The Secret Long Term Process Driven Fashion Diary of Ruben Selles

Get that Stone Island Jacket Out of My Office!

Ten games to go and Southampton are in the capable hands of Ruben.  I understand that we need 38 points to be sure of staying up, we currently have 23, so 15 points to get.  I will achieve because I am driven to be a manager.  I am Ruben, manager, long term.

West Ham away
Rasmus book talks of first impressions which is why I’ve gone for the turtleneck with suit jacket approach.  Apparently it’s ideal for passing yourself off as someone who knows what they’re doing.  Inspired by Rasmus, as I inherited a club that was completely broken so I’ve decided to break it even more and go back to Ralph tactics.  After two weeks of thinking about it with the international break, have decided to radically go with 11 defenders with Walcott, Mara and Elyounoussi as my forwards because of their defensive quality.  No one expects 4-6-0 in a must win game.  The element of surprise, no?  Tall Paul hit the bar when he came on despite it being against my principles and against our long-term plan to cross the ball.

Lost 1-0 – I feel that we are building.

Man City at home
My predecessor has left a Stone Island jacket in the managers locker in the changing room. As if I would be seen dead in such a thing. The police visited Staplewood today with a noise abatement order. My idea of playing David Bowie‘s Fashion and The Kinks Dedicated Follower of Fashion on repeat for the entire training session has not gone down well with local residents.  Pep is in town, my lord and master, and he will see the identity I am creating. My 4-3-3 narrow formation with a false 9, giving Grealish half the pitch to himself works well despite the first three goals coming down that side.  We have to trust the process.  I love a false 9.

Lost 4-1 – never mind, our identity is there for all to see.

Crystal Palace at home
Stuart Armstrong suggested to me in training that we might try making some runs ahead of the ball when we have possession. I explained that this is against my rest defence principles and that when we have the ball we have to always be thinking about the fact that we are about to lose it.  Asked the senior players if Joe Aribo would be a good surprise option for this game – they said “no, it’s not pre-season but I did it anyway because no strikers needed today – we go with two false 9’s because you can’t have too many against a team that sits very deep.

Bazunu kept up his run of games where he let in a goal that was his fault – might have to look at that but where’s the rush – it’s a process.  One of my false 9’s Alcaraz was good.  Don’t want him getting ahead of himself so took him off as he was hitting the post and having shots and drawing attention to himself.

Lost 2-0 - I can feel results getting closer as performances improve.

Arsenal away
Have decided to leave Bazunu in goal in case we get battered by Mikel’s league leaders.  It will be character forming and part of his process.  Bowed to pressure to leave Aribo out and tombola machine came up with Adam Armstrong. Mislav Orsic found my selection tombola in the cupboard in my office. He smashed it because his name was not in it. He left the training ground shouting “Adam Armstrong for fuck‘s sake”. Arsenal, so dazzled by my 4-6-0 formation they threw us two goals with Alcaraz at heart of both.  Took him off at half time to protect and with three minutes to go and 3-1 up, took off Lavia to protect for long term and put on Ibra and we let in two goals and drew.  Never mind, I say to players afterwards – it’s about long term.  Today on the bus home, I played Charly Alcaraz at chess. Was winning until I decided to replace my queen, my bishops, rooks and knights with pawns. Lost in three moves.

Drew 3-3 having been 3-1 up in the 88^th minute – proof that the turnaround is coming.

Bournemouth at home
Having passed character test at Arsenal, I decide to drop Bazunu and play McCarthy.  Journalist asked to be about my starting line-ups and why I pick Adam Armstrong. I see a lot of myself in Adam in that we are both totally unqualified for the roles that we are performing.  He looked good in training and I look good in my turtle-neck and suit jacket.  Bournemouth let in 4 last week as are poor in the air.  I instruct us to play short corners as they will have fixed this fault by today.  JWP had to come off at half time so I went to 3 at the back which we had not practiced but I trust the players and the process.  We conceded after ten minutes of trying and I was saving Che for the future but I sent Che on as a sub and he scored but was offside.  I was a managerial genius but for VAR, but importantly for the future, our rest defence was good today apart from when it wasn’t, just the once..

