Spot-****ing-on. I don't get the SR love in, I really don't. People are desperate to believe they've changed and it'll all come good despite all evidence to the contrary. It's weird. It's like they're SR fans rather than Saints fans
It’s this thing some of us have inside us which keeps us going. It’s called hope. I simply cannot see the point in your relentless, undying cynicism. As I said before, and which you failed to reply to, the Sport Republic which made such a catastrophic mess of our club, that of Kraft and Ankersen, just isn’t there any more. The new regime of Spors hasn’t had any time to turn things around. Let’s see how things go, shall we? It’s not like we have any choice anyway, so you may as well give them a chance.
You may just have to accept that people feel differently to you despite your constant wish for everyone to share your vitriol. This is football; Saints have been sh*t before, have been sh*t now but that doesn’t mean they are incapable of change. Let’s say that you get your passionate wish and we’re sold tomorrow. Most fans would hope for a very rich new owner with countless millions, sheikh-esque money. If this does happen, they are still subject to the same PSR rules as Sport Republic have been. The PL have been very clear how they want to operate and it’s a big boys club, we’re not now, never have been and it will be generations before we’re one of them if everything started going right for us tomorrow. Also if a mystical sheikh type figure took over tomorrow, he’d have to assemble a team of people around him to run things operationally and on the football side. This isn’t easy to do as all the leagues have clubs in trying to be the next big thing and the pot of people capable of sustained, effective and real change is very very small. The sheikh might take a few times to get the appointments right, doesn’t matter how much money he’s got. The other option is that we’re bought out in the cheap by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing and good money is sent after back and the cheapskate PLC company spend years making mistakes before selling up and disappearing. The reality is that SR have made some catastrophic decisions to get to where we are. Dragan could say “bugger this, I’ll take my money and scarper”, could well have sensibly named a price for the club or be looking for financial backers to support him because he’s been the man at the top when the people below him have ballsed it up and it’s gonna need more than he first thought. Sport Republic don’t deserve a free pass, far from it, but maybe aiming all your blood and thunder on an hourly basis when at least the guy is trying to change things could hold fire until at least next season has started so we can see if there is any sign of change. If there isn’t any positive signs, sure, go crazy at them with the evidence you have. But for now…. This is football sadly…
But people do understand that neither is undying positivity and optimism right? Both are just as bad as the other. I do think they should get time, however due to the unrelenting poor desicions of SR over the last number of years, which has already included changes of recruitment all over the club that so far have not been successful, that time extends to whenever the opening day of the Championship is. That’s your time. If the summer isn’t positive then I feel the fans have every right to complain and drive them all out. How long are supposed to give them realistically? 2 seasons? 3? It does feel bad to have whatever changes have been put in place this season get so scrutinised but it hasn’t come from nowhere. If they did this in season 2 then I’d have a bit more empathy with change but we’re going into their 4th season and they’ve only just been wise enough to make the change in the first place despite years of abject **** already. They deserve a tiny bit of time but I’m sure this summer will be plenty of time to show us their intentions and how things have changed. We’ve known were down since December. They have had so so so much time to plan this summer and execute it. If it is the same **** as usual I do think the fans have every right to voice their frustration as soon as the season starts if we start it with no new players, the same **** ones and whatever we do buy are 17-19 year old ‘future stars’ and a loan from Bournemouth.
I'm not saying and I don't think anyone else is, that SR don't deserve to be held responsible for the current state of of affairs. Undying positivity and optimism is an extreme I don't go to but as previously posted there have been changes of late that deserve bearing with.
I think a lot of the reason people don’t share the same feeling is that there have already been numerous changes behind the scenes under SR that have changed nothing, under their reign the director of football, head of recruitment, head of research and data, the director of performance have all already been changed in SRs time, poorly. So they don’t get the benefit of the doubt. There is no reason to believe that this time it’s a great change. Like if this fails and they oust Spors in February and get a new head in for the Season after, do they get more time again because they’ve changed things? Are they just on a 12 month rolling agreement with fans that as long as they look like they are changing things then they get another year?
Lincoln loves to polarise the issue, the alternative to his view isn’t an ‘SR love in’ it’s an acknowledgment that Solak has changed things and we want to see if that has a positive result. If it doesn’t then the patience will end. As you say it’s this summer that will tell and we’ll see how at looks at kick off next season
The other option is that we’re bought out in the cheap by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing and good money is sent after back and the cheapskate PLC company spend years making mistakes before selling up and disappearing. Which is pretty much what's happening at the moment. I'll leave it be. Obviously this summer transfer window is going to be incredible, the magician that is Spors has had months of knowing we we're relegated and plenty of time to get his ducks in a row. We're going to be firing from day one. I'm sure our first choice manager is waiting in the wings raring to go. Now that everyone involved in the football side of things has been sacked and there's shiny new competent replacements in role, there'll be no repeat of the same mistakes they've made throughout their tenure. We'll top the league come May and we'll all have a good laugh at those who dared to doubt footballs greatest owners.
