Match Day Thread Saints v Brighton. Weds 31st Jan 7.44PM

[Missing Lambo]

Is the Chapel really our 'home end'

There is just no comparing the Kop and the Chapel as a home end... ....the vocal support with away fans which just makes them appear nosier as a result..

The Chapel is the home end in the sense that it is a) an end and b) only for home fans. Like The Kop. They are comparable, as any honest Red will tell you. The silence on the Kop can be deafening.

As for making the away fans nosier, have you had problems with intrusive questioning from visiting fans?

 

[Libby]

Ok Beefy, you clearly disagree with me thinking that our fans should be supporting the team at the moment rather than moaning at them during the game.

Edit: just read your earlier post saying you get it and people at breaking point..... in that case I’m right in thinking they haven’t got the stomach for a poorer period at the club. 6 good years, 1 ok year (and a Cup Final) followed by 1 bad year.

Yep, whoever said our fans have become or are “entitled” may just be right.

That was me and I stand by it.

It's pathetic.

 

[I Sorry I Ruined The Party]

We've had the players to win more than 4 of our 25 league games this season

Do we? I don't think our talent is better than that of the teams around us. It's not something new either. VVD was pretty much single-handedly carrying the team for the first half of the season. Look at the players we have lost or have gotten old/injured and the players brought in to replace them. Has there been any spot on the team that actually improved in the last three years?

We have a really ****ty team. I think though, that we can be less ****ty than one of 5-6 other similarly ****ty teams and that's all we need. But it's not going to be easy.

 

[Libby]

Do we? I don't think our talent is better than that of the teams around us. It's not something new either. VVD was pretty much single-handedly carrying the team for the first half of the season. Look at the players we have lost or have gotten old/injured and the players brought in to replace them. Has there been any spot on the team that actually improved in the last three years?

We have a really ****ty team. I think though, that we can be less ****ty than one of 5-6 other similarly ****ty teams and that's all we need. But it's not going to be easy.

'really ****ty' is way overboard imo.

 

[st_brendy]

'really ****ty' is way overboard imo.

Overboard or not is a debate I can accept exists.

I cannot accept that a debate exists in relation to whether they're better than the squads of the three promoted sides. And yet we'll currently below all three of them, with five draws out of five so far. If we can't beat any of them at least once, we don't deserve to stay up. One match left.

 

[Schad]

Also, this should be a really difficult season to get relegated, because there are a lot of rather bad teams. It's not small accomplishment to be sitting in the drop zone given that, which suggests that -- while I think that the manager bears a fair bit of blame -- our team is at least a bit ****ty.

 

[Missing Lambo]

Maybe it's just me, but I think there is more going on than simply a bad spell. I don't mean we're certs for relegation, albeit I do have real concerns that we may become so. For me there seems to be something just not right, and I'm not sure any of us - and I include myself - have really properly defined what we mean. I've trawled through some crap years n my time. My Saints following goes back to the late 1940's, while my properly seeing and supporting them started in the late 1950's when I was glory hunter - Saints were pushing for promotion from Div 3 South!

I've seen some good football that struggled to bring results - we would have gone straight back into Div 2 in 1967 but for having such a potent attack. I've seen us battle our way through the late Bates era and get some success on the field, even if we were unloved by many. And of course there was the golden era of Lawrie. More often than not we've been humdrum. Yet fans still turned up. We cursed our inadequacies; we were saddened by the Blackburn exodus, but we weren't ready, as far as I can remember, to throw in the towel. The wonderful gallows humour of the final game in the Championship at Nottm Forest before we set off into the bleak unknown is a moment I treasure as a fan. We were screwed. Our club was about to go to the wall and our great rivals were lording it in the Prem. Yet we sang. We applauded our players when they came to us at the end of the game.

Then we all know how it panned out. JPT; double promotions; serious PL team. But we know we are Saints and it can all go tits up so why does this feel so different? The money involved? The knowledge that relegation would be catastrophic? Possibly, but there is something else. A distrust. A belief that this time we're being shafted by the very club we love. I have no evidence. How can I have? I'm just a thick punter. But this does feel different to '74 and '05/'08. Maybe you're right, FLT, and we've developed a sense of entitlement. I don't think I have. I just know, as someone who lives in a so-called "hot bed" of football that I have always been proud to "come out" as a Saint in the more than 4 decades I have lived here. And suddenly I don't. As I say, maybe it's just me.

