Chewy

That’s right - he’s the laziest player I’ve seen since Le Tissier. Personally I’d sack Dibling after fining him for being sh1t. I think we should give him away for free. This kid is so crap. Seriously, I do wonder about the mental capacity of some of our supporters at times. Fernandes and Dibling both getting it in the same week. Of all the many things wrong with Saints right now, of all the utter misery we’re enduring under SR, and we start picking on the only 2 bright spots around the entire club.

Wouldn’t be so sure - suspect we might be less keen to do Wednesday many more favours after they advised us of their terms for progressing our interest in Rohl. If Shea doesn’t return in this month it’ll be down to the terms of the loan and/or Juric’s view on whether he’ll utilize him enough to justify recalling him from an almost guaranteed 20+ championship appearances. That in itself might depend on other transfer dealings.

I’m sorry but I genuinely don’t see the point. Our ability to spend enough to try and compete this year was significantly hampered by the millions we wasted 2 years ago trying to stave off relegation… and we had a chance then. We have no chance now, so every decision should be to help the reset for next season and more importantly the following (hopefully after a promotion, but if not we’ll need even further cost reductions). We need to be saving money this January, trying to shift any of our dross onto anyone stupid enough to want them. Our squad is huge, costing millions in wasted wages. Even if we lost half a dozen we’d still easily be able to field a squad … we have 4 keepers, 4 left backs, 3 right backs, 6 centre backs, 6 centre midfielders, 3 left wingers, 4 centre forwards. I’ve not counted any of our many out on loan either (have counted Wellington though). And the majority of them are not good enough. The only money we should spend at all is in tying Dibling down to a longer contract to ease the pain when we sell him … if there’s any chance he’d agree. Anything else is literally a waste of money (caveat of not including any random youth transactions - if a good opportunity arises there you can always take it). Spaffing millions on a player or two to help us get relegated with 18 points instead of just 12 would be possibly the stupidest thing SR had done as owners; given the litany of cock-ups they’ve made, that would be a pretty impressive accomplishment!

It’s a bit of an oddity that a number of the very best English teams from my lifetime have played a lopsided 442, normally with a left winger and more of a wide right midfielder than winger (Barnes/Houghton, Giggs/Beckham, Overmars/Parlour, Highway/I think Ray Kennedy). In each of those the left winger was definitely more of an attacker than their counterpart. they all also had a deeper lying second forward behind the striker (Beardsley, Cantona, Bergkamp, Dalgeish). And often one full back more attacking than the other, also on the left (Irwin/Neville, Kennedy/Neal). Its funny because we all line up our formations in some sort of symmetry but football doesn’t happen in symmetry on the pitch; I think the above suggests a rough balance of 343 from back to front works, but with a right to left balance of 442. On a personal note I don’t like being wedded completely to a system anyway; I kind of like setting up with ten and having one spare to utilize as the game situation dictates. So 3 to defend (2 cbs and a dm), 3 to be box-to-box (full backs and an ‘8’) and three attackers (2 wide one centre). The 11th guy can be a striker, number 10, another deeper midfielder or a 3rd centre back. All nice and symmetrical and completely at odds with my own analysis above 😂

18 year old kid having a dip in form - I’m not concerned. I’d rather it wasn’t happening this very moment but was bound to happen at some stage. Agree with the team listed, our best 11 at the moment

Couple of thoughts His first interview ended with him saying the word “premiership”. MLG and his ilk must hate him already. Excellent. ABK - if he doesn’t play within a couple of weeks will we all please finally agree that the issue is ABK and his attitude rather than 4 different sets of managers and coaches?

In the expectation that he doesn’t, I’ve been doing some swotting up on Serbia-Croat on everyone’s behalf so we can catch the all important words and phrases we expect to hear. Such as vjerute procesu (trust the process), najbolji funta za funtu menadzer (best pound-for-pound manager), and of course most importantly hrabar (brave).

If it’s 6 months then he’s a stop gap until next seasons Championship push so we can re-assess in the summer. In which case I’m ok with that; we’re down anyway. Of course if by some miracle he keeps us up he’ll get extended and quite frankly he’ll deserve it along with the freedom of the city and probably a knighthood too.

F me the defensive frailties really are permeating throughout the entire club aren’t they.

Anyone else concerned that if it’s taking this long we might be appointing Rudi Skacel?

Now that, my friend, is the perfect tune for a terrace chant. Amusing as the lyrics are, not sure they’re right. But with a bit of tweaking that would be our winner. Now all we have to do is appoint him …

Well, he has in the traditional way of looking at these things. But if you look at the situation tactically and look at the right set of statistics, he’s still in charge

Being brave is exhausting

My understanding is that Rohl likes to press as a rule; tactically he tends to set up 4231 as well. But he’s been flexible on both, playing 343 often, and playing a low block when needed. It’s exactly this sort of flexibility and pragmatism that I’m more interested in than a ‘philosophy’. Any philosophy becomes an issue when it’s fixated on - Ralph’s preference for Moi because he was good off the ball is as ludicrous to me as RMs preference for Bazunu in goal because he can pass. They were both sh1t at the bits of play I cared about. As a rule I prefer the press over possession-for-the-sake-of it football, so preferred Ralph to RM when it was going well, but I don’t want someone wedded to a philosophy whatever it might be.

I don’t know enough about the potential candidates to get too emotionally involved about whoever they decide on, but I sincerely hope they don’t let money be the deciding factor (within reason of course!). This appointment needs to be right with the aim of starting season 26/27 back promoted with a good squad, good coach, sound tactics and a fair chance of re-establishing ourselves in this league. We tried cheap with Selles and he was a lamb to the slaughter. And for the sake of SR it needs to be a PR success. You can never guarantee any manager will be the right choice, but if they don’t make an appointment that has us on side they’re on a hiding to nothing. They’ve not received a fraction of the fans’ ire they truly deserve. Come up with a meh appointment, or one who’s too arrogant or too mental like some of the recent attempts and when it goes wrong there will be no patience and little holding back I suspect. Hjulmand to me looks pretty meh and cheap. I doubt I’m alone in that assessment. We’ve had a Wednesday supporter on here telling us Rohl will manage in the Champions League - we had Swansea supporters on here when RM was appointed telling us he was tactically inflexible and defensively terrible. Chalk and cheese in the feedback. Please can we just go and get the one who is more likely to be good, one we can get excited and positive about immediately? I know it’s comparing apples and pears, but 10 million v the millions wasted on player recruitment is surely doable for the most important position at the club? PS on another angle, is it worth doing a poll on who we want?