saint1977

Just a taste, stunningly powerful in the air too. Like a combination of George Best, MLT and Cristiano Ronaldo. Maradona like Ronaldo and Messi brilliant players but Pele the best ever all round forward player for me - 7, 9 and 10 rolled into one.

Buyers regret grows, front page of the I https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-63842809

Culmination of two years of appalling coaching there. We’ve seen plenty of similar defensive keystone cops clusterfucks from Saints overall during that time. Let’s hope Nathan and crew have a bit more a clue.

Grudge last group game between Uruguay and Ghana after Dracula’s late handball in 2010 QF and Gyan missed the penalty. If I was the Ghanaian coach, never mind armbands, garlic necklaces would be the order of the day to keep Suarez at bay from nibbling the back 4 - literally,

Very cynical foul by Costa Rica on the edge of the area as Japan were about to shoot and probably score. But then Japan get away with a shirt pull in their box. Japan’s crosses from wide areas have been woeful. Germany could be off the hook here with Japan having Spain last.

These ‘easy trade deals’ aren’t quite as easy the Brexiteers thought https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/26/brexit-britain-japan-trade-deal-exports-slump and the hype on the Australian one is rather different to the reality https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-australia-sign-world-class-trade-deal and https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23124659.george-eustice-claims-australia-trade-deal-not-good-uk/ With Braverman following Nick Griffin’s migration policies and Raab facing a flurry of lawsuits for alleged appalling behaviour (let alone all of the bloopers), Sunak needs to kick a lot of these ERG thickies out of the cabinet and bring more adults in like Jeremy Hunt.

Some abnormal spikes in the data though - but a nice distraction for them from Suella’s woes in Kent. They can’t even define what a low quality course is. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63757889 Are they going to impose this on say Northumbria, winner last week of Times University of the year, a rising research force and right in the epicentre of a levelling up region? Or Portsmouth where there are two potential swing seats and where the Portsea economy relies on it?

Not surprising about that article - the complacency and lack of any drive or leadership has been evident for a while. Seems little chance the board will give Jones the proper tools in January of the 3-4 first team players needed - great signings my arse (ABK, DCC excepted) - so pretty clear this season is a goner. And even if they did, what good player wants to join a rudderless corporate soulless club who has barely won a match this calendar year? We needed two strikers of first team calibre in the summer - and we got a couple of very late moves for CL level players why were unlikely and Mara, who probably needs a spell at Sheffield Weds or Ipswich in League One find his feet. £10m - even Ross would be ashamed of that signing. I hope Nathan Jones isn’t too grateful for his new role and challenges these people to shake them out of their daydreams. The loss of revenue next season in the Championship will sober them up hopefully if not. Unless the transfer strategy becomes more flexible, Jones’s main priority will be stabilising the ship in mid-table and then aiming for automatic promotion in 24/25 with targeted investment. That’s a fair expectation on the new manager. Badly need some actual football experience on the club’s board as well to challenge the culture. First team manager can’t do it all.

USA faded second half v Wales but have been by far the better side as they were in the first half in that game. Mount has the talent but never looks the part in an England shirt as he does for Chelsea. Can see why Saints were interested in McKennie and also why they didn’t get him. Exactly what we needed (and still do). Better to sign a handful of overpriced City youngsters that we don’t need. Would like to see Grealish and/or Foden for Mount at HT, get some movement off of Kane. At the moment, there might as well be an ocean between him and the midfield. Maguire has provided more of a threat than them and they aren’t screening the defence either. Sterling off as well, keep Saka on. That was better, Shaw getting in behind, just behind Saka. Mount nearly scores - probably saved him from the HT hook. Sterling should be off at HT.

Another good piece on the subject, this time from Henry Hill, deputy editor of Conservative Home. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/23/tories-brexit-rishi-sunak-swiss-style-deal-eu-brexiteer The ERG are going to end up blowing the whole party to bits and the Tories losing control of the whole steering wheel if they do carry on undermining Sunak and Hunt.

I find it astonishing that the guy can hold major jobs at SFC and Rangers - Huddersfield’s recruitment seemed to get better after he left as well. Whether it was him, Les Reed or both, nearly £20m for Guido Carrillo is a fitting legacy. What was it - 10 games, 0 goals, a heavily subsidised loan and a compromise release? Only scored 12 in 106 for Leganes and Elche.

Adam Armstrong would get a bad back from all the times he’d try to give you your change but miss your hand and have to pick it up off the floor. Lots of the stock wouldn’t make the shop floor as the midfield wouldn’t be strong enough to carry the boxes from the stock room.