Lost 1-0 – we are apparently bottom of the table but I don’t waste my time looking at that.

Newcastle away
Elyounoussi has informed me that he still has the pictures. My lawyer has told me that the pictures are nothing to be ashamed of but I am a serious manager so I cannot be seen in a shell suit and crocs so Moi will get some minutes this week. Winning 1-0 at half time so I elect for total defence in the second half and we stick to this diligently all half, even though Newcastle scored three.  Did my trademark triple substitution bringing on Adam Armstrong, Elyounoussi and Maitland-Niles for all the players who attack too much, just before we concede and need to score again.  This helped secure the two-goal defeat.  Saved Che for more important days to come.

Lost 3-1 – my outfit was very good in the cold weather up here.

Nottingham Forest away
In the press conference today, I admitted that if we are nine points adrift with three games left and with the worst goal difference than everybody, then we will be in a difficult moment. With four games to go and needing to win 3 to have any chance of staying up, I might actually pick a striker today. Just got to decide which one does the best defending. Today I played Ainsley Maitland-Niles as a full back and as a midfielder at the same time.  I told him he has two surnames so can play two positions. He thinks I’m funny.  We have to learn from the best like Pep Guardiola and the players will respond.  If I can wear a polo neck and look like Pep, then I’m sure Ainsley can look like John Stones.

Threw Tall Paul on as sub and instructed the other players to stop crossing the ball. He has to adapt and it will be better for his long-term development if he gets used to crosses fired at him at 100 miles an hour, 3 inches off the ground by Adam Armstrong. As the players walked off at the end of the game I threw Alex McCarthy his water bottle and it went straight through him.

Lost 4-3 – 9 points needed from 3 games but our process game is strong.

Sit Down, Shut Up

Fulham at home
I feel performances are improving at a rate that means it’s only a matter of time before it converts into points in 2028, which is only five years into my 10-year tenure as Southampton manager. Picked Tall Paul today as had no other option but because of him not pressing well, made everyone else defend to give us the best chance of winning.

Lost again today because a number of the players didn’t appreciate my animated tactical instruction from the side line. All the Spanish speakers told me to “Vete a la mierda” and Walker-Peters, Ward-Prowse and Lavia all said “do what you fucking like, we are out of here”.  I join in lap of honour, my fans love me.

Lost 2-0 – we are now in a difficult moment but the identity is strong and there for all to see.

Brighton away
Played walking football in training today. Didn’t tell Joe Aribo and he looked amazing. Based on that I can’t help but put him in the team on Sunday.  Today we are in Brighton and I’ll be wearing an extra tight Ralph Lauren polo neck. Ralph Lauren is of course one of the great Ralphs of all time but not as great as Ralph Hasenhuttl. He sent me a picture of himself at a ski resort. On the back of it, it said “if you want to guarantee, get a washing machine”.  He knows that I’m dry-clean only with my wardrobe.  I’m still wondering if my no wins in 12 games will be enough to convince Rasmus that I am the man for the rebuild. Requested a meeting. He is out of office. Got asked by journalists today if I had heard about Russell Martin. Isn’t that a celebrity chef? Why would I have heard of him?  Threw McCarthy his track suit top and it went straight through his hand.

Lost 3-1 – I feel that I proved I belong at this level today.

Liverpool at home
Have been told my contract will not be renewed.  Am incredulous as other teams want me because it said so on Fabrizio Romano’s Twitter.  I have done all I could and I want to be a manager in the Premier League or close to it.  I will mastermind win against Liverpool and increase my standing.   I decided to attack today and everyone had fun.  It wasn’t good for my long-term vision for the club however.  Sulemana scored twice – I told you he had to learn the league rather than play earlier on, when we still had a chance of staying up.

