Shroppie

May be true. More likely false like 95% of rumours made up as clickbait or by agents after a payday. We do need an AM if Boufal is off. More a #10 playmaker to challenge Armstrong rather than another Boufal. But also a Hojbjerg replacement: box to box MF who can press, tackle, break up and recycle play and see a pass. But priority for Ralph is always players who will work hard "against the ball" and give everything for the team.

Government to announce postponement of return of fans because of the new rise in cases. Not surprised.

I'm with you. And I'll accept that now is the time for Ralph to look at new ideas, like the high line. I think he's close to saying we don't have the personnel to do it yet (hint re incoming players?) and the players have to know when to push up and when not to.

Our best performances after restart were defending deep and attacking on the break. When we pressed, we still defended against the through ball or call over the top. Now Ralph suddenly seems hell bent on a suicidally high line that anyone can play through or over, given our lack of pace. I just don't understand why we changed. Even the very best teams get caught out sometimes with the extreme press, and we're not a very best team. I doubt Ralph can coach our CBs to be skillful and fast enough to have a Plan B when the ball is played behind. I'm a mere amateur, but it just seems obvious to me that, with the FBs so high in attack we need the insurance of at least one reasonably mobile CB staying deeper and sweeping. I get the feeling McCarthy has been encouraged to do that job, but again, it's not in his skill set and I'm not convinced it can be coached. Time for another of your famous reboots, Ralph.

I tried to register my interest in attending games in my bubble of one, but it failed and then hid the option. Same happened when I tried to get my discount code for the Megastore. But I emailed the TO and both were sorted within an hour.

Not yet. Not yet.

If you think we're signing those, you're in cloud cuckoo land. 1 or 2 midfield is the most we'll see. And we're not relegation fodder. We're badly prepared for the season start but this team put together an unbeaten run of 7 games and once they're sorted out, can do it again.

Ralph's clearly frustrated. This is not a normal start to a season. I can understand that during lockdown Saints made players maintain fitness, but that it couldn't be viable to impose the same regime at the end of the season. Then there was no time for a pre-season and the urgency we had on restart isn't there. Norwich was a must win game to avoid getting sucked into relegation. We haven't got that now. Then there was the idiotic international break that should have been cancelled. You could see how angry Ralph was at losing Armstrong, who is crucial. Maybe some teams who were able to be relaxed about restart and who took the lockdown as a Summer break will benefit now. After putting less pressure on players during lockdown, they could have a proper pre-season. Ralph will turn it round, but he needs the team together for a severe bollocking.

Ralph needs another rethink. Fast.

This sounds dire.

Except they're not in the Premier League? (Premiership doesn't exist)

Armstrong fills that role, but we haven't got backup. We missed him.

Disappointed that we didn't have the urgency and energy evident after the restart. We missed Armstrong: he attacks the box, can see a pass and can shoot too. Conceding was careless and critical: it let Palace sit back like an away team. But it was also one of those days when Adams and Ings would normally have scored but it didn't happen. Having said that, we got lucky more than once. I'm sure Ralph will have some serious words this week

We haven't got an Armstrong replacement. You're right about Smallbone but Djenepo and Boufal are too much individual players who may pull off something special but haven't got Armstrong's passing and vision.

We missed Armstrong's ability to pick a pass and his shooting. There's no replacement available for him. Both Djenepo and Boufal might pull something off, but they are very much individual players who don't have vision.

But an equaliser and we'd be 2nd

What alarms me most about this potential takeover is that at Bordeaux the first thing they did was remove the board and manager. I gave great faith in Martin Semmens and Ralph: anyone should appreciate they are critical in taking us in the right direction.

In some ways, having no real involvement and leaving it to Semmens and co is offering benefit.

I think the underlying issue is where Gao got, or borrowed the money to buy into Saints, how he's servicing it and dealing with possible growing difficulty moving money in and out of China. I suspect the sponsorship deal fell for the last if these reasons. Martin Semmens has always insisted he doesn't know that Gao wants out. Also, that a big plus is he leaves Semmens, Steele and co to run the club and the non-interference is important. We have seen big positive changes since Krueger left. Gao doesn't have money to put into Saints, but I don't think there's evidence he's taking out. We are now hopefully on the up, which could boost the value of his investment. It's just a question of whether, for some reason, needs to get out.

👍

What was the final score today?

It's clear it will be financed through debt. There's no pot if money to put in. At first glance I'm underwhelmed: it comes over as a lot of big talk with little substance

With the latest version of government Covid rules I'll now be surprised if there are spectators at any games before Christmas.

Yes, he's a step down but Smallbone looked competent at the end of last season. I'm hoping he's going to be a riding star this season.

Stupid money for a player unproved in the PL. Compare with Che.