Saints fans arriving at the stadium hoped that they would see a performance by their team that they had just watched Leeds put out in the lunchtime kick off, sadly though that was not to be and we got the same gutless offering that has been mainly the case since the arrival of Nathan Jones.

The game against Fulham at St Mary's was not why we were relegated, it offered a lot of evidence of why though, a team that lacked leadership from the sidelines and a true leader on the pitch.

Fulham are no better than Saints, but what they have is organisation and leadership, they go out on the pitch knowing the job they have to do and how to do it.

We send out eleven players knowing that by then end of the game half of the 10 outfield players will have changed as the manager tries to find a solution to a problem he does not have the experience to solve.

The truth was it did not have to be like this, the depth of the squad was good enough to keep us up, indeed in his first games in charge many believed that Ruben Selles might be the answer, but that proved to be a false dawn, the players were good enough to keep us up, but they needed leadership.

The fact that it took this long to confirm relegation after gaining only 1 point in our last 8 games showed just how bad our collapse has been, we were in freefall and we could not stop it, if we had got just five more points in that run, it would still have been a poor return, but we would have had something to fight for in the final 4 games of the season.

As it was we had nothing, it was just eleven players going out on the pitch, some of whom I suspect wished that they had not been picked to start the game. You could count those with fight in their bellies on one hand.

I'm sad to blame the manager, after all he was plunged into a position he was not ready for and as an assistant was given the B team manager, but he did not help his cause, even in this game it was about looking to the past and not to the future.

His bench was full of those who were punch drunk, Elyounoussi, James Bree, Joe Aribo & Moussa Djenepo, where were the youngsters, why no Dominic Ballard or Tyler Dibden, someone who would excite the fans.

We went down with a whimper, no fight and no leadership both on and off the pitch.

But now we can move forward, relegation is done now, we can look to the future not the past, the one good thing from the weekend is that at least Sports Republic have been proactive in releasing a statement, some will sneer at this, but the recovery has to start somewhere and this statement was at least a line in the sand showing that they are aware of the problems.

We have a new Director of football who will hopefully spearhead the revamp, the job starts now.

Every season three clubs get relegated from the Premier League, someone has to go down, that doesn't mean that every club that makes the drop is rotten to the core, as I say someone has to go down.

This season it was going to be us and it was clear after the defeat on Monday at Nottingham Forest that the only thing that would save us in the final three games was an act of parliament decreeing that no team who's name began with South and ended in ampton could be relegated.

The rebuild can now begin and I think that although we will lose a lot of the squad, that will bring in money, more money than we will need, a core of the youngsters remaining and some senior players will form the basis of the squad, we just need to do what we failed to do last summer, sign a leader at the back and a proven goalscorer, although at Championship level we already have several who have scored in this division.

Photo: Action Images

HythePeer added 09:30 - May 15 Southampton do not know HOW to play football. If that is not addressed they will carry on losing games in The Championship.
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Number_58 added 09:40 - May 15 So it's only just dawned on Nick that Doyle and Ballard would be a better option than most of the other perpetual failures we've been playing all season? A bit late now, mate.
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halftimeorange added 09:45 - May 15 If we start next season with Che Adams and Alan Armstrong as our attackers who have previously been successful in the Championship I truly believe we will sink further down the league. Just how many opportunities for our strikers did our midfield fashion this season. The answer is very few. Back in 2012 we had a gifted midfielder in Adam Lallana, a solid centre back in Jose Fonte and Lambert, himself a playmaker, and Sharp up front. There is nobody in our current squad (although Lavia has the potential) who bears comparison to any of those and that was our Championship side! It will need to be better than that to not only get promoted but, sustain us in a much more competitive EPL than eleven years ago. Also, our academy needs reawakening. Who was the last product to hold a regular place in our first team. JWP I suspect and that says something!

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halftimeorange added 09:45 - May 15 If we start next season with Che Adams and Alan Armstrong as our attackers who have previously been successful in the Championship I truly believe we will sink further down the league. Just how many opportunities for our strikers did our midfield fashion this season. The answer is very few. Back in 2012 we had a gifted midfielder in Adam Lallana, a solid centre back in Jose Fonte and Lambert, himself a playmaker, and Sharp up front. There is nobody in our current squad (although Lavia has the potential) who bears comparison to any of those and that was our Championship side! It will need to be better than that to not only get promoted but, sustain us in a much more competitive EPL than eleven years ago. Also, our academy needs reawakening. Who was the last product to hold a regular place in our first team. JWP I suspect and that says something!

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TimSaint added 10:03 - May 15 Fulham are no better than Saints ? They passed the ball round for fun and not only won at a canter, but could have gone up a couple of gears if needed. We were truly awful, way off the pace, chasing shadows for long periods and amassed a whopping 5 shots all fvckin game, with only joke signing Tall Paul's backpass registering as our single shot on target. The players should do a Spurs and give the fans their ticket money back after that shit show.