Drew 4-4 – I have left the club having masterminded a non-defeat against a Champions League team.  Oh, they didn’t qualify.

I have hung my black polo neck up in the closet in the managers office, next to the Stone Island Jacket.  Perhaps the new manager can wear them and see if it helps him implement my long term vision.

Yours, Deluded
Ruben

Premier League Match 38 - Southampton 4 Liverpool 4

 

The Premier League is Upside-Down

And so this absolute stinking arsehole of a season draws to an end with the visit of Liverpool to St Mary’s, one of the games I look forward to least every season because you can always trust Liverpool fans to be giving it the big one and you can always trust loads of them to be in the home sections. Today promises to be no different because there are rumours of loads of Saints fans returning their tickets to the portal and then being sold on in a general sale. This promises to be all sorts of fun.

Putting that aside, it should be a game for all 22 players on the pitch to go out and enjoy because neither team has anything whatsoever to play for as neither can change their position in the final table. Liverpool will be fifth and in the Europa league next season and Saints will be fucking last and in the Championship.

Whilst you can safely assume that Jürgen Klopp will be in charge of Liverpool again next season, it has been confirmed that Ruben Sellers won’t be doing the same at Saints.  The reaction to this news has somewhat surprised me, with there seeming to be quite a lot of sympathy for the outgoing manager. I have none.

Not only was he the assistant to the two previous managers, so is therefore the common denominator in the coaching staff for the entire season, he has had more games as manager than anyone, with the best squad and has totally failed in his mission to get us enough points to stay up. That was his only mission by the way - it wasn’t to develop a style of play or an identity or any other such bollocks, trusting the process and all that shit. His mission was solely to win games with the squad at his disposal and he’s failed.

When we had the international break at the end of February, there were 10 games to go and I calculated that he had to win four, draw three and only lose three. In the event we have drawn one and lost eight and that’s before today. To be honest, I include myself as someone who would not have done any worse with these last 10 games and at least my team would’ve gone down attacking and trying to score some goals against the other poor sides.

Let’s also make it clear that he hasn’t been sacked. He has merely reached the end of the contract and we are looking to appoint the next person to do the job, so spare me the hard luck story. He had a glorious opportunity at Premier League club, that his previous record didn’t warrant getting and he has done nothing with it apart from prove how not to do it. Also, I’m sure he’s been handsomely paid for his four months of failing so let’s not feel too sorry for him.

The Selles Retro Kit Will Be in the Saints Megastore for August.

Straight after the Brighton game it was announced that CEO Martin Semmens was leaving, which was kind of the worst kept secret. There was a slightly mealymouthed statement from Sport Republic, which basically implied that Martin‘s presence was stopping them having full control over what goes on so by further implication, they were saying that they weren’t totally responsible for the shambles from the appointment of Nathan Jones onwards. As any casual observer will know, they were fully responsible for everything that happened from the moment Ralph Hasenhuttl walked out the door.

There has been the usual triumphalism over someone who many see as partly responsible leaving.  He is of course partly responsible, but not to the level that Sport Republic would want you to believe.  Semmens, along with Toby Steele and Ralph Hasenhuttl, saw the club through the challenging financial times of Chairman Gao not putting any money in and the Covid affected seasons, whilst keeping us in the Premier League because despite always having one eye on the future and the signing of younger players etc, they never lost sight of the fact that the first team, and it remaining in the Premier League, underpins everything from the youth set up through to the women’s team and everything else besides. Sport Republic in my view, lost sight of that and at that moment became more concerned with it being their show, rather than it being a successful show.

The bottom line is that I feel that like with Ralph Hasenhüttl, time will be kind to Martin Semmens and people, if they don’t think so already, will ultimately judge him as one of the good guys and someone who did a decent job under pretty difficult circumstances. Yes, Semmens was instrumental in bringing Sport Republic to the football club but anyone remember the initial statement about Sport Republic not wanting to get too involved with the day-to-day running of the football club? Let’s ponder that one for a second.  Now they have no one left to blame.

