Saint86

Yea, but they also had significant defensive selection issues yesterday. So whilst we were good, they were also playing from a disorganised perspective - and that showed by the early goals we scored and Charlton then tightening up with changes.

We're getting 4 more as a minimum, I'm expecting 6 😏

Have said this previously - it's the obvious thing to do, so we almost certainly won't go this route...

Game has changed though - its all about fitness, power, systems these days (over flair and skill). And the Pep in particular has had a huge impact on football - so many managers want to be pep lite these days, which has led to keeping the ball at all costs (the opposite of attacking wing play, crosses into the box, and multiple attackers arriving in the box)... Then ofc teams need to be in very well structured defensive shapes and pressing patterns etc. The game has basically turned into one constantly moving complex American football game, with a series of drawn up plays being instigated at all times and players knowing their jobs and operating like cogs in the machine. Its far rarer these days to see attacking players being given creative freedoms. I suspect players like Le Tissier wouldn't have got on too well with a lot of managers in modern football, and would have wound up being wasted. Looking back, it feels like the late 80s and 90s (in particular) were a bit of a golden age for football (in this country at least). Not helped by the domination of a select few clubs the longer the prem era has gone on.

Never got to see him in his younger years, and invariably good highlights are hard to come by - but watching that its clear that he really was some player even as a teenager! A talent as good as that at 17 would've got Rooney levels of hype in today's world.

What happened to O'leary? 👀

Curious to know how he will have built this up in his own mind...

Please don't take this the wrong way because I absolutely mean it in jest, but reading this caused me a mixture of physical pain and mental anguish. I don't know what crimes full stops and commas have committed against you in life, but i hope you find a way to forgive them - for all our sakes 😘

He's one of the least offensive names I've seen mentioned, and he'd be good with young players.

Key point with all this, is that martin was an arrogant egotistical bell end for a fair portion of his time with Saints... Ralph got smashed 9-0 twice, had fair few other bad beats along the way, and some of his best football was played behind closed doors (and away from the fans) due to COVID... Yet a fairly large proportion of the fanbase would happily take him back. The same cannot be said for Martin, and he delivered us a Wembley final win...

Had a dream where we hired Ralph, AA assisted downs with a through ball down the middle, downs ran onto it to slot in low hard shot across goal (good run, strength, and finish)... And then Ralph ran down the line in front of Jones celebrating before telling himself to calm down. Then woke up.... Knew it was too good to be true. But at least I was smiling about saints for a brief moment at least 🤣😢

If this was something that had been planned, we'd have sacked him a few days earlier and appointed Rohl. No. I don't think this was planned, i think Solak and co were quite happy keeping Still until the fans turned their anger on the board. At that point Spors then got the call to sack Still. But this was after Rohl (who was the manager we clearly wanted over the summer) took the rangers job, and the reality is that there aren't many appetising names available and interested currently. If the plan was just to give it to the U21 manager, they'd have done it at any point. And they would certainly have announced it by now. Spors has too much experience in football, and oversaw a fairly impressive level of squad refresh this summer - it doesn't sit with me that the same guy has intentionally sacked his manager with no good replacement options available. So for me, the call to sack Still when we did came from above Spors, and was probably a complete about turn on previous instructions - so once again, i think we're in our own special kind of Sports Republic mess.

We have an incredibly weak board. They're truly awful. Feels like so many major decisions are influenced by fan unrest or sentiment. No way to run a football club really.

Never mind that... can he manage a championship side stuck in a malaise of bad keepers and defensive errors? That's the question i really want answering! Edit - Actually, better yet, how is his goalkeeping?

My working assumptions are that, A.) we will continue with Tonda in an interim role - until such time that he's done well enough to justify keeping the job, or B.) someone genuinely good appears on the horizon and is interested... or C.) we stick with Tonda but he's doing really badly, and that leads to earthquakes behind the scenes leading us to move for someone they don't particularly fancy. So in essence, unless things change - my expectation is that its going to be Tonda. Also, i suspect the main reason Still was sacked when he was, was because of fan discontent and increasing anger towards the board - they've done this since Ralph - once the fans are on their case they quickly move to sack the manager. Now we've won a couple of games, fans aren't venting at the board in the stadium, so the pressure has abated.