Saint86

I don't know, but their new 3rd kit is tasty!!

Better than any manager SR have so far appointed, and by some distance 😄

Unfortunatley, we're got a comparable expected goals against ("allowed") to the mighty Plymouth and Rotherham (excludes penalties). Shockingly we're also the worst side for errors leading to an opponent's shot...

I think we can already see potential warning signs around Wilcox. Martin is his man - and i think everyone can see the stark limitations to his game having only watched 8 competitive matches. For us to have hired him, the people who made that decision (Wilcox primarily) should have been fully versed in his games for the past couple of seasons. Very worrying. JWP sale for £27M was laughable. ABK loan was beyond stupid - especially given he is exactly the kind of player we need and given we're playing specifically the type of football Wilcox wants - shows a real lack of tactical knowledge at recruitment level. Holgate... just poor. Bree and Manning as 2nd and 3rd best fullbacks for the season... this simply isn't good enough for a promotion team... Only 1 CDM to speak off, and that is a 19year old who is talented but inconsistent - and who is also our only major addition to the playing squad despite raking in well over a hundred million. We seem intent on managing academy players like Ballard out of the club. We've got 3 loan players in and around the starting 11 that know they won't have to be here next year if it gets tough this season. This summer was our point of peak attractiveness in the 2nd tier to recruit long term. As it is we will have another 5 first team players out the door as soon as the season ends ~(TBH, KWP, Fraser, Che, Holgate), another grouping of other players (such as stu) will be entering their final year, and best not to even mention Alcaraz and Sulemana who will certainly not be sticking around for another year of this. So we will have to rebuild again next summer from a far weaker position re our reduced stature / attractiveness. I would imagine that by then, there will also be a good chance we'll be viewed as a basket case club - one that players should avoid for the good of their careers as well.

If we don't somehow get promoted this season (or make a very good stab at it) its basically over. That is the reality. SR have fucked the club. Eventually we'll slip into financial trouble, get relegated, and they'll sell up. Only then can we properly rebuild - in a world without SR. What scares me is how much damage they'll do between then and now. Edit - the way its going, i can see the players on short contracts being scooped up in January if promotion is gone - wouldn't surprise me at all if we're sat in the lower half of the championship and accept nominal offers for che and kwp.

TBF, with his wife's millions and inheritance, that could actually happen one day... just need to suffer for a circa 10years whilst SR destroy the club and we sink to league 1 and administration.

Well he isn't "pony". So given the choices you've offered, i guess that makes him "the unluckiest keeper to ever play the game"... On reflection, he does have the misfortune to have signed a long contract that obliges him to play in a Russell martin defence where the defenders pass the ball to the opposition, without warning, multiple times per match... and often with a free run at goal... So maybe there is something in that.

Well we all exist within our own supporter groups so may be that yours just hated Poch at the start 😅. But I do agree re adkins, i think there was basically universal discontent and unhappiness about his sacking. But tbf, Cortese made that call and he took the heat (which he didn't care about one iota i don't think) - i don't think the fans blamed Poch for it? - Ultimately Cortese had made his mind up and was going to sack Adkins regardless of whether Poch took the job or someone else 🤷‍♂️. Oh for a bit of Don Cortese's ruthless ambition compared to now.

I don't think Boro's 1st is the criminal offence some are making out. The boro player (who is left footed) checks inside to open up his foot as if shooting across goal. Baz is then partially unsighted as he goes to shoot due to bednarek coming across. just before the boro player hits it, bazunu takes a step to his right (the left side when facing the goal) and transfers his weight - which was fatal as he then can't recover. (I assume he was anticipating the shot across goal and expecting bednarek to close out the shot to the right hand side... The shot is then rifled under Bendarek's foot down to baz's left / into the low right hand side of the goal and you can see that he doesn't react until its past bendarek (and once his weight is transferred onto the wrong foot) - It was a pretty good/fast hit and he can't recover. If the boro player had put it in the far corner he would equally not have got to it without changing his positon - so he's gambled on the defence being able to cover that near post and the striker just gets it through low and hard. It happens imo. Or said another way, if he gets free sight of the shot he wouldn't react late and would know exactly where it was going to go, but similarly the player would have had a free shot on goal. Also, its not just Bazunu who has taken the step to his right. THB is leaning exactly the same until its hit.

The stats are skewed though... Normally the defence don't inexplicitly pass the ball to the attackers 20yards out without warning - so those keepers will be better set. Poor old Bazunu probably has no idea what's going to happen next whenever the defence are in possession - whether the ball is going to be up the pitch in 10 seconds or heading towards his top corner. 😂

He wasn't universally disliked by the fans, that feels like quite a rewriting in my mind. People were angry, hurt, and upset by the Adkins sacking - which was mainly aimed at Cortese - and ultimately we may not have liked it, but Cortese's decision proved to be a good one / justified. Re poch, most fans looked at his record/reputation and the quotes from Pep etc in spain, and they were fairly open minded. I remember going to that everton game (which was bloody freezing), open to seeing how we did - and straight away it was a solid start. At no point was i, or any saints fan i knew, against poch - we hadn't had a good start (i think Adkins had turned it around and would have kept us up), but the decision was made and it wasn't poch's fault. The difference is, we haven't had a managerial appointment of that level since SR have been in. They've not hired a single manager with evidence of success at an appropriate level - or success full stop in the case of Selles and Martin. What decisions have SR made that anyone can say is a justified success?

