Poor coaching or players not up to scratch ?

[Lighthouse]

4 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

Thanks for clearing that up

Cheers, no worries.

[Nordic Saint]

1 hour ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

Can't blame SR for effectively cherry picking and giving Will Still the best of the championship talent 

We haven't got one player who's ever been in the EFL Championship Team of the Season, let alone Player of the Season. 

EFL Awards - Wikipedia

Previous Teams of the Season aside, the best of the Championship talent would be players like Viktor Johansson, Leif Davis, Luke Ayling, Wout Faes, Josh Murphy, Hayden Hackney, Isaac Price, Josh Sargent, Jaden Philogene and Haji Wright. They're the sort of players you'd expect to be candidates for this year's EFL Team of the Season.

 

Edited October 6 by Nordic Saint

[sockeye]

21 minutes ago, Nordic Saint said:

and none of them have ever been in a Championship winning team

THB was a part of 2022-23 Burnley, not that it means much now.

[John B]

I have been watching and following the Saints fpr over sixty five years and have seen four promotions to the top Division and I just think it is unlikely that we will get promoted this season and if we did we would be awful in the PL

I always hope that we will do well and at the moment hope we can finish a high as possible in the League this season and we will probably finished a great deal higher than we are now

SR seem to want to buy young and inexperienced players who hopefully can be sold at a profit and the squad has hardly played together and has not gelled in anway

I know they have bought a couple of relatively expensive Championship players but as yet they have not proved to have enhanced the team hopefully they will but we do not have a fully fit set of strikers to score the goals. 

We have a young manager with no experience of English Football in a very competive league. There do not seem to be any stand out players so he has been chopping and changing until recently.

In the last week or so results have been better we drew with the league leaders beat Sheff Utd away and drew with an average Derby County 

I feel that SR have got us into a bad situation with their strategy recruitment of players and coaches which will have to live with especially as we have so little fire power with our strikers

We could get another head coach and get a few better results but I just cannot see how SR are going to lead us to the PL where the standard is so much better than when we were relatively competetive there with teams like Bournemouth and Crystal Palace being really good,

 

 

[Nordic Saint]

27 minutes ago, sockeye said:

THB was a part of 2022-23 Burnley, not that it means much now.

Thanks. I'd forgotten about him. I'll edit my post

[verlaine1979]

23 hours ago, Killers Knee said:

The change required to get this once great club on a decent footing is too large to complete in one transfer window.  We need to replace every member of backroom staff, and every player who was with us for the relegation season.  These are the vectors by which our growing mediocrity has spread.  Again we shouldn't rush promotion, we were not ready for it last season, I think 27/8 will be the year of our resurrection, this should give us enough time to offload the unwanted, build a decent spine and have a squad capable of staying up after promotion.

I'm pretty sure the last 3 or 4 transfer windows have all been described as rebuilding/getting rid of the deadwood. It's always something: scar tissue, profit and sustainability, blah fucking blah.

[saintant]

1 hour ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

This is my main concern about Will Still. His set up with five at the back, I think, sets out the wrong signal to the opposition. It says we're being negative but I can handle it if the wing backs attack, but these subs are all wrong. He either throws every attacker on the bench on at the end and they all run around like madmen bumping in to each other, or like on Saturday, when Ross Stewart gets injured, he gets rid of a plan that was working and puts AA in the middle....which anyone can tell him doesn't work.

Can't blame SR for effectively cherry picking and giving Will Still the best of the championship talent (ok, he hasn't been given a striker) - which suggests the coaching is to blame. Work on one touch progressive football and hey up, having lumps for attackers seems to be a trend, and we've got Aribo...

If you play wing backs they have to be fit as fuck and fast so that they can get up and down the wing like a couple of Duracell bunnies - we simply do not have the players capable of that unless I'm missing something so need to play a flat back four.

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

1 hour ago, Nordic Saint said:

We haven't got one player who's ever been in the EFL Championship Team of the Season, let alone Player of the Season. 

