Match Day Thread Saints vs Stoke City - Saturday, August 23 - 15:00 KO

The reason we lost today had nothing to do with 3 at the back or 2 DMs or rubbish strikers. The real reason was that my lad and I walked a different route from the car park to the stadium - one that we’ve never walked before.

Sorry about that.

 

There seems to be a fair few posters in the "everything is absolutely fine and dandy" camp, whilst some are saying it's not fine but it will be if we're patient. I've been stewing on this more in the car and I'm totally confused as to how anyone can be relaxed about it.


Those who say wait until the end of the window.
We need:
A playmaker
Wingers
Striker

And we're going to achieve this in a week, whilst at the same time cutting our cloth and getting rid of half the rest of the muppets? Not ****ing happening is it?

The striker recruitment under SR has been truly awful. Downs, BBD, Archer and Stewart are all totally unequivocally ****. 4 games against Championship and L1 opposition and none of them can score. At all. We cannot chase promotion with them as our options, they're simply not good enough.

Those who think Will Still was shrewd recruitment.
Yep, it's early days for him but this tactical flexibility we were promised doesn't seem to have materialised does it? So far in the 3 games I've seen, that flexibility seems to be hitting long balls forward to no one in particular and/or getting Fraser or Manning to smash crosses at the opposition goalkeeper. We can't pass long, we can't pass short. He's been the boss since 25th May, thats ample time to coach what he wants, regardless of the players he has at his disposal. We were well beaten by 10 man Stoke today. 10 ****ing men. It was a poor display against Wrexham, poor against Northampton. He's been given a job that he had no experience for, and on first look it seems he's out of his depth.

Those who think Spors/Sport Republic aren't a problem
-Planned for us to be relegated in August last year, recruited players specifically for our drop back to the championship rather than players who were PL quality
-Refused to spend money in the Jan transfer window with an aim for the summers recruitment, which hasn't happened.
-Recruited Spors so we'd be ready to go straight away when the summer window opened and yet seems to have spent that time doing something else.
-So far have opened the cheque book for 2 lads from the German 2nd division who both appear massively out of their depth in games against Wrexham, Northampton and Stoke, and certainly no better than what we already had.
-Leak rumours about recruiting quality which never materialise and our own fans make their excuses for them.
-Will sell absolutely anyone if the price is right

But we're getting a climbing wall though so not606 Saints fans are on the whole quite happy.

I genuinely don't understand how people can watch today and think everything is tickety-boo. Now, as a one off stand alone result losing to 10 man Stoke at home is pretty ****, hey it's only football, but as a result on the back of the last few years? It really really isn't good enough. There's not one positive to take from today. The next home game is against the skates. God ****ing help us

 

That's far too much to read, but the gist is probably "Why didn't we buy in Jan when clubs don't want to sell/fees are inflated, why haven't we got a squad full of top players ready to go for pre season etc etc etc" It's football, we as a club can't dictate why other clubs won't sell us their best players when we want them too. You're living in quite the fantasy football world, Lincs.

 

My issue with Still at the moment, is when we go behind he’s like, **** it, I’m gonna put on all my forwards and we lose all structure. There was no direct football, it was pass it sideways slowly and sling in a **** cross. The crosses / build up in the first half and first 10 mins of the 2nd half was decent (albeit rushed at times)

We were on top when he brought downs on at half time and if we wasn’t for Downes thinking he was a top player in the middle of the field, we would have stayed on top.

Our finishing on the other hand was ****ing horrific. Embarrassingly awful.

With some competent finishing, we’d have won that quite easily. Our defensive line though is worrying at times though

 

Don’t know what this is supposed to mean, I know I’ll get pelters but I even though we went up by the skin of our teeth I thought we were largely crap that season too. The unbeaten run papered over so many gaping cracks.

 

I thought th me result today was both fair and not unexpected. The beat team won and I think it underscored the scale of the task Will Still has.

