End of season prediction

[Saint Fan CaM]

Thought it would interesting to compare notes at the end of another seemingly failed campaign under SR’s leadership.

[ant]

"Way off play-offs, but not in danger of relegation" is absolutely written in the stars. 

An abject failure, both in terms of budget and (very fair) expectations versus our divisional peers.

One season of doing the bare minimum for promotion, and otherwise a succession of regressions.

Many continue to point to money invested, but what worth does that represent when it's spent so foolishly?

[die Mannyschaft]

Promotion out of the question. 

Relegation which to club is engineering towards. 

There is a secret traitor within Saints.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

Top two gone. 

I was confident of playoffs but can't see it happening after the Xmas run of games. 

Bunch of spineless twats. 

[IFHP]

What happened to all those that were saying the championship is fun and staying down this season is a good thing ? 
 

 

[Toussaint]

3 hours ago, IFHP said:

What happened to all those that were saying the championship is fun and staying down this season is a good thing ? 
 

 

All I can say is I never said or even thought that. I have consistently believed we had to get promoted straight away or we’d just be another former premier league club languishing in the championship. 

[Osvaldorama]

We are awful. 
 

I voted miles off playoffs , but safe. 
 

Next season will be the season we trouble the relegation spots, once we lose a few players. 

[Doctoroncall]

Thought it would be a struggle if Saints didn’t overhaul the squad completely and with the backroom set up to repeat the mistakes, those that said we’d turn into Stoke are looking to be correct. 
 

with the mini revival and a couple of additions and players back from injury play offs could have been the target but feel that has already gone now. Teams will exploit the obvious weaknesses, Norwich and Sheffield Utd will over take us for sure. Will West Brom and Swansea?

[Toussaint]

I’ve gone with what is currently the most popular opinion, late battle to avoid relegation. For those who think we’ll do better, where do you think the wins are coming from? We are in a huge funk right now, I can’t see a way out of it. My only glimmer of hope is Ross stays fit and we make a few really good signings that stay good and don’t get dragged into the funk. 

[East Kent Saint]

It's better in the fact I don't expect them to lose every game this season but the fact that we don't look like we were ever in the Prem is worrying, So at end of this season I will be hoping for some sort of miracle before next season probably not signing JWP and selling any of the current squad that show any skill ......

Edited 11 hours ago by East Kent Saint

[StrangelyBrown]

Having looked at the points required to either make the playoffs or the top 2 over the last 5 years...

Top 2: winning all our remaining games wouldn't be enough for the last 2 years to get the points required historically to match 2nd place (100 and 96), and we would only be able to drop 2 points for 2 of the other seasons (91 and 91) and 4 points for the other. In other words we aren't making the autos.

Playoffs: slightly better chances, but we are going to need something like 2 points per game - which we're not achieving at the moment so they're a very long shot. We would need between 68 and 77 points based on previous years.

Now obviously this doesn't reflect him this season will go with so many teams fighting it out, but anyone looking at this statistically (i.e. SR) would already say the playoffs is unachievable without some kind of very significant change/miracle.

[Turkish]

Mid table but unless there is a significant shift in players, culture and and strategy can see us being in a relegation battle next season. Club seems to be in terminal decline 

[sadoldgit]

5 hours ago, IFHP said:

What happened to all those that were saying the championship is fun and staying down this season is a good thing ? 
 

 

I suppose the question is what do you prefer, mid table mediocrity in the Championship or being cannon fodder in the EPL?

This season might not be great but at least we have won some matches and are generally competitive. I’d take this season (so far) over last season any day.

Honestly, what is the point of going up if we end up getting beaten week in week out again? The EPL is not the be all and end all. To state the obvious, there are more clubs outside the EPL than in it and people still turn out to see the lower leagues.

 

[Lee On Solent Saint]

I was optimistic at the start of the season of being in the hunt for automatic promotion. Revised this to bring confident of a play off spot when Still left. However, since SR managed to replace him with someone even worse, my expectations are now lowered to bottom half obscurity 

[IFHP]

5 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

I suppose the question is what do you prefer, mid table mediocrity in the Championship or being cannon fodder in the EPL?

This season might not be great but at least we have won some matches and are generally competitive. I’d take this season (so far) over last season any day.

Honestly, what is the point of going up if we end up getting beaten week in week out again? The EPL is not the be all and end all. To state the obvious, there are more clubs outside the EPL than in it and people still turn out to see the lower leagues.

 

Have you fallen for the Sport Republic spin we can’t compete in the top league? 
 

What happens if we start to struggle in the championship , do we settle for mid table league 1 ? 

[saintant]

1 hour ago, Toussaint said:

I’ve gone with what is currently the most popular opinion, late battle to avoid relegation. For those who think we’ll do better, where do you think the wins are coming from? We are in a huge funk right now, I can’t see a way out of it. My only glimmer of hope is Ross stays fit and we make a few really good signings that stay good and don’t get dragged into the funk. 

