Rich102

I do get this - I just can't see loading another bad appointment (which they will inevitably make) and another new playing style on a mentally weak group of players yielding anything positive either.

The issue for me is that there's basically two options for relegated teams. You keep as much as you can of your setup, and hope the PL quality is enough to steamroll the league (basically Leicester and Leeds and Burnley last year), or you use the time in the Championship to slowly overhaul a squad and style of play (more like Brentford - except they didn't have the financial clock we have). With customary arrogance, our owners assumed we could do both at once, and once again, reality is biting. For what it's worth I think we should stick with Martin and hope next season with weaker relegated teams we've still got just enough squad quality and have developed some kind of understanding/play-style. But that's as much because I don't trust the people in charge with replacing him either.

We're stuffed. The people at the top have no idea how to run a football club, so it's not even like replacing Martin would do anything. Every active decision they've taken has made us weaker. Charlatans.

Only that if your goal is to slim a bloated squad on high wages then triggering a contracted 40% pay cut by relegation helps a lot. Theres lot of players who absent that cut wouldn't have been motivated to leave, and you obv can't cut wages unilaterally in the Prem. I'm not suggesting relegation was our first choice, but I do believe that this kind of consideration limited how hard we actually tried to stay up. Not just based on the decisions we made (Selles as much as Jones) but also all these weird board statements about the gap between Prem and Championship being smaller than people think etc. These people clearly believe they can and need to break and remould the club - that's much easier to do now.

Yes granted, but it does potentially change the incentives for Sport Republic in the here and now.

Small part of me does wonder if deliberately engineering a 40% squad-wide wage cut to shift the deadwood is something a mad disruptor might do. Not clear how we'd ever have gotten rid of these players otherwise.

Doesn't hurt because it's been so long coming, but I really do feel dread that this is our level now. You either need mega money, or to be exceptionally well run to be a Premier League team in 2023, and we aren't either. Our rebuild is at least a 2 or 3 year process - by which time parachute payments will be waning, and there'll be another 6-9 teams who've dropped from the PL to compete with. Suspect our future is more like a Birmingham or Huddersfield than a Burnley or Fulham.

I honestly don't know if any other team (bar maybe Everton) has had consistently as bad recruitment as us over the past 5 years. We're stuffed with clearly not PL level players (Mo, Diallo, Bazunu, Perraud, Armstrong, Lyanco) and those are the ones we didn't simply cut losses on (Carillo, Lemina, Gunn - apparently Orsic and Caleta-Car already). What worries me is that the latest round seems just as bad - Onuachu looks inexplicable to me - doesn't fit our style or the league. Alcarez aside I honestly wish we'd accepted we were screwed in Jan and saved the 60 million we spent, and used that as a war chest to rebuild in the Championship. The money would have gone a lot further.

Worry about fan reaction to Marsch, but I think we could do a lot worse. We're effectively a Championship club with a board and fanbase riven with toxicity. The kinds of manager we'd all like aren't going to touch that with a barge pole Marsch for his limitations is a positive, likeable guy who's versed in the kind of Red Bull model we've supposedly organised the recruitment and youth teams around. He's not going to keep us up but we might start next season with squad, manager and fans all pulling in the same direction, and right now I'd take that.

This is the key for me. No point gambling to stay up now - but we need someone who's going to set the foundations for immediate return. In honesty I didn't expect Jones to save us necessarily - but the hope was he'd develop our talented young players, make us hard to beat and get both fans and squad to have a sense of shared mission. Instead he's done the exact opposite.

We're going to hear some absolute dross about performance levels in a game we were never in, and barely threatened. Teams let us have the ball when they're ahead because it's safe to do so.

I think we need to forget trying to stay up - we don't have the squad, and it'll be 5-10 more games before a hypothetical new manger can claim any impact. Not saying we should keep Jones - but a short-term appointment seems pointless to me. Really we need someone who's going to ensure we don't completely wreck the confidence of our younger players, and lay the foundations (tactically, and with a core of players who won't leave in the Summer) for a promotion push next season.

Forget the game, I want someone to explain why we've appointed a manager to play ineffective long ball hoofball with a squad built around recruiting sleight, technically gifted young players. No point even talking about staying up - I need to understand why we'd appoint a coach who'd so obviously devalue the assets we'll need to flog to break-even or rebuild next year. I assumed we'd go down with Jones but at least see his vaunted impact on developing a promising but inconsistent group of young players who weren't quite ready for the PL. But that's clearly not the plan. So what is?

It's honesty impressive how quickly he's left a mark on the team, albeit shitting things up to new levels.

If true, this gestures at the problem imo. What you can get away with in a team that's on the up (like Brentford) isn't what you can get away with for a team that's in decline. It's much much harder to turn a sinking ship around than start afresh - but in their hubris I don't think they understood this. The appointment of Jones might well have been savvy at Brentford or Brighton - but it was madness for Saints.

Only silver lining is we already have a Championship team and a Championship manager, and so Lavia and perhaps JWP aside we won't need to rebuild in the Summer.

Probably better we didn't go into the World Cup break with any false illusions. Ralph is out of ideas. We're not even failing at his style of play - it's just... nothing. Have to hope plans are in place for a change.

I honestly feel the squad is better than last year, but Ralph is so clearly out of ideas. We're not pressing because he (rightly) realises teams have worked that out, but he clearly can't coach a team to attack or defend any other way. For a couple of seasons now we've only gotten results against crisis/complacent teams. I don't see there being enough of those to make it to 40 points this season.

Because Leeds are not very good, and we got lucky today. Like I said the problem is that playing the system across the season allows teams to prepare for it - our records are getting worse year to year with 4222, but we're even worse when Ralph tries anything else.

Yes but that's the point, the reason we had to move away from Plan A was because teams had worked it out, hence the horror runs and hovering around 17th. Maybe that's our level (I appreciate the PL is more competitive than ever) but if Ralph isn't even going to do that we'd be better of with someone who knew how to coach a Plan B.

Have defended Ralph until now but seeing us first hand it's really clear it's the management that's lacking. We were dire for 60 minutes today and most PL teams won't let us back into games like Leeds did. At the end of the day he's got one style of play, which has been worked out by opponents, hence the scrambling for a new system. But if we're aren't going to play Ralphball we'd be better off with a coach who has more other systems in their locker. The squad isn't great still (obvious gaps) but the Summer recruitment looks the best we've done in ages. The spine of Bazanu, Bella-Kotchap and Lavia could be great, and Aribo and Mara look v promising. There's no reason this squad should struggle if coached properly.

Was thinking the same about Diallo - assumed (maybe unfairly) he was a replacement for Hojbjerg, but looks much more at home in a Steven Davis role (which we need too).

That's was 3 pens - he missed the ball, handled it and went in dangerously!

Trying to estimate the chance conversion rate of a Walcott, Adams, Long front three.

Agree, the thing is if you have a Redmond with really consistent end product, he's no longer a Saints level player. He's much improved in output and is absolutely essential even in games like this.