Will Still

[benjii]

1 hour ago, Sir Ralph said:

This explains that Still isn’t the problem but the players are and recruitment 

The fact that, Coventry aside, there isn't much of a correlation between the expected points and the actual points shows it's a fucking stupid way to assess anything. 

It's not like we are the outlier.

Edited 8 hours ago by benjii

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Sir Ralph said:

This explains that Still isn’t the problem but the players are and recruitment 

The only stat that means anything there is in the Points column.  The rest is meaningless.

Still subbed Scienza for Jack Stephens while we were 1 up on Saturday.  Let that sink in.  That’s just one of a number of crap substitutions he has made this season.  The team shape is chaotic, the players don’t look drilled - confused but not drilled.  We have also had an unprecedented illness epidemic that suggests to me that the players aren’t behind Still.

He was an experiment that has failed.  Personally, it seems no merit in delaying the inevitable.  He just hasn’t got it.

 

[St Louis]

10 hours ago, HKsaint said:

I don’t understand why there are still so many Will Still supporters here at this stage.

I wouldnt say it's Will Still 'supporters', I would say its not feeling like the time is right to give up and ditch him yet. And I'd say I'm one of those.
Based on a few things... like the fact I dont think chopping and changing managers/coaches/staff/squad every 5 minutes helps anyone (we have tried that for the last 25 years!)
I also think this club is properly rotten/cursed/demoralised (whatever you want to call it), and 4 wins in 50 games, 1 home win in 12 months, etc shows that, and that has been the case long before Still arrived.
My main reason though (which is highlighted well in the video embed above)... is that we are creating LOTS of chances in games, and lots of big chances too. We are just not sticking them away, and that isnt Still's fault IMHO. If we werent creating anything, then I would be more worried.
I dont think we will go up this season now (we may scrape playoffs if we can start to turn it around soon), but I also dont think we are anywhere near as bad as our league position suggests. Fine margins and all that, and a couple of those chances stuck away and we win those games and are right up there. 
I understand that the bottom line is that we need wins and points, so my patience will wear pretty thin very quickly if this carries on, but I want him to be given longer for now, probably to reassess at the next International break.

Edited 8 hours ago by St Louis

[Saint86]

On 28/10/2025 at 16:55, capitalsaint said:

I could be mistaken, but didn't Fellows get joint top assists for the league last year? And Azaz 5th most?

You are correct. Fellows was top for assists last year (14).

Adam Armstrong (described above as "just okay" based on his "last full championship season") was top for combined goals and assists (with 34) - 10% higher than the player in 2nd place (Sammie Szmodics) with Summerville (who i think got player of the season) managing only 28😆. Always weird to see how we denigrate AA on here, he's a great player for the champ level, and if people think we're struggling now i'd dread to think what we'd be like without him.......

Finn Azaz was also 3rd for combined goals and assists last season with boro with 23 (11 assists, 12 goals) - and worth repeating again that Fellows was top for assists on 14. Incidentally, Piroe came top last season with 26 (19goals - top scorer) in a far far better side than boro (which incidentally is also a long way short of AA's "just okay" 34... FML  😆).

Moving to Charles. Fotmob have him as statistically the 8th best midfielder in the league last season, in which he was largely used defensively - Not bad for a young player having his first full season on regular senior football in a very average Sheffield Wednesday side. For reference, he was behind Brownhill (promoted), tanaka (promoted), Cullen (promoted), Jason Knight (Bristol C), Hackey (boro), Souza (now Bundesliga), Mowatt (WBA). All of those players had more experience than Charles and played in better teams than him, whereas he will have been developing the entire time. So yes, he is one of the best central midfielders in the league (should be obvious to anyone watching him imo). Sadly i'd expect him to be one of the first ones out the door in the summer when the club needs to raise more funds.

Respectfully, i'd suggest that anyone who doesn't rate the above players as some as the best in the league for their respective positions is letting the current negativity get to them or somehow trying to defend Still. And that's without considering players like Downes, Jander, Scienza (who is quality) etc.

Our CMs / wingers / AMs / STs should be doing far far better than they are. We blatantly have a very good squad on paper - its on the manager to get them performing.
 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Saint86

[Willo of Whiteley]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

Danny Rohl was up until a week ago. He's had a week on the training ground and transformed Rangers. A side who's fans were blaming summer recuritment etc. 

