S-Clarke

Sorry Manji, but at this stage I struggle to see anyone worse than Sports Republic. They have been utterly, utterly horrific in every single way possible. They are in the midst of destroying our club as it stands. ''How many expected us to do well this season?'' - I'd say the majority of fans expected us to be sat on more than 6 points and not already relegated in January, let's not try and kid ourselves that this league is an insurmountable feat. We haven't even competed, not in a single game. Ipswich and Leicester came up with us and they are streets ahead of us development wise. We came into this season entirely underprepared because our owners don't understand football.

Shea Charles coming back would be a bad move for him. He'll make no difference to our season, so there's absolutley no point. We're going to have tons of broken players come the end of the season, so let's leave guys like Shea alone and give him the time to enjoy football. And also, for what it's worth, I can see us cashing in during the summer. Apparently some Serie A and Bundesliga clubs have been tracking him heavily this year. He could be one of the more 'unexpected' sales from the summer. I feel a Tella situation.

We lost 5-0 to Spurs under Martin. 5-1 to Chelsea, 3-0 to Bournemouth, 3-0 to Man Utd. Let's not try and make out Martins reign was full of roses, it wasn't, it was an absolute complete and utter shit show which has lead us to where we are right now.

It's a bit of a stretch to say we're packed full of top Championship players. There is a hell of a lot of average EFL in this side, once the remnants of the quality leaves in the summer (Fernandes, Dibling, KWP, THB), we'll be left with a core of Stephens, Charles, Armstrong, Aribo, Fraser, Wood, Manning, Bree, Smallbone, Bazunu, Taylor, Archer etc etc. One or two top level champ players in there for sure, but a hell of a lot of absolutley average champ players too. This is why I don't expect us to compete at all next season. We're absolutley ruined as a squad at this current juncture, some of these players will never recover from a season like this. This time next year we won't be talking about a squad 'packed full of top championship players', trust me.

At any level, you need good players for the level you are at. Ultimately the good player/stand out player becomes the talisman for the team, as we had with Rickie or Fonte, Ings etc. There are no talisman in this team because we have no good players for this level. Our only two technically capable players are Dibling and Fernandes, the rest are lumbering piles of shit at PL level. We should have learnt our lesson because we've tried this story before with Aribo, Armstrong, Bednarek, Stephens etc.

I thought he was horrendous to be honest, terrible touch and slow as shit. 'Chelsea aren't stupid' - yeah, they probably are tbh.

The Gao era was pretty deflating as there was no investment, but the people 'local' who actually run the club day-to-day applied a bit of common sense to decisions. This lot have all the gear and absolutley no idea. They started their ownership stint watching us beat Brentford 4-1 with Ralph in charge. 3 years later they've just witnessed us lose 0-5 to Brentford with their 4th permanent manager in charge, on course for our 2nd relegation under them. They are absolutley horrific. There is no football experience at any level, just a bunch of businessmen with money who are trying their hardest to wing it. They have absolutley ruined this club. We don't recover from this season overnight, trust me.

Can we just pretend the season didn't happen? I've never experienced such an uncompetitive season in my lifetime. We have never, not once, been in competition with anyone. 20th has been ours since day 1.

Get the same errors here too, tried multiple devices with varying OS's and browsers and it's the same across all. Doesn't matter what theme I'm on either. I do get into the threads eventually, but it can take 3 or 4 attempts.

At the end of the day, the model of SR is to generate money from the development of players. Having a successful team is second to them, primarily it's about building a successful profit generating portfolio. Dibling is an opportunity for them to rake in full profit from someone developed in house and I'm fairly certain they'll take that opportunity as soon as it arises. He is our ticket to trying to build a competitive Championship squad next season and helping Gozepe compete even higher in the Turkish league.

Our use of money since around 2017 is beyond belief really. We've had numerous 'DOF's' and chief scouts during that time, but there must be some sort of connecting factor still at the club? The same analysts, the same regional scouts? If I was Dragan, I'd sack all of the recruitment and scouting teams and basically start again. Just require simple criteria to scout. A goalkeeper who can make saves, a striker who can score goals and a midfielder who can tackle. It sounds a bit simplistic to say, but we've spent so much money on keepers who can't make saves and strikers who can't score goals. It's all gone south since we've pushed that 'The Southampton way' brand, trying to create the illusion that we are special. We're not special, we're absolutely shite.

No, there is zero chance. We need around 60% of available points to get to 40 points. It's really not worth stressing about or thinking about. We've been done and dusted for many weeks.

He's done his stints at WHU, no way he'd go back there. Potter is the likely candidate for WHU imo. Moyes has shot himself in the foot a little with those comments, every club bar 6 or 7, has a realistic chance of getting relegated and often bumble along for most of the season only ever a few points away from it. So unless he thinks he'll be managing Liverpool, City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc then his choice is probably going to be limited to clubs who are at risk of going down. He will now likely end up at a Championship club pushing for promotion, who have a lot of $$$.

There are some odd takes on this forum at the moment. We have people trying to create this angle of the two best players we have, Fernandes and Dibling, not being 'that good'. It won't be hard to get rid and cash in if that's what some want, as there will be loads and loads of interest, so that probably means they are quite good. Meanwhile we will get to continue to enjoy BBD, Sulemana, Fraser, Stephens and co.

This could be a great opportunity for Rasmus to secure another free player for Gotezpe

They're lucky, they can be seen as a proper football team again. In theory this should be the absolute end of his managerial and coaching efforts, but you know there are still bat shit crazy chairman out there who think he'd still be a good idea. (Step forward Rasmus)

Christ, what I'd pay to see Fabrice in this side. He'd run rings (literally!) around some of the clowns we field today.

They are yet to buy a capable centre forward, we last signed one in 2019. But we do have a new pub, lounges and TV screens at St Mary's. I'm not saying that you can't do both, but their focus is on maximising commercial revenue which is all well and good - but for that to make any sense, you need a viable product to sell. Since they have been in charge of us, they have created the worst product in the entire country. So stadium expansion is all a bit moot to me, irrelevant. Sort the important stuff out first.

Only Southampton, under SR, would expand St Marys by 10k seats for £60m before buying a centre forward.

I'm not saying it's just down to that, but there are 4 players there who they gained because of us. Victor Hugo, cheap deal. We had to take less on Charly. Matsuki - he is ours and on loan there Lis - obviously was ours, but wasn't ever truly our player. Juan - he is ours and on loan there Upcoming links: Vanderson - looks like we'll buy him and then loan him there, same 'could' happen with Wellington in January. So they are massively benefiting from our PL finances to secure players they'd otherwise find it hard to do so. It's not all down to that as I've mentioned, but it's a weaker league and there's less required to be successful there

By using SFC as a vehicle to purchase players from Brazil and Japan, and then loan them to Goztepe. Or using our sales as a way to negotiate cheap/player swaps for their club.

Pace is all well and good, but if you don't have the technical ability to release the ball or the football brain to know how to use it, then you're pretty much just an athletic runner.

Didn't they just get rid of all their area/European scouts in favour of a new static data-based approach? We'd be silly not to rebuild our setup with some of their left overs.

I'm not seeing that at all, it's plainly clear who have really been below par this year - and people aren't afraid to say as much. Pretty much most of the team. But I just don't believe Fernandes is one of those who should be singled out or put into a 'bad recruitment' pile, he's one of the best picks we've had in some time. He won't be great every week, but he's one of the few players I enjoy watching on the ball.

Fortunately for them they play us on the 16th, so they can start to pull themselves away. It always makes headlines when big clubs look closer to the bottom than the top, but they'll quite obviously finish in the 50's or 60's come the season end. Top half I expect.