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obelisk added 10:06 - May 15 "the same gutless offering that has been mainly the case since the arrival of Nathan Jones" Surely the same gutless offering since March 2022. Something changed way back then.
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WestSussexSaint added 10:09 - May 15 SR issued a holding statement on Saturday to say that they will announce their plans for next season at the conclusion of this one. They have to take some quick and cohesive decisions. What is the strategy for the club, who is the best manager to deliver on that, which players do we want to try and keep, and can play to the style the new manager wants. This needs to happen quickly to give the new manager as much of the preseason as possible to prepare the squad. If we don’t have a new manager in place by the end of the month then we will already be playing catch up. This season is done (in truth it has been for weeks) but I get why the board cannot be seen to be acting prematurely. They are largely to blame for the relegation so now they have to show that they can right the ship and create a team and club that the fans can be proud of again.

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saintmark1976 added 10:17 - May 15 A fish rots from its head. Our completely avoidable relegation has been caused by the never ending, season long, appallingly bad decisions of a Board of Directors and Management who have proven beyond all doubt that they are not fit for purpose. The only chance we have of a swift return to The Premiership is if the Club’s owner finally sees them for what they are and sacks a bunch of muppets who by their actions have succeeded in turning our once proud club into a clown show.

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SaintPaulVW added 10:24 - May 15 Honestly, I'm relieved that relegation is confirmed. Angry/sad that it happened but relieved that it is all done and dusted now. Particularly glad that Brighton or Lpool aren't the ones to 'relegate' us. This team and coaching set up simply isn't good enough to stay in the PL. I can only hope that lessons have been learned. We aren't in the same fire financial straits that we were the last time we went down. So there is every reason to be hopeful that we can come back up fairly quickly with a newly reinvigorated team. This will only happen if as I said above lessons have actually been learned. As Rishi was there on Saturday, perhaps there is a small hope that the relevant TUI legislation can now be rushed through to safeguard the PL from an overly northern bias. COYR!

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bryanK added 10:24 - May 15 I now think all of us have exhausted our thoughts on the dire situation at our beloved club. Comparing our personnel I reflected on this scenario a class act in 34 year old William who showed what he can bring to the party as opposed to Walcott who is well passed his sale by date and would not get a game in any other Premier League side. Biggest problem now who would we want to stay? We will all have opinions but I find my list is shrinking on a daily basis. Depression for the next 4 months is now upon as all!! So very sad.

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arfurdent added 10:40 - May 15 bad things happen, two more death throes to come and then a summer of housecleaning. All starts again in August. The Club is Dead, Long Live the Club! is how it goes
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Kingsland34 added 10:46 - May 15 Obelisk poses a very pertinent question that has long troubled me. We were average, but with some hope, last season up to first week of March. On the Wednesday a creditable cup win against WHU, then on Saturday a soon to be normal hapless collapse at Villa. From then on we have been incessantly terrible and only a fluky win against Arsenal kept us from relegation last season. Did SR come in and upset someone or everyone, did Ralph breakdown, did players revolt? Whatever nothing positive has since been done to stem the unacceptable and continuing downward spiral. Very strange that there was such a noticeable and abrupt turning point.

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IanSouthstander added 11:04 - May 15 Lets be honest. The alarm bells should have been ringing at the end of last season with the way we finished the 2nd half of the season. (coincidently Sports Republic took over half way through the season . coincidence ?) . We've just carried on the same old shit. As for Fulham not being any better than us , thats just laughable. They were better than us all over the pitch. Just check out the player ratings on here. EVERY single Fulham player outscored his Saints opposite number.

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Saintaxidriver added 11:53 - May 15 Been a mess all season. Something wrong at the core. I wonder if SR realised they had overcooked things with a massive overbloated squad on high wages and so the best thing to do is get relegated, dump most of that squad to free up wages as well as pulling in a substantial amount of transfer income and start again. The match itself was a carbon copy of most games this season with a reasonable start followed by poor defending, heads dropping and game over. Considering most of the 1st team squad will I think leave I would build the team around Lyanco as captain with an experienced old head beside him, keep Bree at right back and Perraud at left back, midfield bring in Doyle to play alongside JWP (I think he will stay), up front I would play Tall Paul if he is willing to stay and support him with Ballard, Armstrongs and Sulemana if he'll stay.

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SanMarco added 11:55 - May 15 To say that Fulham are no better than us is laughable. Put 'should be' due to size of club/money spent and it may make sense but I would venture to say that the only side we have possibly looked 'better' at home all season was Chelsea. The idea that clueless/gutless performances only started after Ralph's departure is also one that gets me looking to see if it is the first of April. We are obvious going to get a lot of editorial counterfactual history on the 'if only Ralph hadn't been sacked' theme but the truth is that we were going nowhere under Ralph, yes he was/is preferable to Selles and Jones but then so is next-door's cat (and he has no more management experience than Selles.) Anyway, the one good thing about all the inquest we will (continue to) have is that the Ralph issue is surely the only one there may be disagreement on. As the Guardian says today - Saints this season have been an object lesson in how to get relegated. We will be used in future seminars and awaydays as an example to all. As for the match - we had seen it a dozen times before this season. The only difference this time was you could phone your bookie and go for 0-1 or 0-2 after just 5 minutes, occasionally you waited in hope until half-time but this was just like Bournemouth and Brentford.

