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

I absolutely hated Brentford's money ball style approach that got them into the Prem, punching above their weight, with their assistant manager taking over the job role and then becoming manager for 8 seasons. If I was them I'd have hired a manager that was recently sacked by Espanyol, who didn't speak much English, to lead the club instead.

Or maybe I'd buy a Senegalese forward who'd only ever played in the Austrian Bundesliga, or a CB who'd only played in the Scottish mickey mouse league instead of proven, no nonsense players. But, alas, we'll never know.

 

Just depends on what you want I suppose. The sorts of players we can buy for the now and at their peak are likely, at best, relegation level PL players.

If you roll the dice you will end up with more failures than successes but the individual successes will be better than the in their peak players you get. Whether it all comes together and works or it doesn’t and you end up getting relegated etc is another matter, but personally I’d far prefer rolling the dice than just being obsessed with survival in the PL so signing players who can achieve a bottom half finish every year and never doing anything at all (see someone like Everton as my idea of hell as a supporter)

 

Yeah this is also a massive issue with the club I have at the moment. Our shoddy style of recruitment (even pre SR) has left us with no leaders and no club stalwarts. When was the last time we had anything like a JWP, even when we had JWP he was the last player of that kind for a long time. Most clubs have 1 or 2 players that, despite changes, have stuck with the club and had some success with it. We’ve got **** all like that, our longest serving players are not sure fire starters, they’re average players like Armstrong who we’ve loaned out when times got tough.

It’s so blatantly obvious on the pitch that the players are looking for a bit of leadership and cohesion but all they are seeing is other 20-24 year olds looking just as clueless, any player we had that might be good at that has been ****ing sold and it’s a sorry state of affairs when Bednerak is the only one that fit the bill the last couple years.

Also side note, it also amuses me the amount of people that jumped to defend Jack Stephens 3 year signing stating that he won’t be playing much, it’s just for his amazing dressing room manner. What’s that3 first team starts in a row now for the full 90?

 

Because we’ve been preparing for this season (or at least should have been) for way longer than Ipswich.

As I said, we were all but relegated so early last season that we’ve had more time than any team in this league to put a plan in place and execute it for this window. Of course there are a lot of variables in a transfer window, but to have only signed one player that actually goes into the starting lineup isn’t good enough with one week of the window remaining, in my opinion.

It makes Still’s job harder, and it’s stopping us on capitalising on Ipswich’s poor start.

 

The problem with yesterday was that apart from 1 or 2 players, this team is basically the same **** from last season. Just listened to going home with Adam and Jo from Solent, and I kind of agree that we need a better striker. I would seriously consider getting rid of 1 if not 2 of Armstrong, Stewart or Archer, to free up space for some refreshing, and strikers that would suit what WS wants to bring to the team.
I also think we need to at least loan a CDM with more physicality and energy as Downes worries me that he is only suited to RM style of play. And of course, wingers and a play maker.
Stoke really impressed me with the energy and pace that they broke with, which I feel is the way most of us would like our own team to play like.
Big Big 9 days coming up

 

Yeah, I thought Downs and Stewart were both making a lot of diagonal runs and looking for the through ball, but no one found them. It’s another reason why the lack of movement in the transfer window (so far) annoys me, because we all knew we needed that type of creative player/winger as a priority.

 

Birmingham have signed about 10 players. Let’s not pretend that you can’t get business done earlier than the last week of the window.

 

You can, and we have got a few players in. The board are clearly not prepared to spend further, and put the club in a risky position, until we have trimmed the squad.

As soon as Aribo, Edozie, ABK and Dibling have gone, we will make signings. That lot are probably on £100k+ a week and will generate £50m+ in sales.

Then you have Taylor, Sugawara, Brereton Diaz and Smallbone who are all possibly on the way out too. That, is another £80k/week and £15m/£20m in fees.

It would be stupid to spend before selling that lot as we would be seriously at risk financially and, as other clubs would know this, we'd be forced to sell on the cheap.

 

Now our promotion dream is over, we can at least enjoy the season.

 

Got to make sure we stay up first

 

As I said yesterday, imo the two biggest moments were the save by Johansson at 0-0 and the miss by Downes at 0-1, although you could add the post hitting x 2 as other key moments.
With regards to how the team is set up, we keep hearing that we don’t have the right players for what Still wants but I would question that to some extent.
We have no wingers? Fraser and Robinson both play wide and have probably been our best two players over the three league games.
We need a number 10. Yes we do but wouldn’t Fernandes be able to do a decent job there?
Would it not be better to try Still’s preferred style, with the players we have, so that when better recruits are signed the rest of the team are already set to play that way?
And what happens if we get a good number 10 and he’s injured in his first game and out for several months? Do we go back to the way we are setting up now?
I think Still needs to commit to his preferred set up and adapt from there if the current squad can’t play that way.

 

On the topic of points accrued.
After 4 games in our last Championship season we had 10 points.
After 8 games we still only had 10 points
So, as much as I would like us to be in the position Stoke are, it’s far too soon to be thinking the worst.

Yes I know we have only played 3 so far.

 

I totally agree and the word "chemistry " sums it up for me.

It is ironic that Fraser and Stephens have come in for a lot of stick in this room but have probably been our best 2 players so far.

The return of loanees like Charles and Edwards have been the opposite and not lived up to expectations.

Liked the full back frim Brentford, though.

Other than Robinson , Fraser and Fernandes, I feel that we would safely move on most of the squad. The trick will be getting those who remain to play.

Just felt Will Still was sensible in his statements post match.