To follow on from the thread by Flooders, who would be the best player we had in the so called "dark years"? Obviously forget about the likes of Lallana, Walcott, Bale etc etc, as that's too easy My personal favourite....either Surman or an in form Saganowski, purely down to his goalscoring record when he was on song. Seeing as that wasn't too often, I'm gonna go for Surman
Best technically was Skacel - I know he was crap for us but whenever he played behind the striker he showed how good a player he is. But in terms of how well they played for us I'd say Andrew Davies, rock solid at the back every time.
Kenwyne Jones - Derby gave him a good kicking in the first leg play-off so he missed the second leg. Entertaining player.
I'd agree with that. We played him out of position all the time, and he was wasted. But he wasn't a bad LB either. Of course, there was also Stern John. When he came to Saints, I yawned. But considering he was a bit of a journeyman player by then, I thought he did extremely well. Saved Saints more than once. Actually, he prolonged the agony..! Saganowski, during his prolific times, is also a good shout. The sad thing for them, and Licka, Kosowski, etc.. and Saints is that they were pretty good players, playing for a club at the wrong time. I'm sure they would have done quite well if they'd had the infrastructure, management, stability and backing that the current players have. They would have probably all wanted to end their careers here..!
Not neccessarily although I think most of our academy products back then were either not the best, or sold on for substantial amounts of money...
Licka always impressed me on the rare occasions he played, same for Kosowski. It's a real shame we bludgeoned on playing terrible players rather than trying out one of them - but Stern John was a very good signing. Got rid of the drama queen Kenwyne Jones for £6m which probably kept our heads just above water, and Stern John who scored the goals to keep us up. Maybe if we went down that season, Liebherr and Cortese wouldn't have swooped in, who knows?
Jones was bought by Sturrock from Trinidadian side W Connection for a small fee. I think he was recommended by Dwight Yorke. Never really featured until we were in the Championship and after he had made a couple of loan spells where he knocked in quite a few goals for Sheffield Wednesday.
He may well have been, but he went into our Academy first and improved. I remember it was Academy players who played Eastleigh Spitfires one year, and there was Walcott on one side, Dyer on the other, and Jones down the middle. That attack was all about pace.
Just had a look on Youtube for various bits of video involving Saints through the darkest of the dark seasons. sadly, when I got to Mario Licka, I think I found an example of where we'd reached rock bottom. Watch this video. It's a compilation of moments when Licka was playing for Saints, and he's pretty much the best player there, but it gives a general feel of what we were doing at the time. You'll notice some reasonable and pretty play THAT GOES NOWHERE. I remember still being able to get to St Marys fairly frequently back then, and watching them, feeling slightly bewildered. They'd run around playing the training triangles type stuff, which looked very nice at times, when it came off, and then they'd give the ball away. It was all rather odd and weird. I was grateful when I could no longer easily go anymore.
chris baird gets my vote, outstanding defender and model professional and player of the season playoff year!
Ha - I remember there was a long period where we used to play stupid triangles on the right hand side just over the half way line, it was like someone had put an invisible fence around that part of the pitch. And yes, invariably went nowhere. Thank God we're moving it around much more freely now. Would be interesting to see a proper Sky sports type thing showing where all the passes are made these days. I suppose wearing those GPS sports bras in training helps us avoid getting stuck in a rut.
Yes. I know he was there in the Prem, but he came into his own when we went down. I really hope Fulham sign a shed load of defenders and we get him back.
The one who didn't want to leave when we were in trouble, is the one I wanted to keep. I think Surman was one of the best Post premiership!