You haven't.

[tdmickey3]

Our high point is mid table mediocrity or worse

[Whitey Grandad]

I'd like us to win more games but the thought of getting promoted terrifies me. With our poor defensive 'style' we would get hammered all season long. 

[Football Special]

5 hours ago, IFHP said:

What happened to all those that were saying the championship is fun and staying down this season is a good thing ? 
 

 

I still say that I think I enjoy more than the Premier league with tourist fans, VAR etc 

I'm sure we had this vote before start of season and I said 10th - 14th and had a whole host of people telling me that our squad "was more than good enough for the championship" 

[Football Special]

1 hour ago, Toussaint said:

I’ve gone with what is currently the most popular opinion, late battle to avoid relegation. For those who think we’ll do better, where do you think the wins are coming from? We are in a huge funk right now, I can’t see a way out of it. My only glimmer of hope is Ross stays fit and we make a few really good signings that stay good and don’t get dragged into the funk. 

My glimmer of hope is we get lucky in transfer window with couple of quality loans, but highly unlikely based on who is doing the recruiting 

[obelisk]

Currently closer to the bottom than the top and putting in relegation form performances. Unable to defend balls into our own penalty area and quick to feel sorry for ourselves when put under pressure. I'd suggest that game at Fratton in a couple of weeks is shaping up to be a not very pretty relegation 6 pointer.

[Toussaint]

14 minutes ago, saintant said:

You haven't.

Maybe it was initially? Anyway, the rest remains 

[Toussaint]

11 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

I'd like us to win more games but the thought of getting promoted terrifies me. With our poor defensive 'style' we would get hammered all season long. 

That is the worry, it’s hard to see how we could do a Sunderland or Leeds given our serious issues on and off the pitch. We are light years away 

[Willo of Whiteley]

I voted for mid table mediocrity.
 

I think one of Azaz or Fellows will leave in the summer, and I’ve got to be honest I couldn’t care which one.

Neither have lit up the world.

Azaz goes through hot and cold streaks, not something you want from a player in his position that should be dictating the game.

Fellows, as much as he is playing out of position and has been largely ok, all I see from him is constant step overs, take it to the goal line and try and dink in a cross.
Granted yesterday Matsuki got to it but that’s the first time out of 638,549,639 attempts this season that that has succeeded.
He’s ok, but very overrated by many on here. That’s how low we have fallen. His finishing is atrocious too.

[Wade Garrett]

We will bumble mid/lower mid table.  We have a pretty clueless manager, some really talented players and a fair few poisonous cunts in the dressing room that we need to get rid of.

Would be great if we could get shot of some of them this month.

[spyinthesky]

6 hours ago, IFHP said:

What happened to all those that were saying the championship is fun and staying down this season is a good thing ? 
Sprinkling of positivity after new signings arrived and a run of decent results to be followed by a return to a feeling of disappointment.
Still I guess better than last year or even next year if we did sneak back into the Prem.

 

 

[CB Fry]

An annoying ninth. We scrape up there with three wins out of four in the last games of the season which allows SR to justify keeping Tonda on because "progress" and "moving in the right direction" etc and then enough saps on here will do the fucking Alex Ferguson routine and nod along with it because no one can name any manager on the planet who could do any better.

 

[S-Clarke]

So I think throughout January and February we'll get dragged down further, but during March/April we find another purple patch which drags us back up the table and even daft talk about the playoffs being on the cards again surfaces.

That takes us into the summer under this fake cloak of improvement, with the club being able to live off of the final 2 months as evidence that Eckert is doing fine. He'll then be given pre-season, transfers in and out will occur, we'll splutter and struggle out of the blocks, he'll be sacked in November after we end up bottom half and we will end up with Tony Mowbray as a firefighter for the rest of the season to keep our heads above it.

The above has the potential to be painfully acurate.

[SNSUN]

Mid-table. I think we'll be closer to the play-off spots than the relegation spots but something needs to change from our recent run of poor form. Hopefully we get Shea Charles back soon.

We have the quality to sneak into a promotion race (via play-offs) but I don't think we have the togetherness, fight, fitness or leadership for it just yet, so mid-table it is.

The push for promotion should happen next season but while we have SR in charge I'm doubtful they will make the right calls. More Scienzas and less Downs please.

[sockeye]

Mediocrity, and nothing but

[SNSUN]

30 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I voted for mid table mediocrity.
 

I think one of Azaz or Fellows will leave in the summer, and I’ve got to be honest I couldn’t care which one.

Neither have lit up the world.

Azaz goes through hot and cold streaks, not something you want from a player in his position that should be dictating the game.