Before you say "its rangers theyre expected to win every week"... so are we in the championship. 

Correct, Rangers are expected to win every week in effectively a two horse league.

But also they reverted back from playing Russell Martin Conservative-ball and have actually gone to attack teams in the past two games. Not defend inadequately.

A lot of those Rangers players clearly downed tools as time went on and the more RM threw them under the bus.

[Midfield_General]

1 hour ago, benjii said:

The fact that, Coventry aside, there isn't much of a correlation between the expected points and the actual points shows it's a fucking stupid way to assess anything. 

It's not like we are the outlier.

‘Expected points’

Fuck me 🤣🤣🤣

[Sir Ralph]

1 hour ago, benjii said:

The fact that, Coventry aside, there isn't much of a correlation between the expected points and the actual points shows it's a fucking stupid way to assess anything. 

It's not like we are the outlier.

Ok so what other stats are there to assess the teams performance when we know Individual errors and missing guilt edge chances are our problem? How else to we quantify overall performance? Or we just say bollocks to it, not enough points because players are making mistakes so sack him. That’s what we have been doing for 4 years and it isn’t working! 

To me Still isn’t the root cause of this problem, the players are mainly to blame and it mainly shite strikers and dumb defensive mistakes and that supports it. If you sack him will another manager make sure that Armstrong and archer finish their chances? Do you honestly think that?

Edited 7 hours ago by Sir Ralph

[Saint NL]

Just incase anyone wants a reminder on just how far we've fallen

[Saint_clark]

2 hours ago, Dman said:

Danny Rohl was up until a week ago. He's had a week on the training ground and transformed Rangers. A side who's fans were blaming summer recuritment etc. 

Before you say "its rangers theyre expected to win every week"... so are we in the championship. 

Rangers fans were NOT blaming summer recruitment. They were all absolutely clear that the manager was the issue. 

[Charlie Wayman]

No news of a Fan's Forum anytime soon then. That would be interesting.

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Sir Ralph said:

Ok so what other stats are there to assess the teams performance when we know Individual errors and missing guilt edge chances are our problem? How else to we quantify overall performance? Or we just say bollocks to it, not enough points because players are making mistakes so sack him. That’s what we have been doing for 4 years and it isn’t working! 

To me Still isn’t the root cause of this problem, the players are mainly to blame and it mainly shite strikers and dumb defensive mistakes and that supports it. If you sack him will another manager make sure that Armstrong and archer finish their chances? Do you honestly think that?

Yes.  I think a competent manager would get a lot lot more from this squad.

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

1 hour ago, Sir Ralph said:

To me Still isn’t the root cause of this problem, the players are mainly to blame and it mainly shite strikers and dumb defensive mistakes and that supports it. If you sack him will another manager make sure that Armstrong and archer finish their chances? Do you honestly think that?

Yes we all know we have shit strikers, so we have to create more chances. We can't give AA a couple of chances in a match and expect him to put one away every game. Similarly, Archer can't be expected to score on the one chance he gets. 

The team is set up too negatively. Our attack is vertically challenged so we have to play to their strengths. Whip crosses in along the ground, shoot from outside the penalty area and follow up on the rebounds.

[Sir Ralph]

12 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

Yes.  I think a competent manager would get a lot lot more from this squad.

There is a possibility of this. Also there is a possibility that we get another manager who actually plays in a way that we create fewer chances than we have and our shite strikers have fewer chances to score.

If we weren’t creating any chances and were 20th just because we were soft defensively and creating limited chances I would agree with you. To put this another way, if our strikers had done half their jobs we would have 9 points from the last three games and people would be happy

I think he needs to be given time to sort this out but I think that’s respectfully where we differ.

Edited 5 hours ago by Sir Ralph

[Turkish]

3 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

The only stat that means anything there is in the Points column.  The rest is meaningless.

Still subbed Scienza for Jack Stephens while we were 1 up on Saturday.  Let that sink in.  That’s just one of a number of crap substitutions he has made this season.  The team shape is chaotic, the players don’t look drilled - confused but not drilled.  We have also had an unprecedented illness epidemic that suggests to me that the players aren’t behind Still.

He was an experiment that has failed.  Personally, it seems no merit in delaying the inevitable.  He just hasn’t got it.

