Lallana's Left Peg

Have we fielded a worse 11 for a league game since our second season back in the league?

Most concerning part of that news is that Gao is understandably holding out to ensure he doesn't sell at a loss, but the state of our club and debt means 1 person has only valued the club at half the amount Gao wants. Half! So the upshot is that as long as Gao holds out for what seems to be an unrealistic price the club will slowly decay as it doesn't have a pot to piss in while the teams around us in the league spend £20m+ on players. This only ends one way for us in the medium term...

On the plus side in the league over the last 18 weeks just three win bonuses to pay out and four clean sheet bonuses. So that'll help.

Whilst I don't disagree with you I look at Leeds and they have been able to sustain it over a season and we haven't. Maybe a lack of access to recovery facilities doesn't help us. But when you consider Leeds have only just been promoted and have had to adjust to the jump in quality they have been able to play games with relentless energy and we have not and are 10pts ahead of us and it'll probably be 15 by June. They can also manage games and we can not. There is a problem somewhere completely independent of our ability to maintain energy levels, and even then I think we should question why we can't piece together a game for 90mins.

No backbone to this team and questionable management right now. We don't have enough talent to win games in those circumstances.

I had heard that the Chinese state banned investment in foreign sporting organisations, which I assume means even if Gao wanted to, he wouldn't be allowed to invest in Saints. So he has to sell really, but I guess selling in a pandemic means he wouldn't get his money back and he'll be refusing to sell at a loss. So we're stuck in limbo slowly but surely dying. Happy days.

I'm happy for them, and their circus, to go and the rest of the clubs in this nation can normalise with respect to income and we can enjoy things a bit more. I'm fully prepared for my boy to have a 'TV team' he watches in this silly European Super League and a team that he goes and watches and supports in this country outside of it.

Today's disappointing performance isn't really just about missing out on the chance to play in an FA Cup Final to win a trophy, it's that the distraction from the last 4 months of awful form has gone and it brings into focus the future of the football club. I've pondered this for a few seasons now, but this past summer really brought it into focus: Is the Premier League becoming too rich for us to exist in? It seems nice and normal to think a club of our size could sustain and self-fund itself in the lower half of the league, but I think those days are coming to an end. To even exist in this league now you need to invest more than you earn, and have the appropriate leadership and funds to do so. The return of Aston Villa and Leeds means we can forget about ever competing with them again, so each season right now I think it comes down to the three promoted clubs, us, Burnley, Newcastle (under the current ownership) and Palace as to who goes down. Brighton invest and will get it right through sheer financial muscle eventually, and everyone else operates at a financial level considerably out of our means. and even Palace right now are spending properly. We've already had the reports that this summer we'll spend under £10m each on a couple of players, and that's just to fill holes - clubs pay that to get a player on loan these days. Not to mention doubt over the future of two of our starting defence and a striker (who happens to be our best player). Each season the clubs ability to complete in this division erodes, and we delay the inevitable. The only chance we've got is a change of ownership, but that seems unlikely. I don't feel optimistic about the ability of this club to operate in a rich mans playground - can anyone try and present a crumb of optimism and hope in response? I just don't see a way for Saints to exist in this league in the medium term and each season is a step closer to the moment we do get relegated.

The biggest problem this group has, or maybe its our Manager, is an inability to stop the rot and dig out a result to give us a foundation to go again. When we're good the momentum makes us very good, and when we're bad the momentum makes us very bad. It doesn't really cost us too much given other issues (club ownership, lack of funding etc.), but if we're to make progress as a team we need to take a thumping then shake it off - the hangover of things - both in game and across games - lingers far too much and it's not right.

Remember, the team are asked to defend space not players. Against the best teams, or teams with the right sorts of players, they will destroy us. I'm not excusing mistakes or lack of focus which we clearly suffer from, but the team is set-up to play in a particular way and that way gets massively exposed against teams with real quality who manage to circumvent the approach we have towards defending as a team. Over the course of a season it serves us well, but we'll always be on the end of some thumpings with this system.

We're not going down, I think there are at least 6 teams worse than us in this division. But I don't know for how much longer that will be the case over the course of the next few years. We haven't got any money, we don't spend any money, and we don't produce players other teams want to generate money. Eventually that slow rotting will cost us and we'll fall out of the division. It won't be a shock, its entirely inevitable and its a slow and painful death.