Come on, it’s not going to be incredible, but if we’re lucky it will be competent I’d really like to have two seasons in the Champ though as we won’t turn this **** around in one
Next season, it'll probably be great grey unwashed paints, or perhaps a bit above average at best, as we are a bit foooked as a club, playing staff and others, even as far as I can tell, the ticket office and other parts of the organisation are a bit m'eh. So it really appears from the outside to be entrenched in the very 'soul' of the club, mediocrity at best, incompetence as the standard. BUT, and it is a capital letter written but too, as supporters/fans/cult members there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing. You can protest, abuse the people, or have faith in them and even praise them, they will do what they want to and what they believe to be the best ideas to implement. It sucks and makes me feel depressed, well football depressed at least, but we just have to sit and wait. As far as I can see being angry, combative, challenging, especially to other supporters, seems to be wasted energy. Let's be honest wasting energy and emotion on this lot at this current moment really is a serious waste of anything.
I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect the team to change so quickly and become promotion candidates and to stay up if we do get promoted. When we down last time we sold many of our better players and made some good money, bought some new players in, purchased or loaned. We won’t have the same profitable players to sell this time. I think fundamentally promoted teams are just lamb to the slaughter. Due to financial fair play they are unable to invest in a team capable of staying up. They don’t want to cripple themselves in case they don’t get promoted and can’t spend enough to replace the players who might be adequate to get promotion but not good enough for the PL
When we got relegated last time, i said it would take 2 seasons to rebuild to achieve promotion. It was remarkable that we went up at the first attempt. There have been issues that SR inherited. I feel Solak is genuine but his appointment of the management of the club has been poor. I am excited by Spor's appointment but it is very much last chance saloon for me. Previously the decisions have tended to be disastrous when they have gone wrong. I appreciate that Solak has been generous and new owners may be less so. My criteria to get behind SR is to make a good managerial appointment along with decent coaches but get rid of Ankerson and the others i feel are culpable for our situation. The likes of Ankerson need to be fired. In addition , i would like to see a clear out of the playng staff with about 75% moved on. I would not want any of the current forward line pulling on a shirt for us in August. If SR sold, this would not be a tragedy in my opinion but happy to give them one last go.
I understand, and agree with, the criticism towards SR. They've made awful decisions, and been pretty awful at running our club. I'm really not a fan. But I am, reluctantly, prepared to give them one final chance. I understand, but disagree with, the worries that we might follow Luton next season. I really, really doubt that will happen. I'd be very surprised if we finished outside the top six, let alone struggled at the bottom end. But because this season has been so awful, I get that some people may worry that this might continue into next season. What I don't understand, and completely disagree with, is the talk of just ditching almost the entire squad. That seems crazy to me. Yes, it's not a PL-level squad. But nor is it a non-league-level squad! We still need to put 11 players out on the pitch next season. Whether it's Armstrong, or Downes, or THB, or Archer, or Bednarek or many others: if they're proven at Championship level, then they're an asset for next season. If we sell most of them this summer, we would have to spend money to replace them (because otherwise we can look at following Luton!) - and why would we want to do that?! Spending actual money to sign a bunch of Championship-level players, many of whom we'd want to sell again if we were to get promoted, would be the wrong way to go in my view. Look at two years ago: we spent about £10m each on Charles and Stewart, and in the subsequent two years they've given us very little. Maybe if we'd saved that £20m, we could have spent it 12 months later instead. And maybe that could have seen us spending £40m on a new striker, rather than wasting £15m on Archer. Yes we will need to cut the size of the squad. Yes we will need to sell to raise funds to cover our decreased income. Yes we will receive offers which we may be unable to refuse. But we should still keep together a nucleus of the current squad, and primarily use the loan and free transfer markets to supplement them. Signing one or two decent Championship players who we hope can make the step up to the PL would be fine, but no more than that. Try and keep as much money in the bank for spending in summer 2026 instead. It's fantasy to think we could build a PL level squad this summer. So lets not go down the route of selling decent Championship players, and duly spending good money to replace them with decent Championship players. (I appreciate that Charles and/or Stewart could be very useful to us next season. But I still maintain it was wrong to sign them. They contributed little to our promotion last season, and the expenditure left us with a smaller transfer kitty this season. I don't want to spending money this summer on players who might become useful to us in 2027-28.)
Your first sentence, I didn’t say that in any of my post. I simply expect the new recruitment team to make some major changes this window. I don’t want us to become promotion candidates overnight. If anything I completely agree with the person who said they don’t want to get promoted overnight, what I would like is a brand new centre back pairing because for the last 6/7 years or so we have had a woeful one. I genuinely wouldn’t mind a two season Championship stay if it meant a bit of consistency. I would just like a bit of stability. I know this is going back a bit but I’d like the club to harken back to the Adkins era a built. Where it felt the club was waiting to grow together and gel and not sell our best assets as soon as we felt like there was a bit of profit to be made. I know it’s fairytale **** but what is the point of following the damn sport if it isn’t for hoping you’re building towards a goal.