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Ifonly added 12:07 - May 15 More nonsense from Nick. We have not been gutless since Nathan Jones. We've been gutless since last season as others have said here. I went to the first game of the season at Spurs. We were totally gutless then and I said after that game that we would be relegated this year, because it was clear that we had made no improvement over the end of last season when we looked for all the world like a relegation side. Saying all we needed was another CB and a striker is so far from the truth it's a joke. We are MILES away from what was needed to stay in the PL and this lack of guts in the team is just one of a list of about 20 things that we were short of. Perhaps the best thing about this season is that it shows to anyone with a brain just how far off the required standard we were. If we had gone down on goal difference then people could say we've been unlucky. But it's clear that we've got exactly what we deserved. Hopefully SR aren't so stupid that they think just fixing one or two things would have solved the problem. They have a massive rebuilding job to do but if they learn the lessons it can be done. We were hopeless in pretty much every aspect this year but next year can be totally different. COYR

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JoeEgg added 12:53 - May 15 Some excellent responses above so no need to for me to do anything but underline my support for the Saints fans who have had to endure the worst season in living memory! There may just be a few players who love this Club and will give their all for the fans and Saints FC. Did I read somewhere that Che Adams could be one who wants to stay and fight for a better future. But we all know that many players will be happy to get away from our Club to secure their own futures. This is the moment for the PLAYERS to apologise or at least understand the heartbreak felt by the fans and PLEDGE their commitment and allegiance to Southampton FC. Many ol this enormous squad have proved gutless and gone out with a whimper on the pitch. Its time for those players that really care to say so and expose the imposters. So who truly wants to be part of our team that restores this great club to where it belongs - the Premier League? We the fans CARE - how about YOU players?

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TimSaint added 13:03 - May 15 Oh and just to put things into perspective between us and Fulham, Nick, we have amassed 2 (TWO) points from a possible 30 over the last 10 games. I'm not sure how many points Fulham got over their last 10 games, but they only needed to beat us in order to surpass our total !!
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saintmark1976 added 14:42 - May 15 One of the things that keeps me interested in Nick’s site is that even when our fortunes are at a very low ebb there is always time for some humour.An example being SanMarco suggesting that his next door neighbours’s cat would have been preferable to Ralph, Jones or Selles. That really lifted the Monday morning relegation gloom for me. Interesting photo of Sunak and The Board. Semmens looking as though he has just suddenly done something that he and those stood very close to him were going to very quickly regret.The guy on the right offering everybody a consolation Wurthers Original to make everything better and Rishi doing what he always does, cheer leading when everyone except himself can see that all around him is a complete disaster.

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Ifonly added 15:33 - May 15 Sadly, I don't think SanMarco was joking about his neighbour's cat being a better option than Jones and Selles. The cat might genuinely have won more points. At least the press conferences would have made more sense anyway.
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AmericanSaint added 16:25 - May 15 So it finally happened, but we all knew it was a matter of time. No need to beat a dead horse anymore as we all have laid out the mistakes that have happened. As I said in previous posts and Sainttaxidriver has pointed out, I think this was the plan of SR. They tried to spend money to save the season, but when NJ collapsed, they gave up and decided to tank it and do a rebuild after raking in millions from the unloading of most of the 1st team players. I read that one pundit thinks Saints will be able to make between 100-125M for all the valued players, maybe more. My biggest fear is that SR has not learned anything, will keep the same back room and worse off pick a coach based on analytics and not experience. These will surely be major reasons for concern. What's sucks for me is that I will not be able to watch the games any more as the Championship is not televised in the US. But then again maybe that is a good thing if SR doesnt get it's act together.

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Block8 added 17:23 - May 15 The experience we needed was on the side line, in training and coaching. Our passing most of the season has been atrocious and we have been trying to fit players into a system rather than a system to suit our players. Selles has swapped players, at a whim while totally ignoring others, but maintained an extremely negative style that has been excruciating for both the players and fans. How many games did we have to fail miserably before it dawned on him that it wasn't working? As I said he changed personnel not tactics????? We have definitely better players at this club than our league position suggests and that is what hurts so much, turning up each week just knowing we would play the same sideways, backwards and then long thump to no-one, under use some very good wingers so we could push the full backs forward and expose our lack of pace at the back, when we inevitably gave the ball away. It was crap and the first time I have thought that I completely wasted my money and time and we all know we've had our bad times at this club. Dreadful, Dreadful example of a well run football club!

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