Super_Uwe

Mark Hughes has to be up there as a candidate. Great player for United and a great record of keeping teams up

Wish him all the best. Regardless of Swansea's collapse last season, he did manage to get us playing well enough to dig ourselves out of trouble. For me personally, the turning point for him and the team was the 2-2 draw at home to Brighton. I think that has had a bigger impact on the players than anyone could have imagined. Ever since that game we've just seemed so fragile, especially at home. We still haven't won a game at home this season, which is unforgivable seeing as we are in December.

I could see us appointing Jokanovic to be honest. Seems he has been on our radar in the past, he left Fulham in a decent way with a lot of appreciation from their fans. And of course he's available, don't think we need to be paying any more remuneration/compensation for the time being! I'd still like to see Sparky turn it around but our form and general approach is screaming relegation. Deep down he must know he's on borrowed time given the results under his stewardship so far.

Pleased to see Armstrong get a couple of goals, hopefully that will help his confidence. But another dreadful result. We shouldn't be conceding 3 goals against teams like Fulham. Not sure where we go from here to be perfectly honest. The team Hughes put out today is more or less as good as it gets. Some will argue a better manager is the way forward, I personally don't know if the squad is capable of much more than a relegation scrap.

Austin's interview post match was fun to watch, I fully get why he's frustrated. He's a striker who desperately wants to score and hasn't had a great start to the season. Guess he may end up regretting his outburst as I can't imagine the FA will let him get away with it, but we will see. However I'm no way buying his and Hughes' argument that 2-0 would have meant the game was all over. We haven't had the ability to see out a home game comfortably for a long, long time now. Yes it would have given us a much better chance, but there would still have been that unease in the ground.

He was part of the team that helped to bring us back from the depths of administration, so for that he deserves thanks. We have had some great times over the past 8 years and if he was truly a passenger then he'd have been booted out a long time ago IMO. Be interesting to see what sort of plan we have now.

Not really sure Johnson has done enough so far to warrant a Premier League job, Bristol City are very inconsistent. Hence their mid-table position.

Broadly agree with you. As I said above, he's a bright lad and will do well in the game I'm sure. I like his attitude, we could do a lot worse. However, he very much reminds me of David Prutton - very highly rated when he arrived, popular with the fans and ever willing to acknowledge them, but never really hitting top form on a regular basis. We have to be honest and say he has a long way to go before you can call him an established PL player.

Against Watford, IMO we really need the players to set the tone and come out at full pelt to help get the crowd behind them. The obvious issue is that the players in their current state will probably be blowing hard after about 60 minutes! But our home form is so desperate that I just think we have no option. The players we are picking every week are basically the best we have, there aren't many changes that can realistically be made. Get a home win on the board and hopefully it will give us a platform to build on for the rest of the season.

I kind of agree with Dusic, our problems run a lot deeper than the captain. Think of our relegation season back in 04/05. We bought in a few characters that January like Quashie and J Redknapp, both came in and made decent impacts but they couldn't stop the rot. It feels the same again, PEH is an intelligent bloke and I'm sure would do a decent job as skipper, but I don't believe he can sort the rest of them out on their own. It needs at least 4 or 5 of them to up their game and really change things around. Bertrand and Cedric are both miles away from their best form for Saints, but realistically I don't see who is going to replace them. Targett clearly isn't favoured by Hughes, Stephens I guess could do a job at RB, but again it's a case of a square peg in a round hole.

Depends if we ship another 4 or 5 in the second half Hardly unexpected today - so far anyway.

I'm still 60-40 in favour of Hughes staying. That's quite a swing against him staying, but the apparent lack of fitness and sharpness of the players has to fall firmly under his responsibility (and the coaching staff). However, I can sympathise with the fact he is trying to get some sort of stability. He's right to comment about the clean sheets being some sort of progress. People will moan about the lack of goals, but to be honest the players seem so fragile. Better that we get something from these games before losing becomes a habit.

The only thing in our favour is that it is still early on in the season, so a few wins close to each other would allow us to climb the table. What worries me this season is that we are more or less putting our best side out, week in week out. The lack of quality is depressing.

