepe completely improved. 
Dragan Solak will find our failure humiliating. Said before he owns a lot of companies and is very heavily involved in Serbian politics . I’ve followed his career . They have a business model and with the squad we have we should have pissed the league. 
Manage to blag our way up through the playoffs or stay in the championship there’s no way SR will say we were unlucky nearly made it . 

 

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1 hour ago, Nemi said:

Not to direct the blame away from Russell, but no chance IMO. We have the worst GKs in the league, which is one of the most important positions. 

We also have below par strikers, again one of the most important positions and then apparently, despite spending 12m on one, no back up DMs.

The rest of the squad is easily better than 4th best in the league. Problem is we’re stacked with quality in positions which are less important than the two or three where we aren’t.

So easy to identify, so easy to fix. Yet somehow Wilcox couldn’t. Even when he still had a chance in Jan.

Adam Armstrong is top of the goals scored + assists. 2nd for goals and 3rd for assists.

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13 minutes ago, manji said:

I like Russell Martin but I was convinced a while ago SR would ditch him . I wish I can remember the details but Goetepe had a decent manager they were doing OK but there was underlying discontent with his tactics. Completely out of the blue SR sacked him some were annoyed because Goztepe were fairly high up in the league. They had a new manager lined up and Goztepe completely improved. 
Dragan Solak will find our failure humiliating. Said before he owns a lot of companies and is very heavily involved in Serbian politics . I’ve followed his career . They have a business model and with the squad we have we should have pissed the league. 
Manage to blag our way up through the playoffs or stay in the championship there’s no way SR will say we were unlucky nearly made it . 

 

You can't blame Dragon and SR for taking that stance. Forget the football, from a business point of view,  today was the day that we blew our very best chance of returning to the Premiere League, the richest league in the world.  Our next chance is obviously through the playoffs, fail there and we could be facing many years in the football wilderness.  In terms of both results and business, today was a bloody disaster. 

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2 minutes ago, Micky said:

You can't blame Dragon and SR for taking that stance. Forget the football, from a business point of view,  today was the day that we blew our very best chance of returning to the Premiere League, the richest league in the world.  Our next chance is obviously through the playoffs, fail there and we could be facing many years in the football wilderness.  In terms of both results and business, today was a bloody disaster. 

Taken with all the other disasters over the season, yes it was. 

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First and foremost the strikers need to take a hard look at themselves today. Had they done their jobs we would have won easily.

They screwed up in the first half and then the team gave up in the 2nd.

Whenever we look like we might be back in the race they collapse like a deck of cards.

We need some stronger characters in the team. Mentally they are suspect.

Oh well, at least we know it's definitely playoffs now.

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38 minutes ago, Morse said:

Close season we need a decent keeper and a decent striker. We've needed them for some time, but the collective clowns of SR and Jason Wilcox have repeatedly failed to deliver. Thank fuck at least one of those is out of the picture now. 

Think we're going to need a lot more than that. About 9 players I would think.

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22 minutes ago, manji said:

I like Russell Martin but I was convinced a while ago SR would ditch him . I wish I can remember the details but Goetepe had a decent manager they were doing OK but there was underlying discontent with his tactics. Completely out of the blue SR sacked him some were annoyed because Goztepe were fairly high up in the league. They had a new manager lined up and Goztepe completely improved. 
Dragan Solak will find our failure humiliating. Said before he owns a lot of companies and is very heavily involved in Serbian politics . I’ve followed his career . They have a business model and with the squad we have we should have pissed the league. 
Manage to blag our way up through the playoffs or stay in the championship there’s no way SR will say we were unlucky nearly made it . 

 

 

interesting thks Manji....

Been thinking for a while that we have a unique problem at Saints - and it lies specifically in the chain of command between the owner (Dragan) and the man running the club (Ankerssen).

Perhaps being naive and over-simplistic here, but lets say the chain of command goes like this....Owner - CEO - DOF - Manager - Players and the rest.

Like most organisations, everything cascades from the top....the owner has put his cash in, he wants  1) a return on his investment eg. SFC needs to become worth more than the 200mio odd quid he paid for it   2) a legacy / something he can show off / be proud of.

