The Van Dijk money basically went on Carrillo (20m), Lemina (15m), and Hoedt (15m). We've made so, so many piss poor signings, almost every summer, since Koeman left. Ings and Walker-Peters are the only stand-out transfers in, Stuie decent, Redmond, Hjobjerg, Salisu and Bednarek respectable. The rest is a shower of sh*te quite frankly. (Not including transfers since SR takeover. Too early to tell, but no wonder they wanted to get rid of our scouts).
There’s a reason why different managers all get similar results from this squad. We have a few promising players but we play a system where they have to play within the team and there isn’t a team here just a bunch of mismatched individuals with too many not good enough All our CBs have shown an ability to **** up None of our attackers can shoot Our midfield looks like a bunch of strangers on the local rec Aside from KWP and JWP who. almost got a bloody draw out of this game amazingly
One thing I think we all know, following last night’s debacle. Elyounoussi will be back in the first 11 Saturday. I have been saying since last season that the squad wasn’t good enough and that Ralph making the players press made the team and players look better than they actually were/are. Ever since the press was stopped we have spiralled downward, although the commentators and pundits will have us believe that we are still a pressing team. Player recruitment has been awful for several seasons now and, should we be relegated (it’s still not mathematically impossible to stay up) despite having money from parachute payments and player sales, without someone sorting out the recruitment, I don’t see us challenging for a return to the Premier League anytime soon.
We also suffered yesterday because Grimsby had the whole of the Northam, we had no "kop" to speak of, there was a bunch in the Kingsland North doing their best, but there was no co-ordinated support from our crowd.
Yes but I'm not sure what the club can do about it. They've been put down that end of the ground on police request.
Isn't it ultimately a design 'flaw' in the ground? Home/Away fans can't be in the same concourse area. We can never give away fans Itchen because of the corporate setup. Kingsland has one giant concourse I think (and so can't be safely segregated). Chapel is the wrong end for getting away fans away easily. Perhaps the only answer would be to persuade the Northam contingent to move to Chapel and then shift the family zones over to Northam?
The itchen north corporate boxes often have away fans (starts a lot of trouble) - makes logical sense to me to let them have that corner! Or do what they do at Villa Park, and have the corporate boxes glassed in so it's all irrelevant.
I think the stadium was designed with Chapel in mind as the ‘Home end’, but the fans then placed themselves in Northam. At least that’s what I’ve read before.
St Mary's is one the least intimidating grounds in the PL anyway, not sure it makes much difference where people sit.
Sounds a bit self indulgent but I’ve just read my post from immediately after the game & wanted to check if I over cooked it. Nope, got it spot on. What a shiit show. Gutted to what we’ve become.
And there was me thinking that we'd do alright in the Championship next season... (Although in my defence, I did think that we'd need to appoint a decent manager to oversee them.) We've had some right imponent forward lines in the past. But last night might just top it off. Mara and Armstrong (and then Aribo); you'd have barely known if they were on the pitch, or in the stands.
Agreed. I couldn’t believe how ineffective those 2 were for the 60 odd mins they were on. Orsic (1x flash) & then Aribo All, just didn’t have a clue what do do. I don’t ever give 0 or 10 out of 10 as a rating. That went out the window last night.