Just think that the front line is woeful. Not sure why Armstrong was substituted and felt that Downes, Stewart and Archer were really poor. The latter need to be moved on but just felt that the performance today demonstrated how most Saints fans underestimate the scale of the problem Will Still has to face. The while team needs rebuilding and I think that the defence needs to be recoached to form the basis of rhe reconstruction.

There were too many mistakes and a toothless attack. The transfer window will demonstrate that we have to bring in players who are capable at this level. I just feel Still has been left with a squad that is pretty inept and time will be required to sort out the poor recruitment of the last 18 months.

Come September, the squad will be very different from those that played today. I feel that Downes and Fernandes were poor today and taking Armstrong off was a bad decision. Not confident with the defence .

Just feel that a draw against Portsmouth would be a tremendous result and something to kick on from in October.

In summary, it was an entertaining match against promotion favourites but a marker of the fact that we should not anticipate anything beyond mid table this season. The result against Wrexham was incredible but I feel today we were brought down to earth . As I said previously, a good season for us will be finishing above Portsmouth and will be a decent achievement.

Most Saints fans are deluded that we are better than we are and that this is somehow a quick solution. I think we need 2 seasons to sort out the current mess.

 

We were relegated from the Prem by about November. To have been planning for all that time and only sign a RB and two reserves is piss poor by the last week of Aug. And the RB only signed two days ago. They need to pull their fingers out.

 

Eh?

The front line were woeful, but not sure why Armstrong was substituted, and taking him off was a bad decision

 

I easily easily see dropped points at Portsmouth, they’ll show up wanting it badly and our starting 11 will walk around cluelessly with no urgency for 85 minutes before putting 3 strikers in the box and going for Hail Marys.

 

Not sure how you could disagree with Adam going off. He was awful.

A draw at home to Pompey could never be classed as a 'tremendous' result.

Stoke are no where promotion favourites. Currently 8 teams ahead of them including us.

 

It's definitely come at a bad time and I've said as much since the fixtures were released.

Nothing less than a win will be good enough regardless.

 

Very much agreed and I think the key point in all of this. SR just keeping ****ing it up and people keep defending it.

 

Not to be knee jerk or anything but my take away from the first three games of this season is we are a top Championship striker away from promotion.

If we don't sign one we arent going up.

Damion Downs has time on his side but he has had a poor start.

We need to be looking at shifting at least one of Cameron Archer and Ross Stewart.

We were creating enough chances today, an average performing Championship striker in place and we win that, most capable Championship strikers see us to three there.

Still too error prone too but you can score your way around that.

Honourable mentions - Jay Robinson and Ryan Fraser look superb.

Dishonourable mention - Flynn Downes, absolute dog of a game today.

I wouldnt say we have been awful, but rather underwhelming.

4 Points from the three games we have had is below average but not devastating, I'd have had 6 as par, 3 and under as poor.

 

And as I said, the market doesn't always work the way you want it too.

 

OK, but owners get things wrong all the time. Solak has put in hundreds of millions and obviously has overseen 2 relegations, and 1 promotion. We've got a new DoF and Manager now. Bad owners for me would be Gao, who spent nothing and sold players to be able to buy players etc. I guess it's all about what you perceive as being "bad".

 

Ipswich had no new players in their starting line up today, and haven't yet managed to win a game. They're currently 18th in the league.

But they're still strong favourites to be the champions at the bookies and in most people's minds.

Why are people able to show patience with them, but everything at Saints is a nightmare disaster worst team and recruitment ever?

 

Because we don't support Ipswich?

 

Do you not see the disconnect here though? Seriously? As I said before, the relegated teams are 7th, 10th and 18th. And that's in the reverse order how most people think they'll finish.

It
Takes
Time
F
F
S.

 

But we have sold players to buy players?

We've spent c£10m on Downs and Quarshie and sold Sulemana, TP, Bednarek and Amo for well over double that.

 

Because Ipswich’s team is miles better than ours of course.

We have awful strikers, attacking midfielders, defenders, wingers, goalkeepers. We should’ve bought a whole new squad obviously.

More seriously I’m sure Ipswich has their share of fans moaning currently