Midfield_General

Yeah that makes sense. The subbing off of Sulemana after 15 mins, the signs he was making to the players that looked to read as ‘you’ve just got me fired’, the running off down the tunnel while the game was still on - it all stacks up. Imagine going into a game you’ve been told you need to get something out of to save your job, then being 0-5 down, at home, before it’s even half time.

Wasn’t the rumour that Dragan watched the carnage of the first half against Spurs and put the call in at half-time, or possibly just before? No idea how much truth there is in that but it was such a clusterfuck that I can totally believe his patience snapped, and if the word had got to RM then it would explain why he bolted down the tunnel before HT while the game was still on, which was pretty strange behaviour.

Jesus. I can see him sitting it out for a fair while on our dollar then. Fantastic.

When was he contracted until (i.e. when are we paying him until)?

David Gold, Frankincense Lampard and Thomas Myrrh?

Merry Christmas fellow Saints. Wishing you all a compact defensive shape, faster transitions and three points against West Ham

All very fair points and I don’t disagree at all. I just can’t accept that Ryan Manning has any place in a premier league football team. But then neither do McCarthy, Lumley, Sulemana, Armstrong and plenty of others who’ve been playing, and that’s one of the reasons we are where we are.

Drop Manning, Put KWP on the left and Suga at RWB and I still maintain that that side isn’t that bad. There are obviously no goals in it at this level, but it’s not ‘6 points from 17 games bad’, certainly. Keep it tight as per Fulham, eke out a 1-0 from somewhere, get a little bit of confidence and belief starting to show, and maybe we can have a decent second half of the season.

The main difference was that despite playing poorly (because we're a poor side), we were still in the game with 80 mins on the clock because we hadn't gifted them a few goals to see us out of it by half time. We could easily have nicked something from those corners at the end, despite not deserving it. Everyone knows that if you set up to defend competently, you always have a chance at getting something out of a game, whether you deserve it or not. But that basic concept is something that Martin has apparently never understood, because he doesn't believe in outdated concepts like 'grinding out results to get your team points'. It's such an utterly bizarre mindset. Thank god he's gone.

AZ Alkscaar (Tissue)

Well that was shit, but we got a point, as opposed to how it usually goes where it’s shit but we don’t get a point. So that’s a step forward.

Ref now blocks off Lesley’s run with a perfectly timed body check Jesus Christ

This ref is a fucking joke

He certainly looks like a jockey, but probably not the kind you meant

Highly topical Ali G fancy dress in the away end there. Who does that

Suga was good when he came on against Liverpool. Looked like the player we bought, who we saw pre-season, bombing on on the overlap and getting crosses in, before Russball completely stymied the strengths of his natural game and made him look ineffective. Not entirely convinced by him defensively yet, but I'm excited to see more of him going forward, as it could give us another attacking option that we desperately need.

I do agree, it's more a case of a complete lack of options anywhere else. Dibling is the only one I see where as soon as he gets the ball, you feel the ground lift and it feels like something is going to happen. I agree that it's a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a raw 18 year old, and in an ideal world we'd ease him in much more gently, but bearing in mind that in all likelihood we'll only get one season out of him and he'll be off in the summer, the selfish part of me says we just rinse him as hard as we can while we've got him and wring every last drop of contribution from him before he goes.

Personally, as long as Tyler has two legs and can stand up I’d have him ahead of Sulemana. I hope Juric builds the team around him the way Ball built the team around Le Tiss. He, Fernandes and Lallana are the only real quality we have. All need to be playing, and in roles where they can impact the game, as much as they possibly can.

Sulemana ahead of Dibling?

New instalment of the Human Centipede franchise described as ‘lower budget’

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think he'll deliver a better points per PL game ratio than RM. So on that basis, I'm in.

I used to find watching La Liga boring as a kid. Very slow, very tactical, not as much tackling, just nowhere near as fun to watch as the 100mph blood and thunder of English football. Now there are hardly any English coaches/managers at the top of the English game, and most top clubs here have foreign coaches, it makes sense that the overall style of play throughout the league has changed too. It's generally slower and more possession-based now because the foreign managers have brought that with them, not only by playing that way themselves but also by influencing how others then think the game should be played. It's slowly turning into La Liga. Which may be more technically pure, but the focus on 'control' means it's far less fun to watch, in my opinion. Give me a tactically inept end-to-end three-all ding-dong any day.

This whole thing about ‘he would have done better if he had better players’ is just mental to me. Any manager can say they would do better with better players, that’s just obvious. Good managers make the players they have, better, and find ways to make them greater than the sum of their parts. That’s literally what makes them good managers. Martin never got that, and literally made the players he had worse by forcing them to do stuff he wanted to do but that they weren’t comfortable with or capable of. The absolute opposite of good management.

Club can't even be bothered to spell Brereton-Diaz's name right, lovely stuff.

Totally agree. What's the end game for the owner of club like ours, unless money is literally no object? I've always thought of Crystal Palace as a similar sort of club to us, and - whatever you think of him - Simon Jordan's book about realising his dream and becoming owner of Palace, his lifelong club, is a really interesting read. He spent £40m of his own money on his club, and ultimately his reward was losing the lot, which nearly bankrupted him, and being spat at in the street by Palace fans. The book's called 'Be Careful What You Wish For' and is a very eye-opening account of the reality of football club ownership.