gecko

Absolutely classic Saints. Just when it felt like we had our team back; good manager; performing players.... etc - Difficult to imagine what happens next if the appeal fails (which I expect it most likely will) - Tonda will most likely get sanctioned, how many of the players are going to want out? and even if they don't how are they going to get motivated for next season when this was such a cock up? feels like this has all the makings of a massive downwards spiral after what was such a positive 6 months. I stayed off of here when the announcement broke to avoid all the negativity so it has probably been said a lot by others already. But it does feel a little harsh to me that this is the precedent to be set. When compared to many other rules being broken, like because Hull have already had a punishment for financial irregularities but are somehow still eligible to go up through the playoffs, or teams like Leicester who got promoted with the same sort of financial cheating. It does feel rather disproportionate to see such a harsh penalty applied to us when there are countless cases of other teams having "cheated," hugely benefited, yet are still allowed to progress. Saints have really dropped a bollock on this one - hopefully they'll find their way again and soon.

Perhaps not for us, as a parachute payment receiver, but I think most clubs in the championship aren't particularly flush with half a mil to be burning each time they spy on someone. Plus, that 500k would look small to us on the assumption it wins us a 200m prize, which isn't going to be the case for the vast majority of teams

Catching up on this thread is a full-time job - so many posts... For all those who just want a summary of today: Boro are a bunch of bed wetters; nothing else of note has happened.

Long shot, but is anyone on here unfortunate enough to live near the Hull training ground and is free/willing to stand outside it for a few hours with some binoculars and a camera phone?

FT boom!

nice to see i'm not the only one that thinks the guy in third should probably take the third promotion place. That said, the playoffs as a spectacle is pretty awesome when you're the one that wins it. What's particularly frustrating about this suggestion, is I can see several really interesting alternative ideas listed in this thread that are either more exciting, or more fair than simply adding a few extra teams who were, by all accounts, nowhere near good enough over the whole season. And I'd wager it's taken you lot 5 minutes to come up with these ideas.

Well what a game that turned out to be. Not to diminish Stephens, Stewart and Charles' excellent finishes, but I actually think my favourite moment was Manning's equalising goal. The guy stands on the centre of the 6-yard line, doesn't move, and is unmarked the entire time - just calmly nods it in when it arrives. How many times have we seen corner defending like that from our lot this season? Was damn nice to watch some other chumps do it for once instead - I'd be absolutely seething if I were a Leicester fan watching that absolute shocker.

Hahaha. Called it.

Boy are you lot going to feel silly when we win this 4-3 ...

Was amazed how out of breath a professional could be for only running around for 10 minutes. Difficult to know how much he'll be able to progress before the end of the season. I was really impressed with him, even ignoring the excellent finish for his goal. Think i saw someone else mention it on the match thread, but there was a long throw near the end, where he brought the ball down to turn and bought another throw much further up the pitch. Exactly what you want from a forward when you're running down the clock. He certainly seems to fit the "physical" forward role well; did a good job at taking the ball down from the longer balls - which we can only hope will unlock the rest of the forward line in time. Time will tell I guess, but can't ask for any more from his debut.

Pretty underwhelming on the face of it. But I suppose it's been a pragmatic window. Lots of dross shipped out permanently, must be useful on the wage front. Keeper issue looks "solved" as this one actually stops the ball from going in sometimes. Armstrong I think we all see through rose tinted glasses. He's probably the best our truly awful strike force and gave us some really special goals, but really we all know the he also isn't good enough. Perhaps he's been one of the bad attitudes we've heard about, or this is for the wages too. Hard not to see us as weaker without him, but fingers crossed the new guy isn't as terrible as everyone expects...

