Saint86

Probably? It's a blatant hand ball goal.

Bottling it.

Really is no excuse for any party involved to come out with something less than this. Its time for red, white, and navy to return - we are not just another stoke/brentford/sunderland ffs.

Yes please

Wrexham look to be going big on the January window. If we aren't going up, I think it would do us a favour for next season if they weren't here competing with us (i.e., got promoted - although not at our expense obviously)... They're showing no signs of slowing down on spending, with £40M already, and a reported £20M striker bid going in...

Seeing as Fraser has left, i had a quick look at current player contracts using Capology... very evident we still need to shift some pretty obvious names off this list: Aribo - £4.2M per year - exp summer 26 Macca - £2.6M per year - exp summer 26 Fraser - £2.6M per year - exp summer 26 (now gone) Archer - £2.6M per year - exp summer 28 To name but a few. I'm also shocked by THB's wage - the green tick means its "verified" apparently. Charles also seems to be criminally undervalued. Need to offer him a nice pay rise and get him signed up long term. Romeu sadly also seems to be a bit of a luxury on the wages front. Stephens on £2.6m per year till 2028 just doesn't make sense to me at all, Edozie is another £1M per year that we aren't seeing anything for...

Good luck to him, seems a nice move for his retirement in fairness.

Fair point, well made 😂🤣

I love him, but i'm not entirely convinced his physicality and final product are good enough to go much higher than a lower half or relegation scrapping prem side personally. Maybe if he was a couple of years younger with more room for growth, but he'll be 30 in 2 seasons time, and i think there would be a valid concern over how his (in reality, declining) physicality would stack up in an ever more physical premier league. If we were where we should be (i.e., a promotion contender) i'd have no concerns about losing him, but i can see that whilst we're languishing in the mid table or bottom half of the champ its possible he may move to a more competitive side - particularly if someone sends a halfway decent bid to our player trading board. Don't get me wrong, i think he's a fantastic player for us and the championship, and he really is superb as a winger at this level. Arguments to be made that he'd become even more effective with better quality attacking players around him to be sure, but still wonder if his physicality would ultimately hold him back - i dearly hope he sticks around at saints and gets the chance to prove any such doubts wrong mind you!

Mbappe?

If our approach really is stats based, that article makes damning reading. Direct play shots/xg/goals are all up year on year over multiple seasons, overwhelmingly the most popular formation is 4-2-3-1 (or variants), whilst 3-5-2 (the classic 5 at the back) has disappeared / contributed to a marginal growth in 3-4-2-1. So what does Rasmus have us doing... 5 at the back passing football - largely between the cbs 🫣

Its laughable to suggest we should outright drop AA, he's hands down one of our best players at this level. I can only assume its because fans (and only fans) keep accusing him of being a bad egg in the dressing room. .. but people need to stop lumping AA in with the grouping of players assumed to be the troublesome core - we all know who the primary candidate are there (Downes being the oft rumoured main one). As for AA, he is on record multiple times this season for criticising the team and saying its not been good enough, he puts good effort in every game, is still on for for a chance as being the top goal scorer, and wasn't even here for half of last season's car crash.

By which point, the season will be gone and we'll be staring down the barrel of an actual relegation scrap.

Its pretty evident how we've arrived at our current situation. Sadly though, i think the truth/reality is being kept very well hidden from Solak. Perhaps not so hard to believe if he invested in a man who came out with "what would a football club look like if it had no human eye or ear". So alas, behold, the smartest man in football... and someone we must apparently suffer through until bankruptcy strikes.

I don't know, but i'm now wondering whether any of them are on the shortlist to be the next manager