Meanwhile today and one final jarring team selection and we appear to have no striker once again with the only change from the Brighton game being Sulemana starting to instead of Joe Aribo.  Klopp has taken the opportunity to rest virtually everyone with Alisson, Van Dijk, Robertson, Henderson and Gakpo all left out.

Saints start the game relatively confidently, which is a surprise considering how bad we have been, and we’re knocking it around the back and it’s all fairly comfortable McCarthy to Bednarek to Lyanco to Lavia to Diogo Jota, goal.  Fucking hell.  Lavia’s attempted pass to Bednarek perfectly took out McCarthy and gave Jota an open goal. Not a great start.

It doesn’t get any better does it?.... and five minutes later it got worse again as Trent pulls out a superb reverse pass into Firmino’s feet and he dances away from the floundering Bednarek and Lyanco before drilling the ball through the hologram for 2-0. At this point I’m setting a target - if Liverpool are three or four goals ahead at half-time, I might actually think about going home.

As often been the case in the second half of the season, the resurgence was started by Charly Alcaraz, dancing in from the right wing, past a couple of players before playing a 1-2 on the edge of the box with Sulemana and then rolling the ball across to where JWP comes in and side foots it past Kelleher into the far corner of the net.  A nice moment and will probably be his last game for the club.  Not that it matters but 'game on'.

It’s now becoming a really weird game and you can tell that Liverpool aren’t that bothered either and Firmino dawdles in possession on the halfway line and gets robbed by Lavia.   On it goes to Walcott and he plays a lovely ball in between Tsimikas and Gomez and Sulemana sweeps it into the net through the Liverpool goalkeeping hologram that is Kelleher.

2-2 at half-time and it’s been very entertaining in a crap kind of way.

The start of the second half has even more bizarre shit going on. Liverpool lose the ball halfway inside our half and Sulemana bundles past Fabinho and he’s away. He basically runs in a straight line with all the retreating Liverpool defenders and none of them bothered to go and close him down at all so he gets to the edge of the box and just passes it into the net. The Minge at Spurs won goal of the season for a goal like that a few years ago and it’s a great finish but it is abysmally unaware defending.

Klopp has now decided that it’s getting embarrassing so he brings on all his good players with Henderson, Diaz, Gakpo and Elliot all coming on in one go. Selles responds with Lavia and Elyounoussi going off to be replaced with Stuart and Adam Armstrong.  Two of the subs combine straight away as Henderson passes the ball straight to Adam Armstrong on the left wing behind the right back and he just sprints forward, gets to the edge of the box and then fires it across Kelleher and comfortably inside the far post. This is a weird fucking day, 4-2.

Did I say that Liverpool have got a good players on the pitch now? Of course they have and they get to work with Henderson chipping a ball over the defence to be met with a superb volleyed cross by Trent and it flies across between goalkeeper and defender and there is Gakpo at the back post to run it into the net. What a goal that is, 4-3.

Before we can really get going again, the ball goes out to the left hand side where Diaz clearly handles it to keep it in play but the ref gives nothing and one pass from Diaz later and Jota is clean through with KWP absent, assumed talking to his agent, and he rams a shot into he roof of the net and now it’s 4-4.  We are all around the referee but he clearly can’t be arsed to go to VAR for the very obvious handball and so on we go.

Tino Livramento has been ready to come on since the score was 4-2 and now he's finally on in place of Theo Walcott.  We send on Dom Ballard for Sulemana and the final substitution is made in the 87th minute and it’s a pretty symbolic one with JWP going off to a standing ovation to be replaced by Sam Amo-Ameyaw.  We are now kind of playing a 5-2-3 formation with Bree as the right sided centre back and KWP at left back but not bothering with any actual defending.

Born in 2006 FFS!