A lot gets made about this on here. And I'm not here to defend it at all, although I feel like everyone's clutching to this as the simple solution to all our problems (and who knows, perhaps it is) I think there are a number of problems with it personally, and I'm making some assumptions here that may very well be incorrect or at least easily solvable. - defenders seem to spend most of their life learning to play in a back 4 system, particularly CB's - 3 puts them all out of an implicitly favoured position, with less clarity over who needs to mark which oppo. - slinging the ball around between 2 is no more difficult than with 3, and there appears to be no measurable difference in the number of goals we concede with a 3/5, so why waste the man there - buying one of the best wingers in the league and telling him to play WB is just wasteful - relying on Manning to "defend" seems risky in short, there's a reason why 3/5 is not preferred by all the best teams - but I guess we just know better https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/4323030

First time in a while that I've seen us play. And often feel the comments on here are far more doommongering than a lot of performances might deserve. But holy crap that was as bad as I've seen us play. Nobody has any idea what to do. Absolute cock up at the back again to let them in. Total embarrassment of a team

One thing I've noticed since Tonda took over, thinking mostly Charlton and Leicester games, is that we seem to make some really long passes along the floor through the middle. Maybe it's better positioning being coached into them, or that Arma has been dropping deep or wide players stretching the opposition to create the space. But it's been great to watch a single pass take us 50 yards up the pitch and immediately look like we're going to score. I'm sure it'll be something future opposition will start taking note of, and it's kind of a risky strategy if the pass goes astray and turns over. But for now I'm very impressed with what Tonda has achieved in such a short space of time, absolutely remarkable that this is the same bunch of player who struggled so much in a very similar formation under Still. Addendum to that, was that last night the wide guys were also excellent. Fellows absolutely ruined his man. And pretty much every man-to-man match up was won by us. Shout out to Jander as others have said, ran the midfield. Excellent save by Baz early on to stop what could have been a turning point - but otherwise, at no point was that result ever in doubt. Feels nice. I've been very much on the fence with whether to offer him the permanent job yet. "[Four] swallows do not make a summer" etc etc, but this actually looks like a total transformation so far, and I would be happy enough to see him get the job.

This is about as comfortable a watch as I've ever experienced as a Saints fan. Magnificent

Where the hell has this team been all season!?

I think it's fair to say that if he does win 5 or 6 on the bounce, fans will be less concerned about potentially announcing him full time. I think the overwhelming belief here is that 2 awful wins against seriously crap teams is not enough to go suggest he'll win the next 3/4. Furthermore, he seems to play a very similar style to what we have been playing under Still (which hasn't worked yet). There's obvious skepticism that playing the same way under a different manager will make a lot of difference. Experience says that 5 or 6 wins is pretty unlikely to happen though, and fans are understandably expecting the worst from a completely unproven manager.

SR playing an absolute blinder on this one. Float GON to really wind up the fan base, then float the completely inexperienced interim u21s guys to get the fan base even more worried We'll all be well and truly blindsided when they pull someone decent out of a nowhere in a couple of days. It's genius (I hope), and almost certain to happen

I'm genuinely astounded that he's even being talked about as a potential replacement. I couldn't stand him when he was at Liverpool - took credit for everything that went well; always excuses for everything else. Would have him here in a heartbeat though - no way would he be allowing a player led revolt to undermine him to the rest of the leadership (supposedly) I just can't see it happening. Very happy to be proven wrong, but I don't believe that a) our owners are that clever b) he would stoop this low

This was my thoughts exactly. The guy had 2 days to prep for a match we seriously needed a win from; he was never going to be overhauling anything. If he's still in charge throughout the international break, and then comes back with the same setup that clearly doesn't work, then maybe he'd deserve some flak. I think it's probably fair game to slate some of the player choices though. Formation is harder to change on a whim, but the ability of the personnel (or lack thereof) is painfully obvious to us as fans. So it's hard to watch the new guy bring back players, some of whom have years of being terrible as proof that they shouldn't be starters.

Bit of a kick in the nuts, that. Come on against Norwich, score a worldie, then get shipped off elsewhere He'd be a capable backup to Azaz from what I've seen in preseason. Would rather have him around than not.

Careful, or this will be hailed as another "10/10 window" - we're only just shifting the last of the previous 10/10 purchases

To get an assist, someone has to put it in the net... on the current showing from our strikers, we're more than likely about to ruin these new guys' stats. Jokes aside, this transfer window has finally got interesting.

Incomings notwithstanding, if we actually manage to bin all of those players, when you consider which personnel we've already ditched, it'd be a pretty successful attempt at "getting rid of the dead wood" Just need to replace all those players with fewer, better quality players and we'll be golden. Piece of piss.

Did I miss the "monumental" part of that article? It's lots of words to say his agents are talking with West Ham (who'd have thought it given they'd made a bid) and nothing more as far as I could see, and I'm not re-reading that tripe to verify.