EFL Awards - Wikipedia

Previous Teams of the Season aside, the best of the Championship talent would be players like Viktor Johansson, Leif Davis, Luke Ayling, Wout Faes, Josh Murphy, Hayden Hackney, Isaac Price, Josh Sargent, Jaden Philogene and Haji Wright. They're the sort of players you'd expect to be candidates for this year's EFL Team of the Season.

 

I get your point but Azaz, Fellows and arguably Edwards were fans' favourites at their respective clubs so we should also be getting a tune out of these players.

Have started to see signs that Fellows will come good. Azaz is taking longer but he likes fast football and our coaches need to speed up our play. It's so laborious and has been like this for years.

[Lighthouse]

11 minutes ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

I get your point but Azaz, Fellows and arguably Edwards were fans' favourites at their respective clubs so we should also be getting a tune out of these players

Not to mention THB, Manning, Downes, Armstrong, Charles and Roeslev all being very highly rated by their previous Championship clubs.

[Killers Knee]

23 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Like who?

James Bree
Jan Bednarek
Dom Ballard

[Killers Knee]

14 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Not to mention THB, Manning, Downes, Armstrong, Charles and Roeslev all being very highly rated by their previous Championship clubs.

But let our coaches at them and we will turn them into shite double quick.

[Whitey Grandad]

24 minutes ago, Killers Knee said:

But let our coaches at them and we will turn them into shite double quick.

It would seem so. 

[beatlesaint]

I assumed it was all down to the mental scar tissue 🫢😂

Edited October 7 by beatlesaint

[OldNick]

Not sure its down to coaching or coaches, IMo its down to the recruitment department. The best £5m we could spend is find who is sourcing the players at Bournemouth and pay them big wages to do their stuff here. It seems to me that for the last 10years they have hit the nail on the head and bought well. There may have been the odd dud but in the main they have bought well. Or we have seen them and choose others, I saw that a few years ago we were considering Semenyo when at BC, id hate to think who we chose instead!!

[Lighthouse]

17 minutes ago, OldNick said:

Not sure its down to coaching or coaches, IMo its down to the recruitment department. The best £5m we could spend is find who is sourcing the players at Bournemouth and pay them big wages to do their stuff here. It seems to me that for the last 10years they have hit the nail on the head and bought well. There may have been the odd dud but in the main they have bought well. Or we have seen them and choose others, I saw that a few years ago we were considering Semenyo when at BC, id hate to think who we chose instead!!

We already did that with Brentford when they were flavour of the month, it’s not that simple. Bournemouth were below us in the table when we sacked Ralph, not three years ago, so it’s hardly been sustained excellence from them.

[DT]

On 04/10/2025 at 18:19, Dman said:

It’s on the manager, for me. 
 

Azaz, Armstrong, Archer & Fellows are all proven at this level and all look lost and incredibly poor. No style, no clear patterns on play, no clue. 

Exactly. Ludicrous appointment. Said it at the time. Got roundly booed. But, but, he did so well in the French league, they said. He 'proved himself' there. He was amazing on Monday Night Football. All a sham. Pseudo. Emperor's New Clothes. Get shot as quick as possible and appoint, for once, someone with a bit of substance and track record at managing and coaching real players into a real team.

[Saint NL]

I saw this West Ham stat, I reckon we could beat it. Someone smarter than me, please do the calculations 

[Badger]

5 hours ago, DT said:

Exactly. Ludicrous appointment. Said it at the time. Got roundly booed. But, but, he did so well in the French league, they said. He 'proved himself' there. He was amazing on Monday Night Football. All a sham. Pseudo. Emperor's New Clothes. Get shot as quick as possible and appoint, for once, someone with a bit of substance and track record at managing and coaching real players into a real team.

Ah yes, but … did you hear the French journalist, Laurens, talk about him and giving a glowing reference?

That apparently was all we needed to hear (as I was told) to convince us.

I watched part of the Carragher talk, and either I was missing something, or you’d have to be a simpleton to be impressed (or a Saints DoF desperate to make an appointment). 

[Charlie Wayman]

8 hours ago, OldNick said:

Not sure its down to coaching or coaches, IMo its down to the recruitment department. The best £5m we could spend is find who is sourcing the players at Bournemouth and pay them big wages to do their stuff here. It seems to me that for the last 10years they have hit the nail on the head and bought well. There may have been the odd dud but in the main they have bought well. Or we have seen them and choose others, I saw that a few years ago we were considering Semenyo when at BC, id hate to think who we chose instead!!