Brilliant article by Simon Jenkins https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/21/rishi-sunak-brexit-plans-sensible-swiss-style-eu-deal

CBI conference today set to apply further pressure on the Tories FoM stupidity. You can’t let an economy shrink because a minority of the public are bigoted and uneducated (not everyone who voted leave obviously). Without a bigger economy, we can’t afford to invest in skills. Jenryk’s responses sound like the TUC of the 1970s https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63697458 Meanwhile the same bigots will read - assuming that they can read - more hyperbole from the Express and Mail https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-63697978 Those rags are basically saying ‘let’s protect something that doesn’t work, and is shrinking the economy and shafting the NHS because some of the public don’t like people with foreign names or different colour skin’. Egg - not saying NHS can’t be more efficient, because it can, but the major issue is the 120k plus clinical and allied vacancies. Not having policies copied from Nigel Farage and Nick Griffin by the governing party mean there aren’t the staff to tackle waiting lists or get cancer patients the timely treatment and outpatient follow ups needed. That’s more important to the public than poxy net migration targets and it’s why they wanted to believe the lie on the side of the red bus about the mythical £350m extra for the NHS. We cannot be dictated to by the ERG and a few seats full of people like Lee Anderson in the midlands and north. We can grow our skills base but it takes time, and some carrot and stick with the domestic workforce. Nursing for example is a masters level profession for example and we are seeing what happens in the news when the wrong people are recruited to it. Lab technicians in the commercial and public sectors are another shortage, dentists and dental technicians too. A bigger economy by a Swiss/Norway deal would enable a much bigger programme of skills and training so publics wouldn’t feel so resentful towards other people as they’d have access to better jobs.

Labour and Lib Dems have to get smarter about squeezing the Tory vote in marginals and other target seats. Voters are getting smarter about tactical voting as they were in the 1990s and 2000s but the parties need to compete with the Tories and their dodgy donors by agreeing where to invest their campaign funding more strategically. Stay separate as parties but recognise the rise of populism in the Conservative movement and Trump means they have to be forced into reforming and cleaning themselves up as Labour had to in the 1980s by a long spell in opposition.

The Bruges Group and ERG foaming at the mouth today at the front pager in the Times and Beth Rigby’s tweet about Sunak and Hunt looking at negotiating more of Swiss/Norway model. It’s what Vote Leave proposed during the campaign but as soon as they got a scent of victory it was a push for the hardest and most economically and socially destructive and regressive Brexit. That would work for everyone - UK wasn’t keen on the integrative and political part of the EU but only the loons that obsess about the ECHR. The public for the most part just want decent public services and being back in the SM pays for them, reduces debts so taxes can come down a bit. Businesses can export again with more much less friction and start taking on more people, get us out of recession.

Remember that, was over the Xmas period. Doddy scored the odd blockbuster now I recall - one at Everton which the players on both sides said you could hear fizz in the air on the volley and it nearly took the keeper in with it. Another at home to West Ham from 30 yards to open the scoring. Missed Delap’s overhead kick v Spurs live, lent my old man my ST as I watching the Test in Barbados. Saw it come up on an ESPN clip in a St Lawrence Gap bar.

This the nub of my issues about the Leave campaign, apart from the dubious overseas funds and Putin connections. As Philip Hammond said at the dispatch box in one of the debates after the referendum, ‘people didn’t vote to be poorer’. Yet, they did, and all of the people moaning about Thursday’s sensible budget are also amongst the most ardent Brexiteers. Clearly the mythical £350m extra for the NHS was a smokescreen as well as a fabrication (ONS). Daily Mail sums them up - not a ‘Tory budget’ yet the one in September which they feted ‘at last a Tory budget’ has to be cleaned up by Hunt and Sunak’s J Cloth on Thursday as it was globally unacceptable and hammered out of sight. Same paper at the heart of the Leave campaign. Stupid paper with stupid readers and editors.

Some that not mentioned so far Matt Oakley x2 - didn’t score many but they were usually stunners. Two that stand out are his more famous 30 yard stunner v the Skates and his less mentioned MLT style flick up and volley in free kick at home to Hull MLT - volley at home to Forest, Clough’s last season and home to Norwich late 80s, beat two defenders and curled an outrageous lob over Bryan Gun in off the post Scott Parker - two brilliant goals in Saints 3-2 home win v Charlton. Me and others applauded them, they were that good. Mark Venus - WGS first game, brute of a 30 yard left foot hammer into the roof of the net, made a nestling sound as it hit the net. Tugay - another long range blockbuster although that game is better remembered for Friedel’s world class display Wayne Bridge v Bolton away - cut in and smashed it into the roof of the net in what had been a dire game until then. Marian v Wimbledon home, solo goal Chaplow v Huddersfield for Saints 4th, capped off a flowing passing move of 12-15 passes from memory, playing some wonderful stuff under Nigel

I think Hunt did the best he could have done yesterday from the perspective of a higher rate taxpayer. I don’t like HS2 either but other than that, he’s provided a budget which is a J Cloth to clean up the nostalgic ideological vomit of the Tory right wing, members, Truss and Kwarteng from the summer. It wasn’t even good Thatcherism either, cutting taxes when it’s sustainable and remember she doubled VAT etc. Like the Labour left, MPs on the Tory right and the Mail are living in a fantasy world of Minford and Redwood which failed. The stark fact is that if we want to grow faster and bring down debt and higher earner taxes faster, the UK has to rejoin the Single Market. Hunt and Sunak within the constraints have acted in the national interest over party in my view.