Liverpool immediately have a chance to win it with Salah’s 347^th attempt to score which hits the post ans in reply, Amo-Ameyaw picks up the ball in midfield and twists past three Liverpool players before finding KWP on the left and he cuts in and curls a shot towards the top corner but unfortunately, Kelleher makes his one contribution to the game by taking off and tipping it over the bar. With JWP gone, Stuart Armstrong takes the resulting corner and scuffs it across the box about 3 foot off the ground and it’s volleyed clear, bringing the season to a close.

Well that game was absolutely fucking mad and at the end of it, I’m just pleased that it was entertaining compared to what it could’ve been like, bearing in mind everything that has gone on this season. For 15 minutes it did look like it was going to be absolutely horrific, with a mass exodus at half-time with us having gifted Liverpool 2-0 lead.  With it being Lavia who gave the first goal away, it probably helped keep everyone’s negativity in check – imagine if that had been Bednarek or Elyounoussi giving that away.

The moment the game changed was with JWP’s goal, superbly set up by Charly Alcaraz. Sulemana then gave us a reminder of why we signed him with his two goal blast either side of half-time and it looked like being one of those fucking weird miracles when Adam Armstrong came off the bench and Henderson passed the ball to him, allowing him to run through and score.  Having brought on all their proper players just before that goal, Liverpool then went into overdrive and scored twice in a minute as we made some ‘standing ovation’ substitutions that radically weakened the midfield in particular.

There wasn’t a lot of defending going on today, particularly from Liverpool.  Liverpool fans and media have a habit of talking up everything associated with their club but some of the squad players are fucking dreadful in the context of playing for a club with designs on winning trophies. Joe Gomez and Joël Matip are definitely in that category but I expected the midfield of Jones, Fabinho and Milner to be a lot better than it was. There’s a lot of hype around the young Liverpool goalkeeper but Kelleher gave a hologram, zero-presence Gunn-like performance.  He looked like a child in goal.

Playing Sulemana at the middle worked really well and Charlie Alcaraz had a superb game breaking from midfield to join him. Having said that no one really defended, the exception for us was Lyanco who was everywhere and I really hope he stays for next season.  Bednarek and Bree were both okay and KWP stopped Salah from scoring but that was more by luck that judgement.  Most of the time, Salah had the whole side of the pitch to himself as KWP seem determined to do something in attack in what will probably be his last appearance for the club.  He very nearly managed it as well with the effort at 4-4, which produced the only save that Kelleher actually made.

So to the standing ovations and a lot of players were substituted who are probably playing their last games for us.  Romeo Lavia was the first to go, with an injury.  He of course didn’t start the game great giving Liverpool their first goal but he again showed what he was about in the midfield battle.  He recovered well to have a hand in setting up our second goal and whilst he’s not the finished article yet, you would assume that his last game in red and white has been played.

Mohamed Elyounoussi was next to go. Not my favourite player by any stretch of the imagination and he gave a typical performance, working hard defensively but offering very little when we had possession.  He won’t be missed as a player though he is obviously well-liked by the other players.  The interesting bit about his substitution was Jordan Henderson getting annoyed about the amount of time he was taking to get off the pitch and then he calmed down when he realised it was his last game.

Theo Walcott was next and as I said before, a player who has been surprisingly good this season and who you feel could definitely have done a job next year, certainly ahead of the likes of some of the wide players that we are likely to still be saddled with next year.  He had announced pre-game that this was his last game for Saints so let’s hope he’s got something decent lined up.  The fact that he got back in the team this season is a testament both to his work ethic and desire to do well for the club but also an indictment of others playing in those wide areas who have just not done it.

Prowsey Has Had Enough of This Shit

The 87th minute saw the substitution of James Ward-Prowse, who of course has been here since he was eight years old but that time is surely now coming to an end.  He never get substituted, let’s face it and it wouldn’t surprise me if a deal has already been agreed with another club.  I also get the feeling that he wouldn’t necessarily have wanted to be substituted and looked a bit sheepish when departing the scene.

