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Reply | How about Lallana as interim Player Manager
at 14:07 1 Oct 2024
If we've given up on the PL this year then we have a free hand, but if we want to survive then we need a manager who knows how to do that. The likes of Lallana and Fonte don't fit the bill. Lallana as a stop gap for 1 or 2 games might be an option but really, if the board are doing their job then they already have a shortlist and should be able to move quickly.
If we want to survive then the sensible choice is Moyes. He'd be hated by many fans but he's the one who would give us the best chance of staying up. |
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Reply | Sport Republic - Building for the future but neglecting the present
at 13:05 1 Oct 2024
I sort of agree with you. He's not as bas as he's looked. As with other players, he has no confidence and that makes him look bad.
Where I disagree is that I can't see him as a centre forward. In the old days playing 442 teams had a centre forward and a second striker. He would have been terrific as a second striker. One of our biggest problems is the lack of a centre forward, but when Ross Stewart has developed some fitness, I think playing Stewart and Archer together is something that should be tried. Not exactly a trendy modern formation but I don't give a f*ck about that. |
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Reply | 'Martin Out' fans are clueless!
at 11:28 1 Oct 2024
I've been saying he's a dud since he got here so I've ended up debating(?) it with a few RM supporters. The sense I get is that they think RM represents the trendy things about football, the kind of football that pundits call "good" (God knows why because it's sh1t).
It's also about what they don't want which is a traditional "dinosaur" manager who plays direct football. It's almost like they're frightened of being seen as old fashioned. They seem to think that it's a simple choice between these 2 options which of course it isn't. Just as one example, Bournemouth play nothing like either of those options. |
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Reply | Southampton At Bournemouth The Verdict
at 11:17 1 Oct 2024
A good summing up Nick. I think the key thing is that the players don't believe in what they're doing. They'll try, like they did for the first 10 mins, but confidence is wafer thin because they don't believe, so when they get a setback that's it. Heads go down, game over. And it's no surprise to me that they don't believe, because this game plan was never going to work in the PL as I've said many times before.
RM said "I haven't given them enough belief in what we're doing" and that's true, but what he hasn't worked out yet is that they'll never have belief because the plan is fundamentally flawed and the players are now starting to understand that.
Even a board as stupid as ours will now understand that relegation is a certainty if we carry on like this. It's up to them to decide whether to accept that or to gamble again on another manager. Unfortunately the board are so incompetent that I have no faith in them getting things right. We'll probably end up with another manager trying to play the same style with the same players and getting the same results. |
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Reply | Pissing about with the ball at the back
at 09:50 30 Sep 2024
Even if that was true that we are catching up, wouldn't it make sense to develop the skills to do it before you played that way? Wouldn't it make sense to develop the style gradually and fit your style to the skills of the players you have?
If someone is learning to drive, should they go to a test track and try to copy Lewis Hamilton, or would that be a bit dangerous? |
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Reply | Graham Potter Lined Up For Southampton Job
at 10:04 29 Sep 2024
There would be lots of support for Potter but I'm not convinced that he's the right choice. He'd probably be an upgrade on RM but really he would be trying to do the same things. Those who don't like us playing out from the back better hope Potter doesn't get the job because that's what he does.
He's very much a possession based coach and that worked for him at Brighton, but I think success at Brighton had a lot to do with the club around him. Brighton were way ahead of the game on analytics (which came form the analytics that Tony Bloom used to make a fortune in gambling). That enabled them to have brilliant recruitment. The standard of players they had was way ahead of their budget. Their analytics was also a key part of looking for weaknesses in the opposition etc. He won't have the same help here.
If he's brought in, he'll essentially be trying to play the same tune as RM. It would just be a gamble that he could play the tune better. |
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Reply | Harrison Miles
at 11:34 28 Sep 2024
Dibling is a complete one-off that's unlikely to be repeated. By rights he should be at Chelsea now with Jimmy Jay. The only reason he isn't is because he got homesick. That's hardly a basis to build your youth policy around.
The reality is that it isn't worth developing these kids these days. The good ones will be pinched, leaving you with basically nothing. Brentford did the smart thing and scrapped their academy. They switched to bringing in 16 to 18 year olds who didn't quite make the very top or those who are attracted by an early chance at the first team (like we did with Sam Amo, Meghoma or Nathan Tella). It hasn't done Brentford any harm. If you lose them at least you get a decent fee and you haven't wasted years developing them. |
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Reply | Corners, why do teams bring all 10 players back for a corner?
at 11:03 28 Sep 2024
Personally I agree that usually it's a bad idea to bring everyone back, particularly when you have a speedster who is a real threat on the break, but there are a number of reasons it might be done, depending on circumstances.
One reason it's done is to deny space to the opposition. Basically it's a lot harder to score in a crowded penalty box than when there are only a few players in it. If it's crowded, it's harder for an attacker to peel off their marker without bumping into someone else and harder to get an unobstructed run up to jump for the ball. Even a midget can obstruct a jump or cover space.
