Ted Bates Statue

A couple of Boston United players got 5 months for a lot fewer bets, Brentford supporters are saying his season is over. I guess that explains why he wasn't considered for the WC squad.

I would be very surprised if there are analysts in the professional game nowadays who don't bother with XG. If anything, stats like that are just the tip of the iceberg. Not that I seek out this kind of thing, or that they should be deployed without regard of the bigger picture.

I don't believe he's genuinely planning on retiring any time soon, I think he'll take a break and resurface at a club on the continent. These guys don't do it for the money alone. Plenty of managers claim to be on their last job in football, and it's only after many years that it finally comes true.

I haven't heard about this anywhere else, I had no idea about the tears and compassion being exercised. I previously guessed he might have had reservations about sticking with the manager heading into the new season, but he does have a very young family so makes sense to bring them home. It was such a shame to lose him as I thought having Lavia and Romeu in the matchday squad would add some really important depth, and of course it all blew up in our face as Lavia got injured the same week.

Maybe because we've been busy talking about Hasenhuttl's replacement

That's interesting, I imagine it's a lot easier to get to football training as a youngster in London with free/heavily subsidised public transport, compared with Hampshire where it could be tricky without a very supportive parent to fit in the time to allow for driving to and fro in addition to everything else.

We pretty much do know it was Ankersen and Crocker. I wouldn't have thought of Nathan Jones as our first choice personally, but if he's their choice then I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. When both of those guys joined us, they were appointments universally well-received. Now they get to exercise their judgment which I would give slightly more weight to over my opinion. This isn't Rupert Lowe appointing some clown from Garforth Town, or Les Reed and his hubris doing a run-through of the latest list of out-of-work managers under the guise of the black box. We haven't rushed the process, and we haven't been put off by having to pay compensation. If we are paying compensation, it's because they believe they've found the next Thomas Frank or Steve Cooper. I think a lot of the negativity is snobbery over resorting to poaching from Luton Town rather than River Plate. Some of the negativity on here and on the Ugly Inside is way over the top. I'm not expecting champagne football, I no longer harbour expectations of slotting into the top 10 like I thought might be possible at times under Hasenhuttl, but I think this guy will do the job of eking out more from the squad right now to get us to stay up, keep us from falling adrift until we improve the squad with the January signings we missed out on in the summer. I reckon we will be ok.

So it's not a done deal after all. Guessing there are still others in the frame, which might include Gallardo. Although Rasmus seems to know and prefer Jones, I take it the club structure still prevents a Carrillo-style repeat of one person overruling everyone else. Apart from Semmens who else on the board gets a say? Edit: In fairness just because Luton have leaked it, there is still the aspect of us supposedly having kept tabs on him for months (as suggested by both you and Pilchards). So it's not exactly like Luton are touting him, maybe just being realistic that he's off?

It would be something of a coup if we did

Feeling a bit more optimistic after reading Saint in Den Haag's summary and a couple of threads on Twitter, below.

Yes. You get a special ITK medal 🏅

He'll pop up again somewhere else. Didn't a certain H. Redknapp claim he was on his last job in football with us? These managers go home and find that having nothing to do is significantly worse than being in a well-paid albeit stressful job.

It's much worse than that. I'm actually one of a large number of bot accounts designed primarily to engage you in pointless conversation on here, energising ourselves by feeding off your righteousness, a bit like a really shit version of the Matrix.

What, apart from our net spend, and the fact we were universally expected to spend heavy money on top of that? If you don't like the Ukraine posts, you can always ignore them. We will find out Sport Republic's verdict soon enough. My guess was that Hasenhuttl would be given until the world cup break to show that he had what it takes this season, and that on the existing form he would come up short. Manji has suggested if there are any imminent departures, it will be Semmens'. If he says that, then there could well be something in it. It looks increasingly to me like RH has been given a 'get out of jail free' card from above. For me, that's the only explanation I have for why he is still in post, despite the appalling body language he exhibits these days.

Glad to see that pedantry is alive and kicking on this forum. How about, "he was given a green light to spend far more than we are usually accustomed to"

Seemed like needless speculation with the aim of stimulating discussion rather than anything else. It was definitely odd and I think he could have worded it better. He did try to make it apparent that he didn't know anything, but by naming Gallardo specifically I think he created a bit of unintentional innuendo.

You mean fan club? Have a look in the lounge sub-forum for that.

Didn't think Broja was up for returning, and thought we had moved on. Do you see us going back for Broja in January, or one of our other summer targets instead?

I for one, would be happy to welcome him, particularly after he leaves office and is considering the tricky issues of how to spend his time and wealth. Trickle down economics may have been debunked in style recently, but I might make an exception for Mr Murty at Saints.

I'm still not sure whether Kat Liebherr used to own 20% of Saints. I wonder if anyone can clarify for my sake, as the article doesn't really touch on it much?

Any match commentary to take my mind off the men's team inevitable defeat?

Thanks both of you for the info

On the other hand, what happens if we win, and by celebrating I mistakenly give the impression of being a member of an imaginary cult?

I think it helped settled me down, more importantly.

https://www.hampshirelive.news/sport/football/football-news/southampton-lavia-bella-kotchap-update-7730211 Lavia back in training, the sooner he can come back the better.