Also found some good managers over the years

[sledger]

sadly most saints fans could set this side up better even with what we have.Two other points why doesnt jelleart start as he was our best player at liverpool and who in there right mind thought that manning was a better option than charlie taylor.

[Andrew Watson]

The bottom line is the football by and large is turgid and uninspiring. We do not have a twenty goal a season striker on the books [ Armstrong?, I am sure some will say ] or a decent centre half who can defend the box,like his life depends on it.  [ Oh for a Svensson / fonte type ]. and we do not have a keeper who can command his penalty box. Not helped by the fact that the manager has no idea what his best eleven is. Whilst accepting that the club cannot keep changing managers with such regularity, I think the job is too big for Will Still.

 

[captainchris]

On 07/10/2025 at 11:14, Killers Knee said:

But let our coaches at them and we will turn them into shite double quick.

Roeslev does look very disappointing right from the off actually…. 

[captainchris]

12 hours ago, sledger said:

sadly most saints fans could set this side up better even with what we have.Two other points why doesnt jelleart start as he was our best player at liverpool and who in there right mind thought that manning was a better option than charlie taylor.

Both very good points …

[die Mannyschaft]

If the manager and coaching team are fully reliant on stats for the players from last game and the stats on players for opponents in next game there is no point watching the players in the 90 mins. Its all pre programming the power point or xls, and that's it if x player cant stop y player or mid 3 cant pass round 4 infringement of them its computer rejects 3 point.

Its complete garbage in garbage on pitch. Too much time managing player data to fit into a tactics spreadsheet.

In stead of one computer model of possession football we now have 3 or 4. 

Saints have brought a V8 engine (the 9 players) and installing it onto a Yamaha 250cc motorbike. Nothings working except reverse which you don't get on the motorbike. 

[die Mannyschaft]

16 hours ago, Andrew Watson said:

The bottom line is the football by and large is turgid and uninspiring. We do not have a twenty goal a season striker on the books [ Armstrong?, I am sure some will say ] or a decent centre half who can defend the box,like his life depends on it.  [ Oh for a Svensson / fonte type ]. and we do not have a keeper who can command his penalty box. Not helped by the fact that the manager has no idea what his best eleven is. Whilst accepting that the club cannot keep changing managers with such regularity, I think the job is too big for Will Still.

 

I find it al hilarious at least its good talking points on train from match days and keeps a long away coach trip interesting. Everyone I speak to is completely baffled as to why Saints cant play football given we have the best training facility in league, probably most expensive team, sold millions of pound worth of players. And yet watch Winchester City and thier playing great attacking real football. Even the master Russell Martin has left so cant blame him

[EnoughAlready]

Still's appointment seemed underwhelming when it was made, his Ligue 1 record was keeping mid table clubs in mid table. His record at Saints suggests he lacks the experience to compete in the Championship. He seems to be rolling the dice to find a team that works. He probably should be replaced by someone with more guile at this level, but won't be. Sacking another manager would raise serious questions about Sports Republic's competence. After a series of leftfield appointments (from Jones to Still) that haven't inspired the players an experienced manager, like Mark Robins or Paul Heckingbottom, who can compete in the Championship would have credibility with the players and the ability to get them playing to their potential. It's not all on Still, there is a worrying issue with coaching that means players under perform or don't get a chance to at Saints and then go on to perform well as soon they play for another club (currently James Bree, Paul Onuachu, Dom Ballard), but this may be a symptom of too much managerial change and players not having a clear idea of how they should play.

Edited Saturday at 10:47 by EnoughAlready

[Saint86]

I think we might also be a 2 year project - the state of the squad (quality / fitness / morale) after last season's debacle shouldn't be overlooked. We're almost starting from scratch, and as I feared over the transfer window - we left it right until the very end to get most of our key business done, which means we didn't get a proper pre season and look very disjointed as a result.

Edited Saturday at 13:14 by Saint86