Even though they are losing, they have a lot of players that can and do run rings around our players. They took the game to Arsenal at their place, yes, they will ultimately lose, but we can barely last 2 minutes at our home ground against Lincoln….
Arsenal are tearing them apart time and time again. 2nd half they've completely destroyed them. And they haven't taken the game to Arsenal - they scored from a penalty and then sat back.
Arsenal will probably win the league…. But I’d hazard a guess that if Saints were playing Wet Spam tonight, we’d be the ones getting the hiding….
Today I was 'celebrating' my first ever match, watching Saints 1956/7 when we played BHA at The Dell. We won and I recall Jimmy Shields scoring. Then I went with my Grandad, today I took my oldest son, who has challenges with Autism and other issues, but he was singing the anthem with much enthusiasm at the start and after the opening 2 minutes or so, like the rest of us got gradually quieter. I hope NJ has enough in him to change the mindset of this bunch, it's a real battle now, but underinvestment, delaying a necessary decision for a new manager, and now working with players who demonstrate so little confidence, overcome that list and he's a hero and potential legend, but remember Lawrie M came, we were relegated and then eventually change/success came. It may not happen like that again but for the moment we have to support NJ and his team in their efforts to get the team back up and running again.
Yeah, this really. Whilst we were being fed the lines about how much of a progressive, knowledgeable football man we were getting in Ankersen, with his genius data model. Hmmm…huge January ahead of that’s going to bear out.
Could’ve made a more substantial stride towards fixing it, though, given the money invested. The entire fanbase knew all summer that we simply couldn’t go into the season with the same starting striking options - and yet here we are. By all accounts, Nathan Jones has given the board the initial feedback that the dressing room lacks leadership and experience. Whoops…
In fairness we are much worse since they arrived. They have made some incredibly baffling decisions in the year or so since they took over.
I completely agree. I just feel that whoever the new owners were going to be were going to be fighting a losing battle from the start (unless it was a very rich owner).
Just like needing a striker, just like how **** certain players are, just like we arent physical enough, etc etc. Most of these things are glaringly obvious, to even armchair fans. That’s the real pain of this season.
And in fairness to Ralph, he was absolutely adamant regarding the striker he believed he was getting in the summer.
Yeah, he was very badly stitched up by the board. But he also made plenty of his own mistakes and poor decisions. Although I have to say, if I knew NJ would be the replacement, I wouldn’t have wanted Ralph to leave. I do not understand why the club has chosen this guy at all, and I think we could have made a much wiser decision. Even more so after today unfortunately.
Not fix it. But 5 years of no investment plus one window of reasonable investment shouldn’t result in continued decline. Their job this year was to steady the ship, bring in some key players we can rely on and achieve unexciting midtable mediocrity without being at risk of relegation. A squad in decline for years doesn’t need loads of young inexperienced players, what many felt was a good window we are now realising was a mistake.
I've got nothing against the signing of young inexperienced players (except for maybe in goal - that really was a massive gamble). It's the fact that we basically only signed young inexperienced players. There needed to be a far greater balance. Especially when it coincided with getting with of so much deadwood (eg Redmond, Stephens, Bednarek). Again, nothing against the deadwood being removed. But it made for an even greater need for a balance between experience and inexperience signings.
This 100% Who in their right mind would have thought this dude would be his successor? The odds would have been brilliant at the bookies, for good reason. No one would expect an established PL club throwing away their status on a completely mental gamble. **** Ankerson, and double **** Sports Republic. Rolling the dice with our club.
That's fair but we've gone backwards. We spent something like £70m net in the summer and somehow we've ended up with a worse squad.
Yup. The squad was good enough to survive last season. Now we look likely to be relegated in January.