It's a bit like defending in open play. If you left 5 players up field when you're defending in open play, that might occupy 6 or 7 opposition players right? But no one does that. Everyone brings back nearly all of their players even in open play (or even all of them sometimes).
Also, at a corner you have a number of specialist jobs to do. In an ideal world, you want to have enough defenders to man mark, some to cover dangerous spaces, one to cover the short corner, maybe one on the post and maybe one protecting the goalkeeper. You need a lot of players to do all of that, so the temptation is to bring everyone back. Even then, you will struggle to do everything you want to.
Even if you left one player up field, that may not help you. If the opposition respond by having one man marker and one marking the space between that player and your box, then you haven't really reduced the threat, particularly if the opposition players they use to cover aren't really an aerial threat from corners.
In the 95th minute it sort of makes sense to bring everyone back. The thing that Saints really got wrong against Ipswich was not so much bringing everyone back as having everyone doing the same job, which was overkill and left some jobs undone. All they needed was one marking space either on the penalty spot or on the edge of the box where there were 3 Ipswich players. It was bad discipline from a standard set piece that cost us that goal - not the first time that's happened. |
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Reply | Why We Should Not Fear Bournemouth
at 14:48 27 Sep 2024
Certainly we shouldn't fear them, but we often struggle against teams that press hard, particularly when we are under instructions to tippy tap at the back. Bournemouth are a team that can press very effectively, so Rusty needs to put his pride aside and tell our defenders to hoof it when under pressure. Otherwise there will be plenty to fear. |
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Reply | Bournemouth
at 11:27 26 Sep 2024
My dad was a Cherries fan, but he got me hooked on Saints by taking me to the Dell from a young age. How different my life would have been if he could have been arsed to drive over to Bournemouth. |
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Reply | Southampton To Go Back and Make 3rd Bid For Striker In January
at 10:36 26 Sep 2024
It's a bit fekkin late to sign him in January. Why didn't we get our act together sooner?
Apparently we first tried in January this year, so we knew we wanted him back then. So when we got to the summer window we surely must have known that a centre forward was a top priority and we knew we wanted this guy, so how can we have allowed it to happen that Corinthians "didn’t have enough time to bring in a replacement."? That sounds very much like we didn't make an offer until late in the window.
I've said before that our priorities this window were stupid and this is more evidence that was the case. We spent an enormous sum and signed loads of players but ended up without a centre forward. How stupid is that? Clearly in this case it was nothing to do with the money if Corinthians thought the offer was good. [Post edited 26 Sep 10:42]
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Reply | 'Martin Out' fans are clueless!
at 23:03 23 Sep 2024
I guess you could say I was "moaning" about RM since he was appointed (am I part of this "cult" you mention? Sounds thrilling). As I've said since the beginning he's not the right long term choice because trying to play an even more possession heavy approach than Man City is not the right long term choice if we want to survive in the PL. We don't have the money to make it work and we never will.
Everything I've seen since we've been promoted has confirmed that view. RM's successes at the business end of last season, and this season (such as they are), have come when he has backed off from his purist possession approach. He's said that he won't compromise his principles, but the truth is that he has, and the further away we've got from his preferred style, the better we've done.
Could he compromise his style enough for us to survive in the PL? I guess it's possible, but we know that if that happens, he'll revert back as soon as he gets the chance. That's what he did at the start of this season. As soon as he felt he had a bit of breathing room it was back to telling McCarthy to play with his feet, even though we all knew that was ridiculous.
So, long term he is not the answer and I think a lot of people now share that view. These people then say, if he isn't the long term answer, then we should change manager now. Perhaps you could explain why you so confidently say this view is stupid and clueless, and maybe you could do it in a less aggressive way than you have so far. |
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Reply | 'Martin Out' fans are clueless!
at 21:40 23 Sep 2024
Why is RM "everything this club should be about"? What does that mean, if it means anything?
Edit: oops duplicated joidevivre [Post edited 23 Sep 21:42]
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Reply | Benefits - essential safety net or invitation to abuse?
at 17:54 23 Sep 2024
Bitcoin, for example, has value because it is widely accepted as a "means of exchange" (money) and "store of value" (digital gold), similar to what gold was in prior centuries. Some of this acceptance may have a dubious origin (it is untraceable so is widely used in criminal activity and the black economy) but the fact remains that it is widely accepted and so has value. It's value is also underpinned by other factors e.g. there is only a certain amount will ever be "mined" (produced) so it is "scarce" and the fact that it can't be manipulated or forged due to the "blockchain" technology.
A Govt could create its own crypto as you outline, but the economics of what you describe would be very different to bitcoin. Creating an endless supply of currency (to pay benefits in) is very different to the limited supply of bitcoin, so it would lose any value it had. It would also struggle to gain the acceptance of bitcoin because part of the attraction of bitcoin is that no government can trace it.
However, many countries are considering introducing "Central Bank Digital Currencies" which are crypto versions of their national currencies and about 10 already exist. The value is fixed to the same as their national currency and a digital £ would be worth the same as a £ coin. For the UK, a decision might happen in 2025:
https://news.sky.com/story/britcoin-digital-pound-decision-to-be-made-by-2025-12 |
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