Sorry, not sure if you meant to quote me or someone else as I'm not sure my point disagrees with you a great deal?! No issue at all signing players in the mould of Jimmy Case etc, I don't personally consider any of those players you mentioned as has-beens when they signed for us. As was proven in the years of service he gave to us. I'm thinking more along the lines of players who've moved to several clubs, had loads of injuries, used to have pace but no longer do etc. Owen when he signed for Stoke for example, he was a great player but sadly well past his best once he joined them. My point specifically is that we don't seem to be even remotely looking to sign players over the age of 30. The actual age isn't an issue - I agree the level of experience is more important. If achievable within our wage structure I'd also love to see us sign Cahill because I think he's still got a couple more years left in him.

I don't want the club signing players on their last legs looking for a final pay day. I just feel that's part of the transfer market where we might actually be able to do some business. Fonte for example had his best days for us once he hit 30. Lambert arguably as well, seeing as he didn't debut for England until he was 32. I get the idea of buying younger players so that they can potentially be sold on at a profit. It has worked well on the whole, but if we can pick up a few bargains then why not?

Saints FB posted about one of the late 90s games where Trond Egil Soltvedt scored the winner against Liverpool. Which got me thinking - when was the last time we actually signed a player over the age of 30 as a first team regular? The only one I can think of since our return to the Premier League is Boruc. Perhaps something for us to work on? No issue with building a youthful side, but maybe one or two more experienced players coming in could help in our current predicament?

I would like us to sign 47 year old Chris Lucketti please. As opposed to the 36 year old version who we signed originally. We need experience.

Very interesting that long comment above, I agree with a lot of it. I completely agree about the leadership on the pitch. We let Fonte go because he wanted to move, realistically I guess the club took the decision his best days were probably behind him, and we made some decent money off the back of his sale. But the reality is he was our leader on the pitch as we dragged our way up from League One, his game improving for most of the time he was here (coinciding with him breaking into the Portugal team). The fact is we haven't managed to replace him. In terms of the current squad, players who you could say provide leadership or a bit of backbone to the team include Davis, Romeu and Yoshida. None of them are anywhere near their peak Saints form. So there are lots of little factors which are causing trouble at the moment. Having said all of that, if they can manage to string a few wins together then hopefully we can move on for the rest of the season. If we can manage 13th or 14th plus a cup run then it's at least a start moving in the right direction.

Be great if one of the academy players really manages to step up and break into the first team. Been a long time since Walcott, Bale and Oxlade-Chamberlain were our wonderkids, we're due another one now surely!

Needs time to settle but you would hope eventually he will turn it around. When Michael Svensson joined he didn't seem all that great to begin with in 02/03, but once established with Claus he was one of the first players on the team sheet. That may just sound like mindless positive thinking for the sake of it, but we should always remember the pace of the Premier League is brutal and it will take time. Sadly this summer's recruits aren't going to get much time to settle because our recruitment has been so poor the last few years, we're desperate for players to come in and hit the ground running. Ings has sort of managed to do that, the others really haven't got going yet.

Sparky said there will be changes for the game, he also said if they do well then maybe they'll get a chance in the league. Certainly an attempt to kick the current starters up the backside, but really that's the way it should be surely?

Seems unlikely I agree. Possible if the board can "do a Rupert Lowe" and get Chelsea to pay half his wages, like they did with Le Saux back in the day. Depends how desperate we are by January!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45607843 I don't imagine for one second we'd be in for Gary Cahill, but I really hope the board look at him as an option (maybe to the end of the season or an 18 month deal). Can't help but think he is exactly the kind of player we need right now; plenty of experience, loads of honours and experience captaining a successful side. We are desperate for leadership on the pitch.

Don't live in the area any more, but hearing Dave Merrington on the radio makes me think of home. Which is weird seeing as he's a Geordie and hasn't ever lost his accent, but there you go.

I still feel Hughes will do a decent job for us, the reality is we are playing better football with him in charge than the last two managers. Somehow he has got to get the players over the mental block they have playing at St Mary's, it's gone beyond poor form now and is IMO our most serious threat this season as it's unlikely our away form will be able to compensate enough to keep us away from the bottom. Other than that, I guess we have to face up to the fact that we haven't yet replaced the talent of van Dijk or the leadership that Fonte provided. That's not to say the current defenders won't ever step up, but they haven't so far. Also Davis' decline has also robbed the team of that steadying influence which is something we needed last night to get us over the finish line.