It’s also of course, the last time we will see Ruben Selles as our manager and today does nothing to change my opinion of him as a potential football manager.  You could say that he managed the second half pretty well and put the wishes of individual players head of what you would normally do in a match situation, so fair play to him for that.  You could also say that it also points again at him of being too soft and too friendly for top-level management.

Other subplots today include the brilliant performance of Kamaldeen Sulemana and his two goals.  These two goals to have to put into the context of Liverpool‘s lack of defending specifically Kelleher diving over the ball on the first goal and the hilariously bad defending by Joe Gomez on the second.  It’s worked well as a shop window for Sulemana though and he has less chance of being a Championship footballer next season as a result and we have a better chance of getting our money back. 

I was pleased to see Sam Amo-Ameyaw given 10 minutes at the end and he looked really good in his cameo.  When I got home I looked it up and realised that he is only 16 and hasn’t signed a professional contract yet so whilst showing him the pathway can be seen as a positive, drawing attention to him at the point where we are about to drop down a division, might not have been the smartest move.

I suspect that life is going to come at us pretty fast over the next week or so. It wouldn’t surprise me if Russell Martin is announced in the next day or so and I’m also sure that Saints would like to get some of the higher earners of the books as soon as possible. The make-up of the Championship is complete now and we know the other 23 teams we are competing against to try and get a seat back at the top table.  Now it’s all done and finally over, I’m quite looking forward to being away from the Premier League Bullshit for a while.  The novelty will wear thin pretty quickly however so we need to hit it hard next season.

Bring it on and Up the Fucking Saints.

Premier League Match 37 - Brighton 3 Southampton 1

 

Evan Ferguson versus Hologram doesn't end well.

It’s dead rubber time and a trip to Brighton. Apparently, we have never lost at The Amex in the Premier League. With Brighton still chasing a European place it will be something of a miracle if that is still the case after today.

Ruben Selles is in a slightly strange position today because he is in charge for the second to last game of his audition to get the job next year and he already knows that he isn’t getting the job because the name of Russell Martin has loomed large all week and it seems that he will be the new manager, tasked with unravelling the tangled web of shite that is our first team squad and overseeing the rebuild in the summer.  Ruben was of course questioned about this during the week and confirmed that he would not be reverting back to being a coach. Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out.

Talk has turned to the young players in the B team and whether they will get minutes on the pitch today. The ones being mentioned are Dominic Ballard, Kamari Doyle and Sam Amo-Ameyaw. All three are forward going players so there’s absolutely no danger in giving them a game because let’s face it, our forwards are shite and have been all season.

As far as I’m concerned, we should use today’s game productively for next season and give minutes to those who may well be around. Of course, we don’t want to get absolutely battered but this game literally doesn’t matter. We are not chasing any prize money because we can’t move out of 20th position and as far as we are concerned there is absolutely nothing riding on it at all.

Brighton have had an amazing season and currently sit sixth in the Premier League.  They handed Manchester City the title during the week by winning 3-0 at Arsenal and will want to make up for their last home game which was a 5-1 defeat by Everton in what was the freakiest of freak results.

Brighton have been playing out of a lot of games recently so there is a chance that they will be a bit leggy today but leggy or not, they will surely have enough to beat us. They are Southampton 2016 and the challenge will be to make sure they are not Southampton 2023 and they carry on getting their recruitment right and replacing the players that they undoubtably will continue to keep losing to the big boys.  They’ve had no problems replacing Bissouma and Trossard this season.  Next seasons challenge will be to probably replace Caicedo and Mac Allister.  They may even have to replace their manager as Roberto de Zerbi has done an amazing job since replacing Graham Potter when he took up the poisoned chalice at Chelsea and even lost twice to Southampton…. and they’re shit!

