Well summarised. I know many on here did not care for Hughes, but once Reed left, he seemed to picking better options and the players going with him, yet the fact remains, Ralph who has brought about a better performance from some of the squad still has the same situation to deal with as Hughes, the squad is barely adequate for the PL. I think we’ll scrape home again possibly either on or just before the last game, as I feel someone in the squad will come through and be the vital cog. I’m also wondering if buying Ings at the end of the season is a wise investment bearing in mind his injury record to date. I’d have said if he was more readily available for games, it would be a steal of a purchase and have him in a flash, but now not so sure. I really hope he can get fully fit and stay fit, that would be fantastic for us. Who else may yet turn out to be a vital part of the ‘stay-up’ brigade, not sure. Matty’s too old now!! But we need that kind of reliable help now!
Problem is I think it takes the fanbase a long time to accept the position we are in. If you don't believe we should be where we are, what comes out of the average fan is frustration, not encouragement. It took most of the season last season for fans to come round to the fact that it was going to be a fight to the wire, and along with Hughes coming in, the home crowd responded and was generally much louder and more supportive for the last handful of home games. There's only 6 home games left now, we need the crowd to start stepping up again.
I guess it would have to be Redmond. Thank god for his improvement this season. I said it a few weeks ago: we're a serious (or even semi-serious) Redmond injury away from being in the Championship next season. I don't give us a chance without him (and I only give us a 50-50 chance with him).
If he knows he wasn’t going to get any/much money then no point coming out saying we need x y and z just to demotivate your current players - just see what happened to united under Mourinho.
You make a very good point but everybody is just second guessing what he really thinks, he might just have thought well i'll use this opportunity to see who is worth keeping and backed himself to keep us up...not saying that is definately the case, it's just the other side of the coin.
Tadic has been a very big loss. I would go as far as to say that we would be higher up the table with an in form tadic creating chances for us ....imo of course
If it does turn out to be Gao tightening the purse strings and blocking any requests for new players then we Saints fans are just going to have to suck it up until he sells the club to someone else.
We'd be in the Championship now without his form in the run in last season, Hughes doesn't get enough credit for getting the best out of him IMO.
Yep. Not sure it will come to that tho. Im finding it very hard to fathom the ralph agreed to come here without assurances there would be tranfer funds. I think what happens in the summer window will tell us all we need to no
I don’t believe there is a manager in the world who when they join a club wouldn’t want some money to bring in players, some make it known public ally, where as others will be more private.
As Steve's post above yours says, surely he wouldn't have signed without assurances of a transfer budget.
Is anyone? That’s why some of the poor teams sit deep. It’s really effective IF you have a solid defence.
Bookies have Huddersfield, Fulham, then Cardiff 10/11 for relegation, Burnley 4/1 then us at 5/1. They know what their doing, right ???
I'd also say we were unlucky to an extent because Cardiff are not a clinical side. Yes they can be hard to break down and score against, and maybe they'll grab a goal on the break or from a defensive howler, but for them to score 2 out of 3 attempts on target is quite unlikely. We could really do with more offensive options being available when Fulham come to town because that will be a totally different game. They are terrible defensively, but can also be pretty good offensively. We're better than them defensively...but will still give them goals, especially as their attack can be good. So we'll need to be scoring several goals ourselves. This is a game we lost 3-2 at Craven Cottage and I can see it being a similar game at St.Marys except we really can't afford to lose this one.
We’re playing them three days after they return from Belarus, so maybe not such a bad time actually...
