Good job we had no worries about the GK for him to sort out, otherwise it would be 3 major things he's ****ed up.....
Time to turn up the heat on these guys now I've been far more understanding and patient than most but this season was always make or break and they've made multiple **** ups before we've even arrived at November. The absolute arrogance in their approach to the GK and ST positions is just abysmal. It's unacceptable and we should demand better I actually can't help but quite like Solak as a person, but he keeps getting taken for a ride and he seemingly can't align a decent exec team and strategy on the footballing side for love nor money. Time is up, Sport Republic are sending this club deeper and deeper into the mire and our house needs clearing
SR have turned us from a competitive premier league team with a reputation of exiting football, turning players into future stars, to the laughing stock of English football. They take gamble after gamble on inexperienced managers, inexperienced players and they get away with it year after year. Looking back, the one manager who knew how **** and toxic the squad and the club was, was Ivan Juric. He got shot of Armstrong, called out Downes who basically downed tools, to name a few decisions. He knew we needed a lot more physicality and pace etc, but took over at the wrong time. I feel for WS, as clearly not ready for the challenge of taking over this **** show, and probably not strong enough to tell the club how **** things are here, if you listen to a few of his interviews he has hinted as this. But, he will get sacked as SR will think this will get the fans of their back as yesterday was the first time I heard us fans vent anger at them from the terraces. It was also good to hear anger directed at this bunch of perennial losers of a team. We’ve been served up over 2 1/4 years of absolute **** over the last 3 plus years, and I think 4 wins in the last 50 league games, has finally cracked most of us fans.
We're far too timid a fan base. We politely clap them off the field no matter the result. They're taking the piss and what's worse is we let them. The fault lies at the top The fault also lies with WS (although much less culpable) The fault is also with the players There's absolutely nothing wrong with blaming them all loud and ****ing clear
Like many people I always recognised how poor they'd been but was willing to give them this season as a last chance to turn things round but once again they've failed massively. I don't think it's disputable that they've been a complete and utter disaster. I honestly don't think a Pompey fan could have done a better job of destroying the club which says it all. The whole club just absolutely reeks of incompetence from top to bottom and the high turnover of staff says it all about the sort of football club it's become under SR. Even aside from the obvious failings on the pitch and with player/staff recruitment it's amateur hour all over the shop, a few examples: - The media team being a joke, eg the celebrating of BBD's playacting at Newcastle on social media or worse, the celebration of reaching 12 points which was pathetic. Sure there are other examples too which don't come to mind. - The not cancelling the Christmas party in Ireland last season. No way a serious football club let's that go ahead with just how poor the team is performing. - Making Armstrong present that award last season to the person who predicted 5-0 Brentford. - The lack of tribute to Chris Nicholl which was utterly shameful and doesn't get mentioned anywhere near enough imo. I understand it was supposed to be done at the games which was postponed but it would have been easy enough to rearrange it once the error was realised. The fact they didn't shows the contempt they have for the fans. - The lack of communication around the DD changes to season tickets this season. Worst season in our history and the club decided to basically say "oh if you stuck with us this season we're going to add a tax on to your season ticket and up your monthly payments too" with no prior warning. - Even the QPR tickets fiasco a couple of weeks ago, not a huge thing granted but it's such a basic thing for a football club to get right and the failure to do the sums is an awful error. ****ing over some of the most loyal fans in the process. I feel for Solak in a way as he's put the money in and feel he genuinely wants the club to succeed, but ultimately this has all happened under his watch and we've got worse and worse and worse with no signs of getting better. **** me this ended up longer than I thought. I'll add some comments around protests etc in a separate post after some breakfast.
You haven't even mentioned the Northam wall and relocation of away fans Could be here for days listing everything they've ruined at this club.
I nearly did but I think a fair few people actually like it so it didn't really seem right to include that tbh. However I should have included the fact they made an away end which can't be adjusted for smaller allocations and means we have to give more than the minimum allocation in the EFL - amateur hour.
There's so much to mention. I mean the on field stuff is the most important obviously but I feel they genuinely treat the fans with contempt.
Whilst I am under no illusion that SR have done an awful job, we were in serious decline for years before they bought us. The downfall started when we were sold to Gao and all investment in the club stopped instantly. With no investment in the PL, clubs like Saints have no chance. However, the mistakes made since then have just continued this shocking decline.
Yesterday needs to be only the start in terms of noise against SR, it needs to be a regular theme of our games going forward now. As I said last night even if we're winning it should remain as a win doesn't change anything really as the rot is so deep set. I doubt anything like that will happen though as our fanbase are rather fickle. Very few people were interested in joining in yesterday until we went behind and I don't see much happening at home games I understand the "it could be worse" argument but surely that also applies to them staying? I've said this before but one of my big early concerns re Solak was one of his main motivations buying the club was to get one over the Serbian government, and I've always wondered whether he'd have the heart to stick with it when things got tough. Think how bad we've been while he's chucking a lot of money in, imagine how bad it'll be if he decides to put nothing further in? Doesn't he also have his own business problems with him being voted out of his company or something? Can't recall details so apologies if that's not accurate. It's well worth remembering that Chansiri initially invested a lot of money into Sheffield Wednesday. They didn't become a financial basket case until it all went wrong on the pitch and he stopped putting money in. People are right to say that protests won't necessarily force him to sell and he might not want to make a huge loss. But ultimately it's going to be incredibly difficult to not make a loss unless we're established in the PL so at some point he might need to make a decision on how big a loss he wants to take. I also think the multi club ownership model means protests can be more effective. They won't only reflect badly on a single person but an entire group of clubs and it may cause problems at the other clubs too. As I said the other day if you supported a club who SR were looking to purchase and you see that their main club, who are a relatively well known English side, have lots of fan unrest how will that make you feel? I think this means that any sustained protests will have more chance of the owners feeling the pressure to quell them as the impact is far wider than one club. Of course the other side of the coin is whether the whole Sport Republic portfolio is viable without its main club? England is by far the most lucrative market, both in financial terms and exposure, of the clubs they have so no Saints might mean no business model. Ultimately none of us will know the answer to that question but it's an interesting one to ponder and therefore worth a mention imo.
It is hard to get the right manager at the right time for the right squad. And you are not always going to get in right. On Stills appointment they could instead have. Kept with Rusk - there would be an out cry of no ambition Gone Rooney/Gerrard/Lampard type, out cry of big name, no imagination. Gone for an experienced championship manager, Carrick/ Cooper/ Rohl type and maybe that is what we should have done. Go as we did with a manager who hs had success on the continent. It has worked for other clubs in the past, Sunderland, Brighton, Palace etc. Some say it's ambitious, too clever etc, truth is sometimes it pays of, other times it doesn't. It looks like it hasn't again, so there are big decisions to be made.
Interestingly, I remember Solak saying in his preseason chat that if the fans ever mobilised against him and told him that they wanted their club sold then he’d accept the fans wishes and Sport Republic would get out. So… there’s some motivation
If recruiting the right people has been Dragan’s biggest headache: I seem to recall a chap called Nicola Cortese being pretty good at that sort of thing.