Even with the Championship program already finished and him apparently living in Brighton,  I doubt that Russell Martin is anywhere to be seen in the ground today. Even if he’s not I’m sure he will be making notes if he is indeed going to be the man. Martin has led Swansea to two mid-table finishes in the Championship in the last two seasons and whilst that’s not anything to write home about on the face of it, you have to consider the extenuating factors of Swansea’s very unpopular ownership and the small budget he has been working with. Martin’s teams try to play a good football with lots of possession, which is great as long as you are pragmatic and know when it’s time to not do that. We will see, of course, although I expect things to be confirmed fairly quickly.

Russell Celebrates not having Michael Obafemi any more

For now, we haven’t got Russell Martin, we have Ruben Selles and it’s 1 o’clock and time for the team news and once again, it has everybody punching themselves in the face.  Having been absolutely shit on his last start and having done absolutely nothing since then, Joe Aribo is starting and it looks like he’s up front with Charly Alcaraz.  Elyounoussi has been recalled in place of Stuart Armstrong because fuck knows why, and the only other change of note is James Bree starting instead of Maitland-Niles. The bench contains Ballard, Doyle Amo-Ameyaw and also Tino Livramento but what are the odds that we are out of the game before any of them get on because the starting line-up is fucking dismal?

The motivation for Brighton is absolutely clear because if they win this game then they have qualified for Europe for the first ever time. That motivation sees them make the better start and Bednarek’s header is picked up by Mitoma who jinks inside and has a clear shot on his right foot but passes it wide of the post. That really should’ve been 1-0.

Saints settle into things and Alcaraz picks up the ball in midfield and gets away from Caicedo before finding Walcott ahead of him. Walcott draws in Lewis Dunk before knocking it back to Alcaraz and with the whole go to aim at, he shanks it wide of the near post in pretty shit fashion.  He’s the one player who we would’ve wanted to have that chance ….

We are however, playing with a confidence that belies the fact that we are shite and bottom of the league and going down.  Twenty or so passes in our our back third and the crowd around me are all giving it the ‘Ole’ and it’s all quite funny in a “we are shit but we’re having a laugh“ kind of way and then McCarthy knocks a shit ball to Bednarek who slips over allowing Mitoma to nick in, chip the keeper and see the ball hit the post and bounce straight back to the prone McCarthy.  Hilarious, 20 passes to give the ball away 5 yards from our own goal.  Somewhere in the crowd, in a disguise, Russell Martin is cringing.

The hilarity doesn’t last long.  Caicedo picks up the ball in midfield and finds Mac Allister in the number 10 position and he knocks it to the right to Ferguson who doesn’t seem to have many options so he decides to hit it and it goes past Lyanco and straight through the hologram in goal - for fuck‘s sake, what a shit goal and after three goes at it, we’ve finally managed to go behind.

Saints create a half chance as Walcott attempts an audacious effort with the outside of his right foot which ended up as closer to the corner flag as it did to the goal. We then give the ball away when Alcaraz gives a loose pass to Lavia and Brighton break through Mitoma but Lavia has got it covered and is going to get to the ball first until Mitoma pulls him back and Lavia goes over.  Mitoma bursts up the left before anyone else can get to him and rolls it across and there is Evan Ferguson to knock it easily into the net again. Paul Tierney is not interested and nor is VAR and then they make the mistake of actually showing the replay in the stadium.

It is undoubtedly a piss week challenge by Lavia but that is absolutely a free-kick for everyone else. Mitoma does give him a little pull which would usually be given by a referee but not today and once he’s not given it, they are is not going to point it out as a howler so well played Paul Tierney. 2-0

We get to half-time just the two goals behind but in all truth it’s been absolutely wank and it is also no surprise at all that Selles sends the same team out there for the second half, probably because he’s been happy with our shape and the fact we are working towards getting some good results at some point with our performances.  Fucking idiot.  