Only if you get another no nonsense ruthless winner like cortese at the reigns. Not Wankerson (or another hipster egotistical project man that won't see the obvious - even when it's slapping him in the face every game). SR easily the worst owners we've had in my lifetime... And I bet in his own mind, Wankerson still thinks he's responsible for brentford's rise and that what's happened here is the fault of everyone he's sacked so far 🤣😂

Sadly, the most likely way I see for our fortunes improving is after a long drawn out death under SR before they finally sell up (I accept that I am totally disillusioned with them at this point). But, for example, we limp along being uncompetitive for a few years in the championship... Every summer we try to flog our players for whatever we can, the ones that stay know there is no real plan / ambition for growth / project (unlike the league 1 team), and so we go through an iterative period of diminishing returns of squad quality and player trading before eventually being relegated and likely suffering an administration. And on this point, imagine being a player at the club currently, we've made huge sales and made no effort to stop any players leaving, we've got a few left that don't want to be here, Flynn downes who we know doesn't, and the England u21 captain who must realise what a total shit show he's joined but knows he can exit stage left in the summer... Who exactly are we building a team around? Who is driving us forward? What is the plan / the dream? Probably our star player (alcaraz) has seemingly fallen out of favour and is being benched ffs. It's a far cry from lambert, lallana, fonte, morgan, kelvin etc. And if we don't get promoted this year / next season, it really is likely that we'll continue to decline and get relegated, or at best that we'll settle as a bang average championship team indefinitely, with no real hope of promotion... At some point along this journey, SR will finally decide to try to sell up - extracting as much as they can before hand i suspect. Sadly I think it's becoming clearer all the time that this is an ego project, but that they simply do not know how to actually execute any of their supposed bright ideas. And at the point they do finally sell up, we're looking at a lottery on perspective new owners, and on whatever car crash state the club is in - No doubt all our best youth players will have long been sold before they finally sell up - we'll have long since been milked of all player trading potential.

Just watched Everton's 3rd goal away at Brentford, last defender caught in possession... thought i was watching us 🤣

The ABK (basically free?) and JWP (£27m) sales were terrible business. Tella hasn't been replaced. And we only have 1 good fullback to last the season. Our LB is not good enough, and our back up right backs are holgate and bree. Absolutely shocking business.

Selles would have been far better than Martin. What scares me is that Sports Republic have shown themselves to be utterly incapable of judging or choosing good managers. They sacked ralph, they hired jones, they gambled our premier league status on Selles, and then they got rid of him to hire Martin 🤣. All the "Martin Out" vibe is fine / one thing, but the reality is the real rot is Sports Republic and they're wrapped around the neck of the club.

If they were patient and delighted in slow excruciating deaths - it would look exactly like this.

The tella sale is far from our worst bit of business. JWP was easily the worse decision of the transfer window. Easily!! 3 years left, captain, plays every minute of every game, and hands down our best player. £27M. The guy will go on for another 5 years at the top level as well. The state of our LB, CBs and RB cover are all worse bits of business than Tella sadly.

I fear we're effectively fucked until Sports Republic sell up. Which might well be another relegation and possible administration.

Quite. Approach play is very similar, wants us to pass it across the midfield and defence like he's on LSD and just discovered stroking Ice Cream... The big difference being he's got a far worse defensive setup and tells the players to pass the ball to the opposition or they'll be dropped. Shocking manager.

Charles as the central CDM anchor. Downes as the more defensive CM in a pair, and then Alcaraz/Stu alongside him with freedom to roam forward. That should be our central midfield triangle. Edozie and Sulemana on the wings. And then Che or AA up top. Done. We've already fucked this part up, but the back 4 should have had an ABK stlyle defender with pace and power that could cover the counters (its almost like they forgot why we signed him 🙄). I don't really care who we pick as our 2 CBs, all much of a muchness but i guess Bednarek and THB is as solid as anything given what's left. LB is a real weakness, as is RB when KWP gets injured/suspended or needs a break.

The longer he has with the team the worse they get. Budget Puel. Bigger issue is sports republic however. Absolutely shocking mismanagement of the club so far. No doub when they sack Martin they'll point to all the decision makers being new this time around / having to learn on the job / made a mistake but will get better... blah blah blah. Fact remains our summer business was shite, our manager is shite, and our ownership group are shite. The decision to switch ABK for Holgate on loan deals is just mental, the one thing we need is a fast and powerful CB to protect us on the counter - we got rid of him (for peanuts) and signed holgate 🤣... Manning isn't good enough. We're dropping players like Armstrong and Alcaraz to start Aribo and smallbone. And Edozie and Sulemana are our best wingers and neither start. It genuinely feels like we're owned by Pompey fans doing everything they can to manager us to the slowest death possible - that is how bad SR and co are. Penny for Alcaraz's thoughts - one of the few players to make genuine and public overtures of loyalty this summer... can't get a game over downes, smallbone, aribo, or fraser. Laughable.

He was easily our best player, fair play to him.

The damage sports republic have done to our club is just incredible.

Thats the kind of quality Aribo gives you that alcaraz wouldn't... a scuffed wasted touch unmarked in the box. FO martin.