 

i dont know if you were there saturday or not but after that sub everything went to shit. We'd done alright up until then, although Blackburn had a couple of chances we'd missed 2 1 v 1s, had a goal disallowed and Scienza was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. Once he came off no one had a clue where they were meant to be, all attacking threat was gone and you were just waiting for Blackburn to equalise and once they did the winner was inevitable. The worst bit of it all is Blackburn were absolutely shit, they offered nothing until we simply handed them the three points. We had 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch one striker, it was beyond ridiculous. Then to see Bragg come on without even a number of his shirt just showed what a shitshow it was. That's why im not defending Still, missed chances, individual errors i get but to make a sub which was so baffelling and cost us the game tells me it's not just the players

Edited 5 hours ago by Turkish

[Dman]

53 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

Rangers fans were NOT blaming summer recruitment. They were all absolutely clear that the manager was the issue. 

It was 100% both. Look at thier thoughts on Thelwell. 

[ally_uk]

It’s frustrating, with the caliber of players we have, we shouldn’t be where we are in the league.

Some of the substitutions and game management have been questionable. 

As fans, our constant calls to rip it up and start again are becoming a bit tiresome. Will Still is young and still learning the ropes.

It’s not like we haven’t been creating chances. Is hitting the woodwork and our inability to finish really Still’s fault?

It’s all hypothetical, of course, but if a few of those chances had gone in, we wouldn’t even be having this “get a new manager” discussion.

I echo what’s been said in the videos — Still has a lot of potential, and we’ve yet to see the best of him. Letting him go now would be short-sighted and might even bite us in the ass.

Seriously, who would you even replace him with?

At the very least, give him until January and back him with a striker. Also if players are disrupting and causing a backlash, clear the decks and sell the bad apples. 

[for_heaven's_Saint]

The thing that annoys me most is how much Still has talked about being pragmatic and not wedded to any one system then he consistently plays a style that needs a big striker.  Then at the other end he refuses to play a back 4 because he says we don’t have the players for it. Can’t have it both ways.

 

If he’s that pragmatic he needs to work out a style that works with the players we have, which is not just getting it up the wing and crossing it every time. 

[BranfootsLoveChild]

Do any of you think if we lose on Saturday that Still will be sacked? I don't. I wouldn't be surprised if he lasts the season. No manager is going to come anywhere near us with the possible relegation threat. 

[AlexLaw76]

13 minutes ago, BranfootsLoveChild said:

Do any of you think if we lose on Saturday that Still will be sacked? I don't. I wouldn't be surprised if he lasts the season. No manager is going to come anywhere near us with the possible relegation threat. 

Ridiculous 😂

[BranfootsLoveChild]

Just now, AlexLaw76 said:

Ridiculous 😂

Ridiculous that I think we could be relegated or ridiculous I think a quality manager will go anywhere near us?

[Greedyfly]

11 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

They're not 'good' chances though.

Yeah no sorry don't agree.  Open goals x2 vs Swansea (albeit at a awkward level for one of them - Archer), 2 x 1 on 1s vs Bristol, another 2 vs Blackburn????  I could agree if you said "they're not good for our shit strikers" but they were very good chances.

 

Downs vs Hull?  Downs vs Derby (was it Derby or Norwich I can't remember).  I mean what else do you want them to be if these weren't good chances?

[Saint Scott]

This guy is utterly deluded, we've built a squad over the summer that is suited to 4-2-3-1.

What are you waiting for Will?

[Sir Ralph]

10 minutes ago, Saint Scott said:

This guy is utterly deluded, we've built a squad over the summer that is suited to 4-2-3-1.

What are you waiting for Will?

I agree with that - not sure what’s stopped him in last 3 games

[disconnect]

7 minutes ago, Saint Scott said:

This guy is utterly deluded, we've built a squad over the summer that is suited to 4-2-3-1.

What are you waiting for Will?

No time like the present Will!! As you said, Azaz, Fellows, Downs, Roerslev, Jelert, Jander, Scienza were all literally brought to play this system.

                      GK

Roerslev THB Quarshie Jelert / Welly

           Charles  Jander

Fellows        Azaz        Scienza

                   Downs

 

Just as Downs hasnt worked out (as yet) - there is a very obvious way of playing this system with all the players and replacements for all positions. It's not like we suddenly dont have any attacking midfielders or similar. The target man may be a bit of an issue, but Fellows and Scienza are good at carrying the ball so should alleviate issues there. 

