Nordic Saint

"On 18 September 2024, Jurić became the new head coach of Roma, following the sacking of Daniele De Rossi after earning just three points in the first four games of the season. Jurić failed to turn the team's fortunes and was regularly criticized for his management style and poor results; he was eventually dismissed on 10 November 2024, after a 2–3 home loss to Bologna that left Roma 20th in the Europa League table and only four points ahead of the relegation zone in Serie A." To be fair, some of the other names we were linked with, could have been worse. The very fact that Roma appointed him in the first place suggests that he can't be a total no hoper. So, let's hope things work out for him here. On reflection, my first post was a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the news and I agree with you, Scummer. He's done OK. I even recall that I enjoyed watching his Torino team's games on TV. Warning: Sometimes I post nonsense and then edit it (and post more nonsense).

He had one very good year as a manager, with Crotone in Serie B in 2015/16. Apart from that, his career looks so so. But, the fact a big club like Roma appointed him shows he must have built a good reputation in Italy. Let's hope that both he and we can repeat that 2015/16 season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Juri%C4%87

This is a very good point. When top teams recruit a manager, they scour the globe for the best; they don't think, he knows the Premier League, let alone, he knows the Championship. Guardiola, Klopp, Slot etc never managed one minute in the Premier League before they were appointed at Man City and Liverpool, and that was to their advantage because their tactics were not stale and predictable. In contrast, our approach seems to be, let's appoint another manager from a mid-table Championship team because "he knows the Championship", when in fact all he knows is how to be mediocre and predictable to other managers in that league. Our best years this century were when Pochettino and Koeman, who'd never managed in England before, were appointed. There is nothing sensible in appointing a third mid-table Championship manager in a row and expecting the results to be any different.

Alan Ball was always a little hoarse, but he didn't do too badly. What can human medical knowledge do to restore his sanity?

I'm not in the COT, but I saw this headline in The Independent: Two horse race for St Mary’s hot seat

BO and dandruff, but not alcoholism or a drug habit. OK, beggars can't be choosers: maybe alcoholism if she's not too drunk during training sessions.

Some people don't seem to notice how much the world is changing around them- all the new houses, the extra cars on the roads etc - even though the massive increase in the country's population has been in the news quite a lot lately. When St Mary's was opened in 2001, Southampton's population, inside the city limits, was 219,000; it's now 257,000 and it's still growing fast. By the time any stadium expansion is completed, there will be at least 40,000 more people living in the city than there were when St Mary's was built. The population increase in the surrounding area has been even more dramatic and it's not going to stop. There are now nearly 2 million people living in Hampshire. Of course, the population is increasing in most of the country, which is why so many clubs are building bigger stadiums.

He hit that shot with incredible power. The whole net was shaking afterwards. It's interesting to watch the closeup of his shooting technique shown at the end of that video clip.

He scored the winner for Torino tonight with a shot from the halfway line. Lega Serie A on X: "Che Adams from the halfway line! You have to see it to believe it! 🤯 #EmpoliTorino 0-1 https://t.co/gMSJ7Xa2VV" / X Everything Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 on X: "🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿⚽️| 𝘾𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙙𝙖𝙢𝙨! WHAT A STRIKE! Talk about an introduction. Ché Adams, not long after coming on a subsitute, puts Torino in front with this strike from just inside the Empoli half! Fifth goal in Italian football for the Scotland striker https://t.co/vWa5MQqwsL" / X

It will inevitably happen in future, but obviously not next season and hopefully not in the Championship. Southampton's population within the city limits has increased by more than 30,000 since St Mary's was built, in the area around it by a lot more and it's still growing. Of course, that's true for most of the country, which is why so many clubs are building bigger stadiums. We'd still be playing at the Antelope Ground if we'd wanted to freeze time.

Put simply, the population of this country is increasing fast. The population of Southampton, inside the city limits, has increased by over 30,000 since St Mary's was built and is likely to increase by much more than that in future. The surrounding area has seen big increases in population too and new houses are being built on nearly every available green space around the city.

Whatever we do, we do not want another manager obsessed with possession football. The outdated possession game played in your own half is a suicidal tactic nowadays because every manager (except ours) knows how to beat it, even when it's played by top teams like Man City. To continue with it, as we are doing, is completely and utterly pointless. So the longer this 'project' is prolonged, the worse it will get.

Your club did very well to act quickly and appoint Ruud van Nistelrooy. What a massive lift for you all his arrival must be.

I agree and I expect he does too. He's probably more p!ssed off than we are that he hasn't been sacked yet. Obviously, he won't resign as he would miss out on millions, but he may do and say a few things to try to expedite his sacking.

Martin's tactics won't work next season. The last time we were in the Championship, most teams thought we had better quality players than them, showed us too much respect, sat back and let us build from the back without any pressure. We still finished 9 points off the automatic promotion places. Next season, every Championship manager will instruct their players to press us and pick off the passes we make in front of our goal, just like every Premier League manager does now.

You could use it nearly every time McCarthy plays.

In the Premier League, it's never happened before. But, in the old Division 1, it happened with Chelsea 68 years ago. I guess there has never been a team whose entire style of play is so dependent on one player as City's is with Rodri. They are currently as rudderless as an NFL team would be without its quarter back. At Barcelona, of course, Pep had Xavi, Iniesta AND Busquets.

His memory must be of another ground. You're right: you could never do that at the Dell, and I was there when we played Liverpool in 1970.

Their recent form is even worse than ours. They've lost their last 5 games. The possession game really is sh!t unless you have a player like Rodri, who acts like a quarter back, spraying passes forwards from the halfway line to keep the opposition's penalty area under siege and then stops them whenever they try to counterattack. And there really is only one Rodri.

Saints fans are so entitled expecting their team to be able to compete with big clubs like Ipswich and Bournemouth. Since the supporter who used to post stuff like that has left and said he's not going to support Saints any more, I thought I'd post that on his behalf. Sometimes I'm just too kind.

One of Ankersen's favourite maxims is, "EMBRACE FAILURE". Well. we've certainly done that, so in his eyes, we've succeeded. He said that you should recruit managers who've failed in the past, because they'll have learnt from their mistakes, so that explains why we've never had a successful manager come here since SR took over, and until Ankersen goes, it's unlikely that we ever will. He's probably looking at a new list of failed managers right now, just in case Russell Martin doesn't fail enough.

Team building starts with the spine. We've got Aaron Ramsdale, which is a start. Buy Ayoub El-Kaabi in January and at least we'll have a central striker to score some goals. We should have done that in the summer instead of bringing in a bunch of goal shy wingers and inside forwards.

Then there's reality. With our recruitment team, £100 million will just buy a bunch of useless inury-prone players, most of whom will be goal shy left wingers, that we'll be struggling to get rid of a year or two later.

Amorim has brought his own coaches with him. RvN has said he wants to manage a Premier League club. This is our one chance to get him before another Premier League vacancy arises. Obviously, his long-term ambition will be to manage Man United, but that's not going to happen for at least another couple of years.

I don't see how we can go on like this for many more months, limping towards a record low points total with fans and players becoming increasingly demoralised. The longer we leave it, the harder it's going to be to find a replacement. Even Russell Martin himself would probably prefer to be paid off now, with his £12 mill stash, rather than later.