When neither of these things happen, the owner usually gets pissed off and makes changes - usually replacing the guy immediately below him. In other words 'Rasmus, why did you appoint Wilcox, and agree for him to appoint Nathan Jones, RM and everyone else associated with failing? You spannered it, you're out"

This hasn't happened.

So begs the question:   Is the owner that bothered about getting a return on his investment or is SFC just a place to park some capital.

Perhaps he just has unflappable belief that Ankerssen will eventually get things right.

No idea, probably being very naive, just something I've pondered. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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41 minutes ago, manji said:

I like Russell Martin but I was convinced a while ago SR would ditch him . I wish I can remember the details but Goetepe had a decent manager they were doing OK but there was underlying discontent with his tactics. Completely out of the blue SR sacked him some were annoyed because Goztepe were fairly high up in the league. They had a new manager lined up and Goztepe completely improved. 
Dragan Solak will find our failure humiliating. Said before he owns a lot of companies and is very heavily involved in Serbian politics . I’ve followed his career . They have a business model and with the squad we have we should have pissed the league. 
Manage to blag our way up through the playoffs or stay in the championship there’s no way SR will say we were unlucky nearly made it . 

 

But that's the problem. He was hired because of his possession based tactics, so I'm not so sure they'll ditch RM if he fails to get promotion.

What pisses me off is that we were given a lifeline last weekend with that last minute goal and we squandered that today. 

 

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1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

21 with 8 on target according to the BBC but we all know that such bare figures don't tell you the whole story.

 

just seen the 2 mins highlights ............................how did we not score more than 1?........................terrible finishing yet again.

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25 minutes ago, Micky said:

You can't blame Dragon and SR for taking that stance. Forget the football, from a business point of view,  today was the day that we blew our very best chance of returning to the Premiere League, the richest league in the world.  Our next chance is obviously through the playoffs, fail there and we could be facing many years in the football wilderness.  In terms of both results and business, today was a bloody disaster. 

hey we have another 3 bloody  disasters to play yet.....and some.

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Thought we played well, first half was up there with as good as we've been all season and come half time we should have been miles ahead.

Second half was tighter but we still created enough chances to clearly win.

Both their goals were somewhat lucky.

Sad news about Stu Armstrong, he'll be a big miss for the rest of the season.

 

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21 minutes ago, Esher Saint said:

 

interesting thks Manji....

Been thinking for a while that we have a unique problem at Saints - and it lies specifically in the chain of command between the owner (Dragan) and the man running the club (Ankerssen).

Perhaps being naive and over-simplistic here, but lets say the chain of command goes like this....Owner - CEO - DOF - Manager - Players and the rest.

Like most organisations, everything cascades from the top....the owner has put his cash in, he wants  1) a return on his investment eg. SFC needs to become worth more than the 200mio odd quid he paid for it   2) a legacy / something he can show off / be proud of.

When neither of these things happen, the owner usually gets pissed off and makes changes - usually replacing the guy immediately below him. In other words 'Rasmus, why did you appoint Wilcox, and agree for him to appoint Nathan Jones, RM and everyone else associated with failing? You spannered it, you're out"

This hasn't happened.

So begs the question:   Is the owner that bothered about getting a return on his investment or is SFC just a place to park some capital.

Perhaps he just has unflappable belief that Ankerssen will eventually get things right.

No idea, probably being very naive, just something I've pondered. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I doubt that Solak would be able to just arbitrarily fire Ankerson. He isn't an employee, he's the founder of a company Solak invested in. I'm sure DS has considerable power at board level, but it won't be as simple as snapping his fingers in displeasure.

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What is with the sense of entitlement from some Saints fans?  Calling for Martin's head if we don't go up is utterly ridiculous: we have played some of the most exciting football for years.  Yes we have been frustrating at times but much of that is to do with the recruitment - not getting a fit striker in the summer was criminal.

Add to that, Che (who blows hot and cold), the pointless signings of CHarles, STewart, Rothwell and Brookes (together with the unmitigated disaster signings of ABK, Suleman, Tall Paul, etc. last season) it's a miracle we have done as well as we have this season.  I recall the same complainers whining we would be lucky to finish top half at the start of the season.

Sacking the manager every 12 months (or sooner) is not a recipe for success and I really enjoy watching our style pf play.  Today was not on Martin but on Che, Brookes and AA who had a shocking time in front of goal.

 

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