Todays performance wasn't shocking, it was totally predictable. As Bendy says he has to go tonight, Saints lacked everything, fight, a clear plan, defending, cohesion the list goes on and on! MP2 is so clearly out of his depth it's laughable. It's becoming embarrassing to watch, the lack of action from the board deafening!
Indeed. If you only look at the past, then of course the likes of Liverpool and Utd aren't going to be particularly interested in our current crop. But if we go down, we could have the likes of Cardiff and Derby sniffing over our players!!!!!!!
I'm not convinced they'll be falling over themselves to sign them up, no. Bertrand, maybe. Gabbi, maybe, though not much in his record actually says he'd be anything other than a gamble. The others? Just not that good.
I ****ing hate being reliant on other teams. It's pathetic but that seems to be our strategy for the rest of the season.
But good enough for 8th in the league last season...so....ummm...no. I don't agree with you at all on this one.
I think we’d keep JWP, Sims, Long, Austin and those kind of players. I think we might be able to keep quite a few which might not be a good thing. Gabbi, Lemina, Carrillo, Boufal etc will be gone. However Redmond might be at his level and play well!
As a ridiculously early and pessimistic prediction I think the only ones of the team that started today who would be here next season if we went down would be McCarthy and Stephens. Including subs I'd throw in Bednarek, Sims, Long and Forster
I'm not saying we couldn't unload them if the intention was to get their wages off our books. I'm saying it's unlikely that they will be in great demand, or that there will be a glut of offers we can't refuse.
Most of the rest are rotation or backup calibre Premier League players. There will always be teams needing such on the cheap. Our problem is that we have a lineup consisting largely of rotation or backup calibre Premier League players, with a manager employing an approach that would really only work if you have a significant talent advantage over the opposition. Arsenal could walk it into the back of the net because they had a wealth of attacking talent. We have Nathan Redmond and Shane Long.
The thing will be that the players will be looking to get out and getting their agents to find out about interest/pimping them out. Whether we decide to put our foot down is the question (provided they don't have get out clauses in their contracts)
All I keep hearing is that we were closer - in points terms - to 17th than 7th last season. So yeah, we'll continue to disagree (which really isn't a problem).
If we go down, we will. Even with relegation pay cuts and parachute payments, our wage bill would be disastrously large. Beyond that, why would we keep together a squad that has proven time and again to be hopelessly flawed?
I think it’s universally accepted that we were incredibly lucky to finish 8th last year. Our points haul would have seen us 12-16th any other year
