Gloucester Saint

Derby home game the key one, win that and very hard for them to be dragged back into it. Derby have to win that match.

He doesn’t need to actually do his job to interfere with it. If Spors wants some data for transfer options, ok, or wants to send an unwanted player to one of his brother’s transfer dating sessions, yep, but Dragan needs to ensure Spors has the operating space he needs. And the parent company has failed abysmally with regard to Southampton FC, those results in the PL are the worst of any club over that sample size. Directors need to know where to keep distance where it’s failed for them.

That’s a concern, it’s Spors responsibility now.

Luckily for them the opposition is far worse again https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjn3071yv3o or we’ve got Farage licking Trump and Musk’s arses.

Interesting analysis https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cg5qy16e18po Intriguing sentence about Darren Mowbray, sounds to me like he was advocating for the likes of Delap and Carvalho, and either SR wouldn’t pay up and/or Martin and Ankerson ignored him. Nobody should be signed in the summer who isn’t an automatic XI selection if fit and on form, and would be able to get in the Championship team of the year. No more player trading shit, and no more ‘ones for the future’. Now only.

What % of that has been the case in the last 3 years, for Saints and Sunderland? if he stays for the final 12 months of his contract then he is literally a bonus player. The club can’t use the excuse of saying ‘we can’t sign striker X because we have Ross Stewart’. He can’t be part of the planning whatsoever but if he can contribute meaningfully it’s a nice to have.

In which case pay him off in full. We will bring in enough in sales to more than offset. All parties have to move on.

U21/U23 doesn’t matter, it’s babies football. We are not talking about the old robust Central League Liverpool, Utd, City players got back from injury in during the 1980s. Incentive? Get away from an environment with good money behind him, one which isn’t pushing him at all it seems to get fit, build strength and revive his career albeit at a much lower level. He hasn’t played really in 3 years, his conditioning will have gone completely through lack of matches. You only have to look at the physique of Will Smallbone to see how un-focussed, uncaring and un-ambitious the club is. Take an expenses-only spell over the summer in the MLS or Scandinavian leagues, get some minutes under your belt, train competitively, maybe even the odd goal. If he has the final year of his contract sitting on his arse again, that’s four years out and career over. Comes down to his appetite and professionalism.

Prest with an important knock to get us the win it seems but share others’ concern about the top and middle order. Albert struggles to get it off the square and Middleton is a slow scorer as well.

It’s what I’d have done given his injury record, anyone with contracts experience would do. Bet SR haven’t though, Ankerson is clueless around aspects of the business like that. Bet Phil Giles did all of the ops at Brentford. Big wage rise from the £7k or so p/w he was allegedly on Sunderland but you’ve got to be fit and motivated to get the appearances to get a shot at the PL. Thankfully it’s the club’s headache not ours.

The whole transfer still stinks as well, the Head of Recruitment buys a totally knackered player who can barely walk without spraining something from the selling club where the manager is his brother. SR really did get their pants pulled down especially badly on this deal.

How often has that been over the last 2 years? How many first team games has he been available for? I don’t think he’s played many u23 games has he to get fitter?

Not if someone isn’t able to actually perform it or be available to do so.

It is taking the piss now though. Perry Groves had a single injury, J Rod got an infection on the operating table and adjustment injuries. This is a catalogue, although what the hell Saints thought they were doing buying someone not yet recovered from the one injury worse than an ACL is beyond any reason. Club needs to be ruthless - 50% of final year paid up and contract termination. Given the lack of presence even at Staplewood with the first team group that’s justifiable, actually it’s fairly generous given he’s featured for around 150 minutes in 2 whole years, Most of us have to go out and earn a living. With his sickness and absence record we’d all be on the dole without the millions of pounds in salary. His playing career is over at any serious level, go out and make a new one.

Hampton looks Division 2 standard to me. Floaty little slow 6th part-time seamers and T20 batting. Hopefully he improves as you say. Scott Currie is certainly a better bowler.

The legacy of Russell Martin. Need to remove any traces of him from the playing squad over the summer.

Yes, my apologies, new 3 year deal until 2026. So at least only a year left.

I opted for McCarthy extension as that was the most stupid and obviously wasteful of all, any other year it would have been Lallana or Fraser. If the poll had been multiple choice, I’d have ticked every single option. BBD I’ve some empathy for though, he’s never a fucking winger, what a stupid twat that manager was. Nathan Wood was 100% Russell Martin’s doing, the club tried signing him the previous year for around double the fee we paid last summer. Clearly, he wasn’t paying attention to Nathan’s abject performance in Swansea’s 5-0 defeat. He’s a Stephens style ball-watcher, albeit with a bit more pace. Might be ok as back up next season given the sheer volume of transfers required but loan him out if promoted with a very modest option to buy.

Lucky a player of that calibre only made 56 really. In the box seat but Lyth hanging on in there.

Go on Leicester, you know you really want a bit of beardy Russell. Barry Ferguson’s results starting to slide at Rangers as well, although Martin’s loan spell there wasn’t very good.

It certainly will impact them in so many ways but they are so addled they don’t care - until the transmission on their 20 year old Dodge pick-up gives up beyond repair - or their phone breaks in a bar room brawl which needs replacing.

Nathan Wood as well. Horrific from Martin, Mowbray and Ankerson. Then you can add the extension for McCarthy as well which must have been decided on the lash they seem to have been on all summer. Zero knowledge of the EPL between any of them. The extension for Smallbone before they’d seen if he could physically handle the PL was another act of stupidity.

At Arsenal these days isn’t he? Injured as well.

Here are some of the useful idiots enabling them https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4nr3230e7o They make our Red Wall seats look like Oxford and Cambridge by comparison.

Wheal strikes twice in his first over, Yorks 10-2. Handy 128 run lead on the first innings after a flurry from Ben Brown. Shame we missed out on a batting point for 250.