When the opposition doesn't even have to turn up to beat you then there are big warning signs that something is wrong. Team is devoid of confidence and lacking the quality to achieve anything to act as a catalyst to generate some. Just a complete lack of cohesion in the team which is entirely down to Ralph. I don't want him to go, far from it, but he deserves to be properly questioned about what is going wrong and why.

Would love to be proven wrong but that team just feels awful - no compensation for players in the wrong positions and two wildcards in the number 10 roles. Could be a real hiding once the first goes in.

Contributing factor considering the lack of facilities available at Staplewood to recover and energy we need to expend to a result in any game. But also entirely predictable and known going into the season, so also avoidable had we worked to get a squad of appropriate size.

Who? This is the current state of the club: 1. No investment from the owner as he isn't allowed to 2. No prospect of new ownership as owner is determined to make his money back in a COVID market 3. No money for new players (what was it, down to the 7th right-back on our list to borrow on Transfer Deadline day before we jacked it in?) 4. Best player looking to move to sit on the bench of a CL club 5. Playing in a league where if you aren't spending £30-40m+ net a season you are probably going backwards because most other clubs have the means to do this one way or another. It is a thankless task to manage this football club and enhance your reputation. Not to mention its hard to succeed at anything by any metric other than 'we survived'.

Ralph isn't perfect but I'm terrified at the thought of who would even be attracted to this job if someone made a bad decision and sacked him. It's the same reason I'm terrified of selling anyone. Until the club is sold and receives some leadership and investment we're treading water. I'd rather tread water with Ralph than any other viable alternative right now.

They would have doubled down (that's how they work), and it probably detracts from the real issues which is the grand scheme of thing is not the officiating its the hangover of quite frankly terrible transfer decisions from the moment we sold VVD combined with an owner who cannot put money into the club if he wanted because of law changes in China after he purchased the club. Then if you wanted to assume he would sell, unless someone comes along and offers what he thinks it is worth he's going to hang onto his asset. Who in their right mind in this economic climate is going to buy us for more than Gao did and why would he sell for a loss? Not having a go at you by the way, just think its not as simple as claiming the owner is the problem, or saying the refs are the problem. We've made mistakes in the past and are paying for them now, I'm just thankful we've got a manager who knows what he is doing and can help us navigate through this period of the clubs existence.

For the free kick (that should have been a penalty I think) just before half-time Stephens was in the wall repeatedly telling Mike Dean something and pointing - he must have done it half a dozen times and eventually Mike Dean gave him a yellow card and Stephens didn't even acknowledge him. Then after one of the late goals Mike Dean was telling Armstrong he needed to move the ball an inch into the centre spot to kick off and Armstrong just ignored him for 15 seconds before getting a yellow and then he just smirked and shook his head at Mike Dean.

Not posted in years but nowhere near as bothered or worried about this result as I was Leicester. Look at the circumstances behind tonights result: 1. Significant injuries 2. Very poor backups playing (what, our fifth choice right back and same in CM?) 3. Unfortunate marginal decisions going against us Yes the performance was poor but the situation is not terrible - it's three lost points. In the context of the season we're in a position that reflects our squad. In the bigger picture we are where we are because of mistakes made in the past, and whilst it would be nice to have an owner who invested whatever turnaround we achieve is over a number of seasons. Last thing - was highly amused at the petulance of Stephens and Armstrong towards Mike Dean 😂

U23's shipping an enormous amount of goals at the moment, averaging nearly 4 goals a game since the start of the season

Thomas O'Connor didn't play for the U23's last night. He's usually Captain and a staple of the team in DM or CB in a three. Unless he's injured I suppose there is a chance he could be in the matchday squad for tonight.

We also lost away to Burnley that season. That has nothing to do with our current defensive issues of course, but it does go to show that even one of our best teams lost away up there. I think its awful that our central defenders are so bad that we have to play three of them to have a modicum of defensive capability, and even then mistakes undermine it all.

Unless something remarkable happens tomorrow, I hope Hasenhuttl doesn't get too frustrated with this summers activity. I know we've delivered his two high priority signings, but all signs pointed to bit of a revolution this summer, certainly with outgoings, and it just hasn't happened. There is a very real possibility that we could have players on £50k+ a week at the club but not even being registered which is a shocking situation for a club of our size to be in.

If people are a fan of his work he's still working the same angles on twitter

So Wolves want Lemina for a year whilst the player they really want remains in France for a year after they sign him. Absolutely no chance they play Lemina enough to actually be forced to sign him when they've got a £35m player coming in next summer.