Gloucester Saint

Cooper did get Forest up from the Champ relegation zone to a miraculous promotion and then kept them up with 90% of a new squad and a little bit to spare. Rohl at least has an advantage on Martin by having been Ralph’s deputy and seeing the physicality, focus and relentlessness of the PL first hand. I prefer Cooper out of the two but happy with either. I appreciate your positivity about SR and along with MLG you are providing a counter point to the majority on here, me included. However, I’d advise not saying that people on here are ‘weeping and wailing’ when the club has been relegated well before Easter and is still yet to pass Derby’s low points record. Some contrition from SR would be a good idea, but the best idea of all would be to borrow the Birmingham template for League One this season and the similar one Wolves had under Nuno https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/clyqj2r1rn0o They wouldn’t be able to do it to quite the same extent if it were next season with the rule changes but it’s good value because those key signings are already worth more when they go up tonight than they paid. Blow the league out of water with the quality we sign, big home victories, high tempo football, full houses - this season can be a memory quite quickly but Dragan is going to spend within the restrictions - we have more headroom than 2023 - plus what we bring in to achieve it. Our fanbase and SR wouldn’t half feel better.

Blackmore interesting comments on the Solent BBC Sounds piece. Saying Jason Wilcox didn’t have full autonomy, has it at Man U. Urging SR to let Spors to get on with reporting direct to Solak on football and Parsons on business. Implication that Rasmus interfering and fear he will carry on doing so, creating layers of reporting. Given Rasmus was at the Spurs game I’d say he hasn’t given up the ‘recruitment by committee’ Blackmore refers to.

Rickie is not wrong on Pep football being dire to watch and ending up not wanting to watch it. And the frustration at Onachu sat there under Martin and not utilised to change it up. Interesting that Cortese trying to enforce playing out from the back in the PL and the players rebelled against it as it wasn’t working, and although the results picked up, Adkins got sacked despite trying to implement what Cortese wanted. Emphasising strength of characters back then and difference to now. Don’t agree with him that Rusk and Lallana will carry over but both will probably get roles next season at the club.

We’d reach our goal of 17th in the PL.

Keith Self is from Texas quelle surprise. A place where they don’t like the socialism in national socialism but otherwise liked Hitler’s regime.

LeG is probably the genuine ITK left on here.

In your Birmingham Slums, In your Birmingham Slums, You look in the dustbin for something to eat You find a dead rat and you think it’s a treat

Although no longer from his former favourite source the Heritage Foundation who are spitting chips at the tariffs and his economic tsunami overall. DT is a rudderless, Trump/Truss backing mess, leaking money like a colander. Senility comes free with a subscription to that tabloid.

Now threatening extra retaliation to China and having a pop at Japan. He’s totally lost it, he might need to have a ‘medical emergency’ for a few weeks whilst any adults left in his party sort this chaos out. 60% of Americans are getting hit by the stock market crash. However racist his rural heartland voters might be, when they discover what he’s done to the cost of their pick up trucks, mobile phones, food, energy, and so much more on an everyday level they’ve taken for granted, there will be a backlash however much the other policies are white supremacist and the GOP will panic at losing both Houses in 2026, with the Wisconsin SC race being a preview. Musk literally couldn’t even buy votes there.

Yep, I’ve got no issues with Juric, inherited an impossible situation, Spors ditto, some mess Rasmus et al has left behind.

Hmmm, is that Rasmus or Parsons?

Hmm, is that Rasmus, or is it Parsons?

It said left not sacked on Sky so that was my interpretation as well.

Whilst Rohl would do well I think, the circumstances and fact the owners are on their last warning from the fanbase, mean that as near to obvious appointments are needed and that means Steve Cooper. Jones, Selles, Martin and Juric were all funky gambles and all gone badly wrong. The obvious can go wrong too eg Burley but there were allegedly very particular circumstances as to why that didn’t pan out.

It’ll spring back though over a few years when either he u-turns after the GOP loses both Houses in 2026 or the GOP Senators grow a backbone. Feel sorry for anyone in their early 60s close to retirement now though, hopefully in Reform UK voting areas this is a huge lesson learned about the costs of populism.

It’s a bizarre one, I assumed they had signed him because they were concerned about Manning defensively in the PL as he hadn’t looked that secure in the Champ. And then they hardly play him despite of all his PL appearances and he’s not that old. Then they sign Wellington in January and Larios suddenly gets fit again playing for the u23s. What an incoherent mess.

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.