S-Clarke

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.

It's alright, Juric will find out by mid-January what this waster is all about. Not worth a place on the bench, let alone the 11. I find it really depressing that SAA gets overlooked for this sack of shit.

Semenyo was £10m to Bournemouth in our 'Orsic/Sullemana' window. Says it all really. It's not about money, it's how it's spent. I've never been so disheartened by the scouting setup at our club as I am today. The money has been there over the last 2 years, but the people spending it do not understand football or what is required.

I think so, we're just buying them another Brazilian.

I'm not sure you can use that season as the reason they are now 2nd in the league. They were absolutley shite that year, stayed up by a whisker after spending multi millions. The following seasons were equally shit. They're just having one of those seasons where things click, they've built on a Nuno Espirito-Santo mould - very solid, hard to break down.

People are really confused or drunk on Christmas alcohol if they're critising one of our few, maybe max 3, technical players in the side. We should be grateful we get to see Fernandes and Dibling this season who have a bit of genuine technical ability, otherwise we'd only be able to watch BBD lumber forward and AA run into a corner flag.

He hasn't really been given much of a shot here has he? Not really sure he's where the brunt of peoples criticism should be right now. I'm sure he'll bundle in a goal or two before the end of the season, and then bugger off to Turkey for £7m in the summer.

That's Bednarek in a nutshell really, a very, very, very limited defender. Gets away with it at Champ level, but without a decent player alongside him at PL level he is utter piss. Teams will always concede goals with Bednarek in the side.

Lock the keys to the credit card away. Do not let them spend a single penny. It's not needed. It will not change anything. Wait until the summer, make money back and rebuild again to try to be competitive in the Championship. There is absolutley no sense in spending a penny in January, so you watch them splurge £50m on another Sulemana, Ounachu and Orsic show.

I've been away for Christmas, so It's reassuring to know that absolutley fuck all has changed with this shower of shite. I don't know much about the new manager, but no one is going to be able to get Aribo and Armstrong contributing at PL level - no one. They are piss at this level, always will be. I haven't commented on the manager appointment as I don't really know much about him, but isn't this yet another SR turn around to a new direction? It's like pin the tail on the donkey with these guys. As has been said before, the rest of the season is just glorified friendlies. There's nothing to play for, might make it less stressful at the end of the season I guess, but it's going to be a bore fest of uncompetitive friendly games. The question was brought up by Martin a lot, scar tissue etc etc - after this season, they won't have any issue space left for more scar tissue. These sorts of seasons kill players, there will be some in this group who never recover from this season - as a club, this will be like turning around a tanker next year. Losing is a habit and we have well and truly secured that habit. That will almost certainly follow us into the Championship first half. Cheers SR, another almighty mess you've got us into. I've never been so uninterested in football, they're killing it for me.

Wasn't he the guy Everton fans protested against a couple of years back? Forced their owners to backtrack and get Lampard instead. Not sure exactly what the hate was towards him, maybe he upset a scouse person once in the 1990's.

I imagine the posts after the next pretty random appointment will be along the lines of... ''We have to give him a chance'' ''Can't write him off straight away'' ''Let's see what he can do here, better squad than he had at x'' I couldn't even hazard a guess at who it will be, but it will be a name to unite the fan base in pure WTFness I'm sure. I wouldn't trust SR to run a bath.

My view is very close to yours on this one. I've never been a fan. I see lots of comments today about how everyone is grateful for last season etc, but for me I can't help but remember last season as a bit of a chore. It wasn't as enjoyable as some make out. Look at how we ended the season, horrendous. Salvaged it by a 1-0 win in a one off game, but prior to that we had been 2007-2008 Wotte levels of shit. The unbeaten run was a puff piece really. Littered with multiple draws and really shocking results against the likes of Huddersfield and Rotherham. I was never convinced by the appointment and felt it was a gamble, in a way the gamble paid off slightly, but I sit here today and wonder what on earth the point of promotion actually was? Money for a new bar and hospitality lounges?

I was never truly convinced by the bloke, felt a bit of an odd gamble last season when we needed a steady hand. We did get promoted, but I was underwhelmed by it all - not going to lie. We let in too many goals last season, had some great moments winning in the last min - but it shouldn't have been like that with the squad we had. It was a strong top 4, but we were the worst of the lot imo. I felt surprised when we got promoted, it took a little while to sink in as we never looked set for it all year. Fast forward to this season and we almost certainly weren't ready for it. Every single limitation in our game last season is still there, just heightened x10. I'm devastated that we never gave this season a shot and got relegated with not even a whimper. Martin was a manager who wanted to play in a way which suited him, he wanted to create a team that made him look good and had no thought of using a squad to their strengths. He threw so many players under the bus in his tenure by forcing them to play in ways not suited. Don't get me wrong, our squad in the main is utterly horrific for PL level, but I cannot believe we haven't managed to make a fight of it like Ipswich or Leicester. Our next appointment needs to be someone be with a view of next season and someone capable of creating a competitive Championship squad, don't give them ££££ to spend in January as there is no point. Do I trust SR to get the next call right? Absolutley not, they've got every decision wrong since they've been in charge so I'm fearing their next call.

The only way I can describe this season is that it feels like we've taken a year off. I look at PL games and forget we're actually in the PL. We have quite simply taken a year off of competitive football, a really weird approach but I'm sure somewhat revolutionary in the mind of Rasmus. So as we've taken the year off, I'll also take the year off. Got much more important things to focus on. Hobbies are supposed to be fun, this is pitiful.

As long as there is a monkey petting zoo, then I'm on board.

You know it's bad when fans of other clubs are on the Southampton forum arguing about our owners.

They sacked Heckingbottom early Dec last season, Wilder came back and tried to keep them up but the damage was done - but they kept him on this season as they made a better fist of it under him, albeit futile.

19th and 20th positions are sewn up imo.

It always seems worse in the here and now rather than the past, but that 2008/2009 season in the Championship was the worst I've ever had to endure. Portvliett, Wotte and co, a bunch of kids and Lloyd James at RB. We were regularly thrashed by the likes of Wednesday and Hull, there was no money and we were heading into L1 on -10 points. I never felt as low as I did then.

At the end of the day, they didn't replace Wilcox. They looked within and restructured rather than get a fully-fledged known DoF. His background is Performance management in Rugby Union. A proper footballing DoF is a gaping hole at our club.

Who? Mark Bitcon? That's stretching the term DoF to it's limits!

But for clubs like ourselves, we will never be able to recruit the level of player needed for this style. So what we do need is a manager that looks at the squad he has, and adapts based on what he has available, rather than one who shoehorns a specific philosophy no matter what situation just for his own ego.

I disagree, the philosophy focus we have is greatly flawed with the level of player we have. In fact, I'm bored hearing about philosophies and processes - just buy good players and play them in positions that are natural and comfortable for them. Stop getting them to do things that exposes any weakness they may have. I don't ever remember hearing anything about philosophies and processes when Koeman and Adkins were in charge. It sounds simple, but football really doesn't need to be complicated. It's when you try to get extra clever that things go horribly wrong.

This is the problem, we have owners with zero direction or idea for what they want to do. Like you say, they went full on DoF and everyone bought into that, and by January he was gone and they didn't feel it was fit to replace him. I think we've got a former rugby head of performance in the equivalent role now. SR need to figure out their plan and stick to it, they keep wobbling all over the place.