Nordic Saint

If he'd been even more terrible he could have ended up with a fanbase like Newcastle's. I remember how they mercilessly hounded out Pardew. In fact, the more supposedly 'passionate' the fanbase, the worse they are for getting on the backs of managers they don't like. Remember the treatment that McMenemy got at Sunderland not long after he'd arrived? The vandalized car, the death threats. Our lot are pretty tolerant and easy-going in comparison. Newcastle manager Alan Pardew given grief by young fan and admits more than half of fans want him out - Mirror Online

Our passing seems to get worse and worse. I can't recall us making as many misplaced passes to opposition players, or out of play, in all our years in the top flight as we do nowadays. I guess our stats will be inflated by successful backwards and sideways passes deep in our own half, although often they are far from accurate, but once we near the halfway line they start going awry. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether to pass to the man or in front of him. Shouldn't this be sorted out in training? Newcastle's slick, well-practised passing, in contrast to our hit and miss approach, was what led to their 2 goals and saw us already beaten in the first half. The few goals we do score nearly all come from individual efforts such as free-kicks and long-range shots. Even though we beat Blackpool, our passing was just as bad then, when we were under far less pressure than against Premier League opposition.

It looks like Nathan Jones has messed up our defence to fit Bree in. Surely, it would be better with Perraud on the left and Walker-Peters on the right, especially as Perraud was our best player in our last game. Let's hope Jones knows what he's doing and it turns out to be a masterstroke.

I don't see how Zapata could pass a medical, unless it was as dodgy as his legs. Recent Injury history: 22/23 Hip problems Jan 19, 2023 Jan 27, 2023 8 days 2 22/23 Bruised Knee Jan 4, 2023 Jan 8, 2023 4 days 1 22/23 Hamstring Injury Sep 1, 2022 Oct 21, 2022 50 days 7 21/22 Muscular problems May 2, 2022 May 11, 2022 9 days 2 21/22 Pulled hamstring at the adductors Feb 7, 2022 Apr 2, 2022 54 days 11 21/22 Muscular problems Dec 21, 2021 Feb 5, 2022 46 days 5 21/22 Sprain Aug 19, 2021 Sep 11, 2021 23 days 3 20/21 Contracture Feb 24, 2021 Mar 2, 2021 6 days 2 19/20 Tear in the abductor muscle Oct 12, 2019 Dec 30, 2019 79 days 14

That's a good draw.

But they bought him from the J-League where transfer fees are ridiculously low. The same is true of the K-League, which is why Japanese and Korean players are such bargains. We could get a great striker like Cho Gue-sung for a similar price if we wanted to.

Serie A is fun this year. I thought Napoli 5-1 Juventus was good but reigning champions AC Milan 2-5 Sassuolo was even better today. It's amazing that Sassuolo have been able to keep a top class international striker like Domenico Berardi all these years.

I was thinking the same. He looks like he'd be a hell of a striker if gven the chance. Bale only got his chance to move up from left back when he went to Spurs.

Perraud looks like he'd be the best striker in our squad if given the chance. He's got one hell of a shot. We used to play Bale at left back.

It was rumoured we were also interested in Ryan Kent, Then there would only be 8 more players to go to recreate that magical Barnsley team of the 2016-17 season, which finished 14th in the Championship. We should be able to get all 8 of them for less than a million.

He could turn out to be the new Tony Pulis Jr.

Shuto Machino & Cho Gue-sung We could afford them both.

Perhaps because nobody else wants him. It seems that if another Premier club also wants a player we are after, we give up and let them have him. I guess that's because we are bottom of the table with a limited budget and don't feel we can compete with the other clubs. I can understand why other clubs don't want Jackson though, as he's only ever scored 2 goals in La Liga and none for his country so he's hardly likely to solve anybody's goalscoring problem.

His name is Nathan Jones He's the leader of the team The greatest football manager the world has ever seen You always can rely on him to get the vital win And as for Jurgen Klopp you can stick him in the bin JJJJonesey, JJJJonesey He's the greatest football manager in the land

It was Mick Harford who got Luton promoted to the Championship while Jones was taking Stoke to the bottom of it. Every manager who's replaced Nathan Jones has done better than him: Mick Harford at Luton, Michael O'Neill at Stoke and now Rob Edwards at Luton. At least that's something for us to look forward to. Nobody in his right mind would have appointed Nathan Jones as a Premier League manager after what he did at Stoke.

Yes, it is.

I've always though it would be an idea to have a retro song day, perhaps for the last away game of the season. His name is Ronnie Davies He's the leader of the team The greatest centre forward that the world has ever seen You always can rely on him to score the vital goal And as for Tony Hateley, you can stick him up your hole DddDavies, DddDavies....... I'm not sure we could sing that one about any of our current strikers though. I won't bore you with them all but I know a lot more like that as I used to be one of the people who started the songs at the back of the Milton Road in the late 60s/early 70s. Few of them were unique to us though. Most fans had different versions of the same songs, just the same as they do now. If you go right back to the early 60s when singing at football games really started, there are some that would sound totally ridiculous today like "Two, for six, eight, who do we appreciate?" Some of the old 60s songs seem to have survived though. Yellow Submarine seems to be very popular with Serie A fans this season. Our version used to be "We all live at the back of Milton Road."

If it's someone with a long memory he could be referring to the match at the Dell in May 1967, when we needed to win to stay up and they needed to win to win the league. They weren't too happy the last time we met either:

Get Jose Fonte in as manager so the youngsters will be improved, we develop a winning mentality and, hopefully, pick up our first major trophy for more than half a century: the Championship.

Happy New Year to you too, Del. May you live long and prosper and your wit continue to fail you.

He took RB Leipzig to runners-up in the Bundesliga and he also turned Saints around after our decline under Pellegrino and Hughes. You don't last 4 years at a Premier League club without being a good manager. His mistake was not to leave us after two years when his stock was high. I'm sure plenty of clubs wanted him then. If he'd left at the end of the 2019/20 season. he'd have been hailed as a good manager by everyone in the football world. He made the mistake of remaining loyal to an unambitious club which was not prepared to back him financially. Under those circumstances he did well to get us to 11th, 15th and 15th the last 3 seasons. He was clearly disillusioned this season and it was time for him to go but I'll always remember him for putting the heart back in the club and taking us to the top of the Premier League for the first time in our history. I wish him well in the future.

Nathan Jones' replacements always do better than him: Mick Harford did at Luton, Michael O'Neill did at Stoke and now Rob Edwards is at Luton. At least, we've got that to look forward to.

First we need to get rid of Nathan Jones or we'll end up like Stoke did, bottom of the Championship.

To be fair, Bad Wolf did.

Organise the team and motivate it, a bit like Ralph did when he arrived? Jones seems to have done the exact opposite. He's got them playing like lower league footballers. They can barely string 2 passes together.