Tommy Mulgrew

But we did not fight hard enough. Just look at the photo of the Ipswich goal: Taylor turning his back on the shot and Aribo turning side-on. That is not good enough. And what other team would spurn an attacking free-kick three quarters up the pitch in favour of playing it back to our penalty area and then give the ball away? And spend 80 minutes of the game not trying to get a second goal? One might lay the blame on the players but the buck stops with the manager in my opinion. If he wanted something different, our manager would have stopped all that type of crap, which we see served up almost every game, long before now. Blaming our second-rate strikers is the easy way out. A good manager gets the most out of the squad he has at his disposal. Ours is patently not doing so. Yes, a Pelle or a Lambert, even an Ings, would be a great help but we do not have one now. We need to show some fight and guile and I did not see enough of that today. It was a performance that reeked of sleepwalking from the jaws of victory to inevitable relegation if we continue to play as we have so far this season. Today’s game and its management was way beyond depressing. More change in our attitude and our on-field strategy is needed. And quickly. Ipswich at home was our best and supposedly easiest chance of three points and we blew it. The red and white future is not bright; it’s really, really grim. I, for one do not like it. I am angry and saddened by our inability to gain three points at home from a fellow relegation-fodder side. Depressing.

VAFC doing a perfect Saints impression: three goals up before half-time, contrive to throw it all away, go into injury-time 3:2 up, concede a goal, which is then disallowed, and then give away a penalty in the eight minute of a seven-minute extra-time to draw 3:3. That is taking SR team likeness to extremes. VAFC and Saints - perfect partners. Better luck next match, Christophe.

On Sunday Maya’s LA Galaxy beat Los Angeles, their closest (in both senses) rival 4:2, after being two goals down in the first 15 minutes, to go 7 points clear at the top of the western MLS league having played two games more than LA. Five games to go before playoffs. Could well be yet another pinnacle in Maya’s stellar career. Japanese, Dutch, English, Italian, German and American leagues so far, more than 100 caps for Japan, most of them while playing for us, and Japan captain for several years and in team of the tournament at one of the World Cups he played in. And he recommended Suga to us and us to him. Perhaps he knows a proper striker or two! Then he would be a Saints legend.

“One man went to mow …”.

U r right; my mistake: I thought I remembered seeing his name when I looked up the teams last week but I was wrong.

Yes. Played in the first game; an unused sub in today’s earlier win v Bahrain. Not sure when he comes back to UK.

S. Sam Amo A 😩 A. Aaron Ramsdale 😬 Aah💡 Adam Armstrong 👍 S. erm -who? 🫵

🤭🫣🥱😴🤐 😭 read hypo’s reply and consider, please. don’t tar everyone who disagrees with you with a personal abuse accusation; most of us on here are perfectly reasonable people.

I think you might like a cold shower, BarberSaint.

I cannot recall anyone on here wanting to “ditch the style our players know”. But many, me included, want Russ to vary the style a bit to avoid so much short passing between our CBs and GK in our own penalty area, let alone inside the 6 yard goal box, while under severe pressure from pressing opposition attackers. And for our midfielders to receive more balls on the turn and go forwards in a fast and more direct attack instead of passing back to a CB or our GK, who are still faced with being pressed. Preferably, the GK to spray some longer balls outside our penalty area, probably out wide in preference to up the middle, where we have no TP to harry oppo CBs into a mistake. Call the latter Plan B if you like but it does not imply the complete abandonment of a fast, flowing PB style of football. The turgid stuff that we serve up almost all the time will not do at all. We had exactly the same vituperative conversation/argument last year. Let’s not do it all over again. Unless he is more pragmatic than he has been so far this season and for much of last season, Russ will be exposed by any other EPL manager and team as a one-trick pony and we shall be consigned to the Championship again well before this season ends. Hardly any of us want him sacked regardless of what he does in the coming months; most of us are willing him to be more flexible in how we set-up and play, rather like how he adjusted for the last few games of last season. Here is one of my posts from last season after our horrendous defeat by Leicester. It received 23 likes and is just as apposite now as it was then. What Leicester did to us then is what almost every EPL team could do to us this season.

I was at school with him. Nothing out of the ordinary in our team; more than a few better than him but he practised several hours a day and eared his reward, I’d love to have him as our CF for this season: the missing link in our transfer dealings this year IMO. Well pleased with almost everything else we have done.

Where has last season’s Gio1saints gone, you know, the one who would defend Martin against all the evidence to the contrary? It’s just not the same on here reading all this criticism of our esteemed manager. I cannot quite get my head round it. Who will now defend slow, ponderous Russball against our almost universal desire to see fast, attacking football? Genuine question. Confused.com. “If I was Brentford after watching Saints v forest I might be tempted to play with a keeper, 2 full backs, 1 CB (he can chat to the keeper if he gets bored and lonely) 4 MF’s and 3 attackers. The ball is not going anywhere near the penalty spot is it so just push up. The not so secret plan is to Wait for the inevitable passing around the six yard box fuck up and take it from there.”

I wonder whether that was a recommendation from our chief scout in LA (Maya Yoshida). If so, well done him. And, seeing how Saga turned out, it bodes well for us.

I see that Wolfsburg has just sold Lacroix, a CB, to Crystal Palace. How did ABK get on with Ralph? And did Ralph rate him well enough to be interested in bringing ABK back to Germany? Just putting 2 and 2 together to make 5.

I thought Defoe did not score any at all for us.

I don’t quite know what to think about that.

Calling Captain Jack!

Another cheap option? Or another one for Goztepe and the future? Kevin Zefi, 19 year-old Irish midget support strike presently at Roma training with us to determine whether we want him. Roma likely to allow him to move if we want him. (Cannot seem to get the link pasted on here -it is sport witness article for anyone interested.) Fiddling while Rome burns springs to mind.

If you don’t mind a foreign language: http://www.fawanews.com/Southampton vs Nottingham Forest.html

Wow! An appearance by the lesser spotted Ross Stewart.

I think you should go for a walk in the rain, gio1saints. It should do you the world of good.

ABK to Hoffenheim off https://insidefutbol.com/2024/08/19/southampton-stars-move-100-per-cent-off-and-collapsed/657297/

Lesley Ugochukwu is 1.90m tall and looks a bit of a unit. Would beef up our midfield. Looks like ABK, plays like a combination of Victor W and Morgan S (what’s not to like) but seems to have missed most of the past year with a hamstring injury and he has a girl’s name - but I’ll leave you to tell him that.

And if it does not work out, “we march on”! 😉

Is Mitchell Rankin a member of the COT? ”Must stress this was in departures with a plane back to Newcastle which I’m assuming he was on. He said to my dad when he saw him that he loved it here last season, and it’s here or no where. Make of that what you will.”