Fellows, as much as he is playing out of position and has been largely ok, all I see from him is constant step overs, take it to the goal line and try and dink in a cross.
Granted yesterday Matsuki got to it but that’s the first time out of 638,549,639 attempts this season that that has succeeded.
He’s ok, but very overrated by many on here. That’s how low we have fallen. His finishing is atrocious too.

3 types of players IMO - Good, OK and Crap. In Fellows and Azaz we've found a couple of OK ones. The problem with SR is that they'll sell them and there's a majority chance that end up with the Crap variety, based on past dealings. Really only Scienza and Jander have been in any way Good recruits recently.

It's going to take one hell of a summer of Good recruitment for us to even think about promotion again, and I don't trust SR to deliver it.

[sadoldgit]

1 hour ago, IFHP said:

Have you fallen for the Sport Republic spin we can’t compete in the top league? 
 

What happens if we start to struggle in the championship , do we settle for mid table league 1 ? 

It is no spin. We clearly can’t at the moment and I don’t see the point in pretending otherwise. We weren’t ready for the Prem last season and we are not ready to go up again this season. Wherever we end up, I just want to see a team who is able to compete at that level and hopefully push on.

No club can guarantee success no matter how much money they spend and who they spend it on. They have to rely on the planets aligning and doing so season after season. Like most clubs, ours are not doing so currently and for a number of reasons as we know. 
This is my 60th year of supporting the Saints so I have probably finally learnt to live with the fact that we are never going to be an Arsenal or a Manchester United and accept that things could always be worse!

[BarberSaint]

37 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

It is no spin. We clearly can’t at the moment and I don’t see the point in pretending otherwise. We weren’t ready for the Prem last season and we are not ready to go up again this season. Wherever we end up, I just want to see a team who is able to compete at that level and hopefully push on.

No club can guarantee success no matter how much money they spend and who they spend it on. They have to rely on the planets aligning and doing so season after season. Like most clubs, ours are not doing so currently and for a number of reasons as we know. 
This is my 60th year of supporting the Saints so I have probably finally learnt to live with the fact that we are never going to be an Arsenal or a Manchester United and accept that things could always be worse!

 

I think by and large we're all of a similar mindset. I reckon we can make top 10 because we'll have a goalkeeper and because the margins are fine. Regardless, we're really not in a state to go up this year and be sufficiently competitive next year without an almost total squad overhaul and I'd rather (and how many times over how many years have how many of us said this?) get rid of all the dead wood. But all of it. For once and for all. Just like AH's comment - keep the OK, get rid of the shit. 

 

And the extended highlights on the OS don't work ... maybe that's a good thing from the comments on here.

[ally_uk]

Mid table, you would really want us to be promoted ? 🤣 would be embarrassing getting the shit kicked outta us...

Mass changes to infrastructure next season, last chance saloon either that or sell up and get some competent owners who understand the concept of instilling a experienced team and manager......

Had enough of the shit show that is Sports Republic 

[Oldandtired]

The way we are playing lately I think even a late battle to avoid relegation might prove to be a tad optimistic. It really is dire.

[die Mannyschaft]

6 hours ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I voted for mid table mediocrity.
 

I think one of Azaz or Fellows will leave in the summer, and I’ve got to be honest I couldn’t care which one.

Neither have lit up the world.

Azaz goes through hot and cold streaks, not something you want from a player in his position that should be dictating the game.

Fellows, as much as he is playing out of position and has been largely ok, all I see from him is constant step overs, take it to the goal line and try and dink in a cross.
Granted yesterday Matsuki got to it but that’s the first time out of 638,549,639 attempts this season that that has succeeded.
He’s ok, but very overrated by many on here. That’s how low we have fallen. His finishing is atrocious too.

Finishing is terrible and all this taking 2 touches and losing ball or passing. We need decisive shooting. 

[die Mannyschaft]

Updated my predictions.

10 Points total 43 20th

Hull City (h) 1-4 L
Sheffield United (h) 0-1 L
Portsmouth (a) 5-0 L
Stoke City (a) 2-0 L
Watford (h) 0-0 D
Leicester City (a) 3-0 L
Charlton Athletic (h) 2-2 D
QPR (h) 3-3 D
Sheffield Wednesday (a) 1-0 L
Norwich City (h) 1-1 D
West Brom (a) 3-0 L
Coventry City (a) 5-0 L
Oxford United (h) 0-0 D
Ipswich Town (h) 2-3 L
Wrexham (a) 3-1 L
Derby County (h) 1-1 D
Swansea City (a) 2-2 D
Bristol City (h) 2-0 L
Blackburn Rovers (h) 2-1 W
Preston North End (a) 3-0 L

Saints are a team of misfits playing with no manager and no tactics. We are not organised and a weak physical team. 

On the plus side, if Scienza leaves at least he has avoided being turned into a walking football backwards and sidewsys robot.