[skintsaint]

14 minutes ago, Saint Scott said:

What are you waiting for Will?

I'm guessing he has no trust in his defence, as shown when playing it against Hull.

[DT]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

i dont know if you were there saturday or not but after that sub everything went to shit. We'd done alright up until then, although Blackburn had a couple of chances we'd missed 2 1 v 1s, had a goal disallowed and Scienza was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. Once he came off no one had a clue where they were meant to be, all attacking threat was gone and you were just waiting for Blackburn to equalise and once they did the winner was inevitable. The worst bit of it all is Blackburn were absolutely shit, they offered nothing until we simply handed them the three points. We had 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch one striker, it was beyond ridiculous. Then to see Bragg come on without even a number of his shirt just showed what a shitshow it was. That's why im not defending Still, missed chances, individual errors i get but to make a sub which was so baffelling and cost us the game tells me it's not just the players

When is the club going to wake up and see the absolute pseudo bollocks that Will Still is? When we're without hope?

[Willo of Whiteley]

3 minutes ago, DT said:

When is the club going to wake up and see the absolute pseudo bollocks that Will Still is? When we're without hope?

Did Jurgen Klopp respond to your messages? Or Pep? Are they onboard? 😂

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

i dont know if you were there saturday or not but after that sub everything went to shit. We'd done alright up until then, although Blackburn had a couple of chances we'd missed 2 1 v 1s, had a goal disallowed and Scienza was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. Once he came off no one had a clue where they were meant to be, all attacking threat was gone and you were just waiting for Blackburn to equalise and once they did the winner was inevitable. The worst bit of it all is Blackburn were absolutely shit, they offered nothing until we simply handed them the three points. We had 4 centre backs and 6 defenders on the pitch one striker, it was beyond ridiculous. Then to see Bragg come on without even a number of his shirt just showed what a shitshow it was. That's why im not defending Still, missed chances, individual errors i get but to make a sub which was so baffelling and cost us the game tells me it's not just the players

I did watch it live.  I agree with everything you say.  

[Wade Garrett]

26 minutes ago, Saint Scott said:

This guy is utterly deluded, we've built a squad over the summer that is suited to 4-2-3-1.

What are you waiting for Will?

I think the time is right for Still as he is in last chance saloon.

[Farmer Saint]

34 minutes ago, Saint Scott said:

This guy is utterly deluded, we've built a squad over the summer that is suited to 4-2-3-1.

What are you waiting for Will?

Defenders who can actually defend.

[Saint NL]

37 minutes ago, Saint Scott said:

This guy is utterly deluded, we've built a squad over the summer that is suited to 4-2-3-1.

What are you waiting for Will?

That (to me) sounds like we'll be playing a back 4 at the weekend. 

My interest in the match just went up. Players playing in their natural positions, it's hardly rocket science.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

1 hour ago, for_heaven's_Saint said:

The thing that annoys me most is how much Still has talked about being pragmatic and not wedded to any one system then he consistently plays a style that needs a big striker.  Then at the other end he refuses to play a back 4 because he says we don’t have the players for it. Can’t have it both ways.

 

If he’s that pragmatic he needs to work out a style that works with the players we have, which is not just getting it up the wing and crossing it every time. 

Yep, doesn't make sense. 

The fact that he wants to play 5 at back against teams like Swansea AND Blackburn conveys to me that he is scared of the opposition. 

Why not let the opposition be scared of Saints attacking players.

[DT]

28 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Did Jurgen Klopp respond to your messages? Or Pep? Are they onboard? 😂

Hi Mr Still! You think we can't do better than this shit then. Brilliant. Or that we are unrealistic to want someone a bit better than a computer game player. 

[Willo of Whiteley]

36 minutes ago, DT said:

Hi Mr Still! You think we can't do better than this shit then. Brilliant. Or that we are unrealistic to want someone a bit better than a computer game player. 

Says the guy that wants Liam Rosenior.

A guy seemingly on the up compared to Saints given he’s managing a Chanpions League team?

Lol.

[Willo of Whiteley]

39 minutes ago, DT said:

Hi Mr Still! You think we can't do better than this shit then. Brilliant. Or that we are unrealistic to want someone a bit better than a computer game player. 

I will add it’s not a bad thing to wish for someone better.

