Sadly, as much as I want to give NJ a chance, looking at his interview he is already looking a broken man and out of his depth. I see at the end of the year he will have a third stint with Luton and probably get them promoted next year. Some managers just fit with some teams.
Yep. I've been saying this for weeks. Forest and Everton are massive games next month, and if we go into them with the same squad as we do at present...
I feel for Jones. We have a weak as **** midfield he’s inherited. Without a strong core we’ll always be struggling
I get that it isn't Jones' fault that our squad is so poor. But to start Diallo, Ely and Djenepo? Good thing that Theo was injured, otherwise he might just have gone with all four of them! This is part of the reason why I didn't want us to wait in making the change away from Ralph. This run of matches, starting today, is so incredibly important that we can't really afford to have a manager using them to try out different players and different formations. He needs to already know what his best chance is of getting a positive result. I could happily have told Jones that starting all three of Diallo, Ely and Djenepo wasn't going to be the answer. Just like starting with three CBs (and two strikers) vs Lincoln wasn't going to be the answer.
I've sussed it. NJ played Moussa, Eli and Diallo as a reminder that with 6 sleeps before they can buy him his Chirstmas pressies that we really need it.
The performance this afternoon was exactly the kind of nightmare I had feared. I said it earlier in the season but I will reiterate it again but I think SPorts Republic have been massively over-praised by the Saints supporters. At the beginning of the season I was quite optimistic as the younger signings looked to have the same kind of poential as Livramento and Broja last season yet not signing a proven goalscorer will transpire to look costly. Loads of people , including myself, felt the summer transfer window was a good one yet the most decisive big of business this summer was losing Romeu. If we had someone who coild band in the goals alongside Che to add to how Saints played in the latter half of the opening game of the season proved to me that this might be Ralph's year. Unfortunately, not getting the goalscorer and relying on the ineffective Alan Armstrong will cost us dearly. With regards to the coaching, I felt that Ralph had lost the support of the playing staff last season and the subsequent make-over of the coaching team should have involved Ralph too. As much as a I loved Ralph, it felt that t was time for him to move on in May. These two errors by Sports Republic would have seemed serious enough in November yet the appointment of Nathan Jones on this afternoon's performance is suggestive that Sports Republic have absolutely no idea of the standard of coach required to manage at this level. Most fans had never heard of him and certainly did not want him. Any honeymoon period was therefore going to necessitate hitting the ground running. I regret to say that I feel Jones does not have a clue. There was never any real formation and the players had no idea where they were supposed to be playing. With five weeks to work on, Jones has broken up the defensive partnership of ABK and Salisu ., persisted with both Djenepo and Diallo when both are demonstrably not good enoough, hooked off our best full-back and seemingly transformed Walker-Peters fron our of our most talented players to somene not interested and persisted with a rookie goalkeeper who should have been dropped months back. Sorry to say that SR have made a massive mistake in appointing Jones. It is an extremely poor piece of judgement that has left us at the foot of the table and with a management team who the supporters will now never unite behind. He should never have been given the job yet we we apparently tracking him for months. I think the Saints fans will very quickly turn against SR. I cannot recall ever see a Saints side looking quite so clueless - at least since the 9-0 reverse against Leicester. I cannot see us staying up and, quite frankly, I cannot see Jones being in the job by March. Absolutely clueless.
End of the year, eh? It's going to go pretty downhill pretty quickly over the next 4 days. Could be fun.
There had to be optimism compared with Gao! We've actually spent some money, and yes it was **** that we didn't get a striker over the line. I think most of the youngsters we've bought do have a future, just that this environment/pressure situation isn't conducive to them flourishing all at once. There were some fine margins earlier in the season that would have had us looking better at this point, and this was due to lack of a striker I think. As LTL said I think, it remains to be seen whether the 'data approach' pursued by Ankerson will look a bit silly? God we miss Romeu.
Perhaps SR will use the 66% possession Brighton had today to do something about Jones. I am struggling to think of a previous Saints manager who seems so inept and out of his depth without any clue as to what he was doing? Maybe Steve Wigley ? I feel sorry for him because he always had a tough task to fulfill and also was replacing a manager who was still popular with a proportion of the fans. As I said previously, no one who supported Saints wanted Jones as manager in the first place and the more "informed" members of the local sports medias were also scratching their heads. If Jones keeps this kind of "transformation" going, he will be binned before March. I am not sure if he can ever win the fans over now.
Trouble is, if we’re trying to be positive, we’re looking for slivers. There were a few today but they got absolutely ****ing annihilated by the dross from so many players. If NJ can keep us up deserves a medal.
That was a real downer, it's the last time I am going to do a Match Thread this year... Took the bullet for the team!