If there aren’t two first team strikers, a 10 with guile/change of pace and a DMC coming in January we will be. Jones could be Fergie Mk2 but it would beyond any manager. Can see us loaning a lot of players out to free up wages like Diallo, AA, Ely (would be a free in the summer) and Aribo. Can’t see the latter being a Jones player. Loan out some of the youngsters Shields bought in bar Lavia as we are so light in MC. A couple of the players coming in could be loans as well. Ings transfer record needs to be broken (£20m) a couple of times to boost the quality levels.

I agree with Danbert on the next page (no pun intended) - idiot. Once the forces of nationalism were unleashed, no control over where it would lead and Cameron fucked us over by only having the referendum Q as in/out. Ironically given the big red bus £350m extra per week to the NHS lie, the actions of May, Patel and Braverman have made worse the COVID staff retention situation, so by 2022 there’s more than 120k frontline and allied health vacancies. This could be partly addressed by easing their ideological immigration restrictions and easing Home Office waiting times and visa restrictions/costs especially in social care where the pay is lower but instead of that overworked nurses are going on strike for the first time in a generation. Listening to them speak, it’s not about pay at the core of it, cost of living to an extent, but the sheer level of vacancies they are having cover. So the NHS-loving English and Welsh public or at least the Leave part of it, voted to make the NHS weaker and increase waiting times. Well done. Pandemic has made worse but the issues were already there. As a double whammy, Barclay’s hands are tied on pay settlements as well because the economy is smaller out of the single market. Bonkers.

Who the fuck thought Mara was worth £10m needs shooting. Added to the two extra City youngsters that hardly feature in the league and the over-priced keeper and that would have a bought a very decent striker. Feel sorry for Nathan Jones having to sort this shower of a squad and football club out. Won’t blame him for relegation and if the club are top half in the Champ next season he’s done well. Hope he’s less tolerant than Ralph was of the club bringing in bits and pieces players he doesn’t need. A stronger stand in the summer would have secured a couple of strikers and I’d have been saying so in the press if I had to front up for it all. Yeah fine, another City youngster etc but where’s my main striker/s I need?

With regard to football style and tactics, it depends on how adaptable he is. Someone like Warnock got badged as long ball until he got a team together at Sheffield Utd who could pass the ball, and they did. On the other hand, if you believe Les (ha!), Pellegrino promised a return to high pressing attacking football at interview but then just did what he wanted to anyway with dreadful results. Feels very risky when there’s the likes of Benitez out there highly proven at the PL level and with the contacts (not a bloke who worked at Man City for 25 minutes) to get January loans and signings to pull out of trouble. But Jones could also provide the fire that the club has been lacking. JWP is going to be crucial for it to work - Dave Jones lasted longer than Sturrock coming from the lower leagues partly because of a good first season but also because even though MLT was fading, he got him onside at the club quickly so others bought in. Shields is a good example of where SR’s judgement is worrying and unproven though - Chelsea change staff like cafes make lattes, so I don’t see that as a reliable guide. What I saw was a striker for Stoke last night more raw than Sam Gallagher was when he left Saints and they wanted to spunk £25m on him. I also see a keeper who should have been £3m back up for £12m in the Saints goal.

It’s a wait and see appointment appointment for me. Would like to understand more what happened at Stoke because SFC is if anything an even bigger basket case than them. Needs a strong, no nonsense figure to pull the board and new, very naive owners through by the nose which is why I’d have opted for Benitez. Chance for SR to learn the game and industry properly from a leading figure, invest in the squad where he advises them to and onto the board when retires and recruits his replacement. Better than the nobody bloke from Man City they got mugged off by in the summer. £25m on City youngsters? Feels a bit like the Dave Jones and Paul Sturrock hires, maybe more Dave Jones as Sturrock inherited a better squad from WGS than Dave did. They both did a stellar job at lower league outfits but not sure Sturrock was a fit in the corporate sense despite leading the LMA stats etc. This would be the worry with Nathan Jones possibly, Ankerson, Semmens and Steele seem more corporate style over substance. Also with Sturrock, there were rumours that certain senior players made his early days very difficult as they felt he wasn't an ambitious appointment/style and despite decent results he never recovered. Given similar rumours around SFC the last few months, he’ll need to get the senior group on board fast.