I’m saying if you’re going to call for the manager to be sacked, again, then you have to make sure it is a better one and not (to take your advice) treat it like a video game. 🤦🏻‍♂️😂

[for_heaven's_Saint]

1 hour ago, skintsaint said:

I'm guessing he has no trust in his defence, as shown when playing it against Hull.

Maybe but they’re still letting in loads of goals in a back 5 anyway. If we’re going to concede regardless, we might as well give ourselves a chance to outscore the goals we concede by playing an attacking side. 

[skintsaint]

2 minutes ago, for_heaven's_Saint said:

Maybe but they’re still letting in loads of goals in a back 5 anyway. If we’re going to concede regardless, we might as well give ourselves a chance to outscore the goals we concede by playing an attacking side. 

True, although we should be outscoring the goals we concede with 5 at the back if we didn't keep fricken missing the chances

[saintstowin]

I think I might have a future as a statistician because my expected points for Saints this season is much higher than the real life football points we have.

[lambtiss]

8 hours ago, Chez said:

I take your point, but if we'd signed McBernie this summer, I think there would have been a fair bit of discontent on this forum. He's had a good start to the season, but we are talking about a 29 year old that scored 3 goals in 34 games for las palmas last season and 26 goals in 134 appearances for sheff united. No one was calling for McBernie this summer, so mentioning him now seems a bit unfair. No argument that Downs has not worked out, so far, so any other striker would have been preferable, but let's suggest McBernie was a consideration...we had to aim higher than him. Shame we didn't manage it.

I don't believe anyone is saying we should have bought McBurnie per se. What people do seem to be saying is that we needed an experienced target man to lead and link the attacking play, much as Che Adams did in our last Championship campaign. McBurnie fits that profile but better options have been mentioned on this forum (Sergeant, Moore, Morris, Kone and others). 

What we actually got was a youth who has no experience in the Championship, no experience in this country and very little senior experience anywhere.

So, I don't think it takes much imagination to expect any of the other players mentioned to have performed better than the one now languishing on the bench.

Sure, people would have belly ached about McBurnie, Moore etc (probably not Sergeant or Morris). But, that would have subsided as soon as they saw how these players hit the ground running.

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Says the guy that wants Liam Rosenior.

A guy seemingly on the up compared to Saints given he’s managing a Chanpions League team?

Lol.

Is there anyone good enough to replace the mighty Will Still?

You’ve done nothing but rubbish any alternative names put out there.

Respectfully, of course.

[Maggie May]

5 hours ago, Saint NL said:

Just incase anyone wants a reminder on just how far we've fallen

We weren’t in the Championship 10 years ago.

[Saint NL]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cyv866mg6e3o

 

Sounds like he's grown a pair

[Willo of Whiteley]

50 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

Is there anyone good enough to replace the mighty Will Still?

You’ve done nothing but rubbish any alternative names put out there.

Respectfully, of course.

I think the difficulty is there are managers around, but I wouldn’t say they are of any better calibre than what we currently have.

The problems lie deeper than the manager.

To get rid of him and bring in someone of similar ilk will likely yield similar results. 

[Saint_clark]

3 hours ago, Sir Ralph said:

I agree with that - not sure what’s stopped him in last 3 games

Not trusting Manning at left back instead of LWB, and both right backs injured maybe. 

[Charlie Wayman]

4 hours ago, Sir Ralph said:

I agree with that - not sure what’s stopped him in last 11 games

Fixed it for you.

[Charlie Wayman]

52 minutes ago, Saint NL said:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cyv866mg6e3o

 

Sounds like he's grown a pair

Sounds to me like he's forgotten that this is what his job is. 

[Gloucester Saint]

1 hour ago, Maggie May said:

We weren’t in the Championship 10 years ago.

Top 6 PL and in Europe.

[IFHP]

59 minutes ago, Saint NL said:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cyv866mg6e3o

 

Sounds like he's grown a pair

I’d say it’s him that’s got to learn how to see out a game . 
 

The guys a dud and is just another of a long line of duds Dragan and his fellow clowns have appointed. 

[Gloucester Saint]

4 minutes ago, IFHP said:

I’d say it’s him that’s got to learn how to see out a game . 
 

The guys a dud and is just another of a long line of duds Dragan and his fellow clowns have appointed. 

It would help if he didn’t keep taking off his best player.