Match Day Thread Derby County vs Saints, Sat 4th October, 15:00

He quickly took himself off the pitch and just sat down, didn't attempt to return at all. Medical staff immediately gestured for him to come off, didn't even spend time taking a close look first. Although that doesn't surprise me, if I was a medical team member at Saints I'd be being even more overly conservative with him than ordinarily with any other player

 

Yeah hopefully he said something like I feel something and they just said immediately off you come.

 

Who has said that?

 

Not a popular opinion and I acknowledge that i dont understand the modern game (what the f...... is a "false No 10" ? lets hear it for a false No 8) but surely players/athletes like Ross should be able to start game after game without fear of burn-out. After the Sheffield Untd. performance he surely had to start against Derby. Hope he's OK,

 

I'd extend that to the world I'm afraid.

 

I think he's been poor the last couple of games. Would like to see Jelert come in (who was excellent against Liverpool) but suspect Welly will be back after the break.

 

Genuine question: What do you mean by “the likes of Derby”? It could be argued that looking at their trophy history, they might be considered the bigger club.

 

All under Brian Clough I think?

How that man never became England manager…

 

It’s nothing to do with the “size” of the club.

Their net spend was 8.5mil. They haven’t won at home. They’ve been in turmoil in recent history including administration as recently as 2022.

We have spent multiples of them thanks to the illustrious PL money, yet their strikers put us to shame and they looked better organised despite their obvious limitations. Much like Hull & the skates

 

One league title was under Dave Mackay but yeah Cloughie raised the club up from oblivion and did it again with even more success at Forest.

 

What has trophy history got to do with anything? With our squad, we should be looking to win most weeks. Obviously we won't win every time but I expected more than 2 wins from 9 games and so should every other Saints fan.

 

Almost as if it doesn't matter how much money you spend, really, if it's spent poorly. Or you're not using the players you spent money on effectively.

 

Legend for me.

“ If God had wanted to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there”

“We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right”

“ I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business, but I was in the top one”

 

You think every Saints fan should have high expectations? Where have you been the last few years?

I think it’s a miracle for a Saints fan expect anything but misery and loss tbh

 

It was an even match, we were away from home and our team is new and finding its feet, we are unbeaten in three matches and will most likely improve. How about a little bit of patience for once?

 

Yes, given our vastly superior resources to most of the other clubs in the division.

 

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. We are stuck in a quandary where we have a lot of quality players and we want to play fast, exciting football. All we come up against every week are teams playing to a tight run book based on a low block. They do this as their best game plan based on their relative low resources and in this league is often successful. I know they have games in hand but we still do sit above Ipswich who were supposed to be run away champions. And they have retained their successful and very competent manager. Yes it’s disappointing we haven’t won more and I question some of Still’s selections and subs but fgs a bit of patience and positivity required!

 

And because of all that we should just ‘expect’ to beat these teams just because we spent more money?

As others have said, Liverpool a perfect example of why that just is not the case. They’ve lost 3 on the spin now so maybe they should sack the manager and all the fans should start booing the team?

Downs aside I think the signings are ok and in time will prove to be shrewd but sadly positivity is often shouted down on here - especially straight after we’ve drawn a football match we were “expected” to win. The reaction on here sometimes straight after matches is comical.

 

Our net spend was minus 65m wasn't it?

 

Team building very rarely happens overnight, just look at two seasons ago. But progress is being made despite not beating every club we play by 2 or 3 goals. Fans were even moaning about winning away at Sheff Utd ffs.