whoateallthepies

What I do to support the team is your opinion based on nothing. As for blessing me, what I will tell you is I'm an atheist, so you can stick your religious terminology up your arse.

Taken me a while to post as I've only just resurfaced from returning from the match. Awesome performance that had nothing to do with the manager. At 0-1 and 20 minutes in, we were still pretty awful and spent most of the time arguing with each other as often seems the case nowadays. Lemina however, had spent that time sussing the game and decided enough was enough, the oppo were s*** and someone had to step up to the plate or we were going down. He took control, bossed the game and drove us forward.The rest of the team responded. Romeu started winning tackles, full backs pushed forward, Carillo held the ball/won headers to allow the midfield to run beyond him and even Tadic started to show us he can still remember how to play...no, really. These were players taking responsibility for themselves not the manager waving fairy dust. It doesn't mean we are safe and it still worries me this muppet is in charge. He is the one who hasn't been playing Lemina after all. Just another in a long line of poor decisions. He's absolutely useless and this result should not change the fact he needs to go. As far as I could see his only noticeable contribution yesterday was to make a dismissive gesture towards us when we were singing 'you're getting sacked in the morning' (at 0-1 down). Yesterday showed that the fans and the players as one, which is what matters at times like these. For now, we need to ignore the idiot in the technical area and get behind the team every game from here on and I think we will stay up. Then hopefully we can rebuild in the summer with an actual football manager.

And can someone tell me what Lemina has done to be frozen out at £18m? Does the manger not like his hair style?

Not with this manager we won't. You could see tonight that the players just look totally confused on the pitch. At 1-1 they had two choices, become aggressive and push forward for the win knowing they might risk getting caught on the counter; or invite Brighton on and catch them on the counter; they did neither and just passed the ball around in circles. The manager just stood on the side with arms folded shouting at them to get in the box whenever we had a set piece - genius. He's blagged his way into a job he isn't qualified for and our club is going to suffer as a result. It's criminal, a complete cluster**** from top to bottom.

This. The manager feels under pressure, has probably lost the respect of a few of the players so he brings in someone he knows and thinks will follow his instructions/make him look good. Some managers love using players from a previous life. Didn't WGS bring Williams and Telfer with him? Brian Clough had two or three he pretty much took everywhere with him at one time. Doesn't always work out of course.

Literally nobody can prove if that would be the case or not. If only we still had Channon, Keegan blah blah

The sad thing is that actually it's not that unthinkable. My instinct says there is a sense of things being in panic mode now rather than any organised strategy. MP saying to the Echo that now they have missed out on Walcott they need to change their targets with 10 days to go doesn't suggest people who are in control of things. It's all on a slope to nowhere. Complete this sum: Absent owner + incompetent board + manager out of his depth + demotivated players + no signings = re*eg*ti**

The problem is that the comeback is a theme with this manager, not a one-off. Opposition managers know he is going to go negative once we have a lead and so they change tactics to expose a defence they know is going to drop deep. MP is so poor that he just doesn't see this and then reacts either when it is too late or with the wrong subs (mostly) or both. At half time my one hope was that he was telling the team to be positive, get the third goal and finish them off. Three down, they are out of it, two down, they know they have a sniff and will keep at us. The only solution is to sack him and hope we bring someone in with sufficient nous to keep us up and then regroup in the summer.

According to RKFG in his interview; their focus is on creating the right 'environment' at St. Mary's. Something we all refer to as 'The Championship' - so no, I don't imagine there will be any signings in January.

Who is Surely Long? When did we sign him?

Pellegrino also mused "If De Gea had kicked the ball backwards into his own net instead of forwards in to our half when it was 0-2, who knows, maybe things would have been different for us"

We could start by the board realising we effectively have 11/12 games to stay up (excluding against the 'big' clubs) with the games in March looking like they will go a long way to deciding it. Get a new manager in now who understands what is necessary to squeeze maximum points from those games through a combination of existing players with any heart left plus a few new heads with fight in them. Skill not necessarily required at this stage. Scrap enough points to stay up (couldn't give a toss now how we do it) and hopefully reset the club on an upward curve in the summer. Look - it's Christmas - we can all dream.

My son and I were at the game and said exactly the same thing; and it feels really bad to be thinking like that but these are truly worrying times. I know I'm not the first to say this but it has the same feeling as the season we went down from the Prem. Poor manager, a board that are sleep walking towards disaster, players lacking motivation and critical points slipping away. If we assume no points from the next two matches barring miracles, they may act if we don't beat Palace but that feels too late for me. Agree with the WGS suggestion. He's been away from this level for a while (and Scotland is hardly a top appointment) but not sure there is a better/more realistic option out there. Personally I would act if we lose to Spurs.

Players don't care, board doesn't care, under qualified manager = rubbish. Has a similar feeling to the season we went down for me. Let's hope it's a different ending. Worrying that I'm already thinking the only option is to is get rid of Pellegrino and spend a bit in January but I won't hold my breath.