 

[Libby]

Also, this should be a really difficult season to get relegated, because there are a lot of rather bad teams. It's not small accomplishment to be sitting in the drop zone given that, which suggests that -- while I think that the manager bears a fair bit of blame -- our team is at least a bit ****ty.

Still think it's more down to having the worst manager in the league.

 

[9043graham]

We have to support the team to get out of this mess. The issue for many fans, me included, is that the team I support keeps its best players on the bench when we’re firmly in the ****

Unless MP changes towards a more creative formula fast, us fans will be like the band playing while titanic sank!
I’ll always support the saints...... but MP picking the right 11 would ****ing help

 

[st_brendy]

I am a massive fan of the fact that if we get a draw this weekend, we probably overtake Huddersfield. Taking that round of matches as the final one in a group of four rounds of matches, we'd have started four points behind them, and through getting four consecutive draws, we'd have reeled them in and overtaken them.

Indicative of both how poor we all are, and how MP aims to guide us to safety.

 

[woolstonian]

Overboard or not is a debate I can accept exists.

I cannot accept that a debate exists in relation to whether they're better than the squads of the three promoted sides. And yet we'll currently below all three of them, with five draws out of five so far. If we can't beat any of them at least once, we don't deserve to stay up. One match left.

This stat alone is the most damning indictment of our season.

 

[Libby]

Yeah that's pretty atrocious.

 

[AshbySaint]

Didn't go to the match as was GF's b'day. So basically we played the same, had more possession but never looked like scoring many. Jack Stephens in the right place at the right time. Hoedt gave away a penalty. JWP industrious. Is that how it played out?

Lame excuse

 

[AshbySaint]

We had an amazing 19 shots yesterday (3 on target) and I suspect (but don't know) from other games that few were completely wayward. Now that can happen in a game or two, but we are consistently like that. The opposition defence cannot be superb every match....I find it inexplicable. Are we shooting from too far out or are we trying to get so close that we give them time to organise. Now I don't know, but a manager should.

I think the qty of ones on target explain it.

 

[fatletiss]

Entitled or fed up. I just disagree with having a go at the fans for not cheering enough etc. When the whole club is to blame for the mess

My biggest gripe isn’t the not cheering (though they should if they care) but the negative atmosphere they create with the groaning.

 

[AshbySaint]

From my memory nearly all of those shots were from outside of the box by our midfielders. We had a few free headers from the middle of the box from prowse set pieces that went nowhere near target and that's about it other than the goal. Neither us or Brighton had many chances of note.
Felt like nobody had the confidence or desire to try and create the space to shoot when in the box.

Completely different from the spurs match where we were just missing sitters.

How many saves did either of the keepers have to make to be honest. For some reason we are incapable of heading and at least making the goalie save it. Most go over the bar. Thats in most games not just yesterday. Also against a team that had a height advantage anyway, why would you try and score with a header. Baffles me completely?

 

[thereisonlyoneno7]

My biggest gripe isn’t the not cheering (though they should if they care) but the negative atmosphere they create with the groaning.

100% we should be trying to rouse the team not scaring them.

Forget the 'why should I try to rouse a multi millionaire' line too. We choose to go to the game, we go for the team not for the players. The club is bigger than all of them.

 

[fatletiss]

Overboard or not is a debate I can accept exists.

I cannot accept that a debate exists in relation to whether they're better than the squads of the three promoted sides. And yet we'll currently below all three of them, with five draws out of five so far. If we can't beat any of them at least once, we don't deserve to stay up. One match left.

Exactly what I said to my son driving home
last night.

 

[AshbySaint]

Still think it's more down to having the worst manager in the league.

One of our best managers was Lawrie Mac, in my opinion anyway. Didn't we go down in his first season? Just saying

 

[SaintinNZ]

Maybe it's just me, but I think there is more going on than simply a bad spell. As I say, maybe it's just me.

Hard not to agree Lambo. I cannot think of another club that has thrown away so much of what it had in so short a time. And by thrown away I mean sold off at a massive profit. Since promotion we have seen huge churn in players and staff and replacements that have been of a lesser standard. The only constant has been Les Reed. Make of that what you will. He has earned a lot of my trust over the good years but the past two have inverted more and more of it to the point of outright suspicion now. Culminating with this latest transfer window. Something somewhere is certainly amiss.