We're a championship team, with a championship manager playing in the PL. Our scouting has let us down again and for some reason we insist on hanging on to absolute dross like Edozie, but getting rid of Alcaraz all because he doesn't fit Martin’s style. Well clearly Martin’s style isn't good enough. Utterly mental decision making from the board.
That was bad. Like, really really bad. We've got lots to improve on here. Outsung by the Forest fans as well, despite being on the other side of the ground. Says it all.
Let’s hope it’s at least that next May. Going to be difficult and the next 6/8 weeks will see the real Saints fans turning up.
Not *all* bad, though a better team than Forest would have hammered us, I fear. The bad: Edozie always feels like a waste of a substitution. Please bring on SAA or Dibling, not him. Adarma doesn't look PL level, because I fear he isn't PL level. That could be said for a lot of our players. Yuki played well again, but I felt for him on the goal. He tried to take responsibility, whereas if he'd left it, Alex had it covered. Unfortunate. Playing without a striker really isn't the one. I'm not convinced at this stage Archer is the answer to the above, at least not on his own. I'm not convinced Russell is brave enough to experiment and drop some players that probably need dropping. Who is going to score goals? The good: Alex had a decent game. Might be his last this season, but pleased he didn't drop another ricket. Dibling looked really bright when he came on. Fernandes looked willing, neat and tidy. Flynn is PL level, so that question is answered. KWP is PL level, but we knew that already.
This. And at least one of the 2 in a 5-3-2 needs to be a threat that the opposition defence are scared of. We don’t have any played like that. So we can’t play the system. Smallbone and Aribo were fine when it was both the championship and they had three players ahead of them. But two in the premier league is just going to be like Ralph’s back 3 experiment all over again - inviting wave after wave of pressure because the opposition having nothing to fear from pushing forward. We can’t play this way and need to realise that quickly
I think the low point was Brereton Diaz getting the pass to Armstrong at his feet in the box only for him to take a touch and pass it back into midfield. Very little gambling in the final third.
I dunno where we go from here really. We just don’t have the players for this league. We’ve signed two strikers from a Sheffields front line who couldn’t score in the premier league, added them to arma who we know can’t score in the premier league. Downes & KWP were good as usual. I like Sugawara and Dibling. THB had his worst game for us
They gave him a new contract! Not even a single game played in the PL when they did that. SR never never learn. Wouldn't you at least wait and see how we got on? It's not like we were in danger of him being snapped up!
Alternatively it might see a couple of bargain deals like something for Fraser and some kind of loan because the level of investment to required bridge the gap might be seen as just too much How much would it really take to properly compete given we were bossed in every area of the pitch by Nottingham Forest? One of the other potential relegation rivals. It’s one of those situations where it’s not even obvious that £100m will be enough. And we can’t get close to that or players in that bracket to join We panicked and threw out loads of money in that January window. We can’t afford that again and that will make the board nervous Will definitely be interesting to see what happens in the next week
Let's not start with Martin out stuff, please. Far, far, far, far, far, far too soon for all that nonsense.