Anyway, the team does come out with a bit more energy in the second half and Aribo actually runs and actually makes a contribution, flicking a ball to Walcott and his eventual cross is knocked behind by Veltman for a corner.

Elyounoussi Signs Off

In comes the inswinger from JWP, up got the heads and it flicks off of someone and ends up in the net - fucking hell we’ve scored. Unexpected bonus. No one knows who scored and I assume it’s an own goal but as play restarts, a little ball appears next to the goalscorer‘s name on the scoreboard at the far end and it’s Elyounoussi of all people in what will hopefully be his farewell gift.

A few minutes pass and a Brighton attack is broken up when Ferguson goes for his hat-trick and smashes it against a defender and via Alcaraz and Lavia, we get the ball to JWP in midfield and he plays a lovely ball behind the left back Estupinan and Walcott is away and he cuts across Estupinan, draws Steele out and flips it over him and into the net. Fucking mental and absolute pandemonium in our end and fuck me we’ve scored again.  Or have we…. Off to VAR

“Paul, Paul, it’s Stockley Park”
“What’s up lads”
“Look at those twats celebrating up the Southampton end like they’ve forgotten VAR exists”
“I know, wankers the lot of them though to be fair, they don’t score often”
“And they were throwing that inflatable turd about earlier on”
“I know, I took that personally mate”
“Anyway Paul, I’ve drawn the lines with the help of Jon Moss and guess what?”
“He’s eating his second dinner?”
“Yes he is mate but more importantly, it’s offside by one millimetre”
“Is it that accurate now mate?”
“No, but if I draw the line from a random point on Walcott’s shoulder then it is what I say it is”
“I thought level was onside?”
“No mate, no such thing as level now, especially today”
“Why’s that?”
“Cos Brighton should have had 4 penalties at Spurs a few weeks back and we gave none”
“Oh yeah… Super League 6”
“You got it… and it has to even up over the season”
“…. And it doesn’t matter about Southampton because they’re shit and going down anyway?”
“Exactly”

Oh VAR can just get fucked off into the bin.  JWP clearly agrees and he’s saying things that Paul Tierney doesn’t like because he gets a yellow card.

James Bree has been having a decent game at right back but he gets caught out by the pace of Mitoma and launches him up in the air which gives Brighton a free kick on the left-hand side and it comes from Gross and the powerful downward header from Veltman is superbly saved down low by McCarthy and Bednarek knocks it off for a corner. The corner is headed out as far as Gross on the far corner of the penalty area and he cuts inside some decidedly half-arsed pressing by Aribo and then scuffs it left footed all the way along the ground and it beats the Hologram of McCarthy at his near post

With the game now dead it’s time for an episode of Selles Subs, with Alcaraz, Elyounoussi and Aribo being replaced with Stuart Armstrong, Sulemana and Dominic Ballard. A few minutes later we get James Bree being replaced with Tino Livramento to try and exercise the ghost of the Amex, where he first did his knee.

Tino gets involved straight away, piling into a tackle on Mitoma and he gets up with no problem and is then involved again, heading a cross out to the edge of the box where Mac Allister smashes it on the volley about a foot over the bar.

Lavia comes off and is replaced by Kamari Doyle for his debut but the rest of the game is a bit of a procession with Brighton just knocking the ball around until time runs out and so we slipped to yet another defeat in this fucking dismal season.

Today was a story we’ve heard many times before this season – we played well for a random 15 minutes in the middle of the game when we actually got on the front foot and attacked, but of course it’s never enough to win a Premier League game just playing for 15 minutes.

We created the chance in the first half at 0-0 that fell to Alcaraz, the player who we would want it to be fall to and he unfortunately missed and straight after that we were 2-0 down thanks to Ferguson blasting a shot through the McHologram and then Paul Tierney deciding not to give us a free kick for Mitoma pulling back Lavia.  I know that Lavia should’ve been stronger and it would’ve been soft as fuck, but that gets given as a foul in virtually every Premier League game I’ve seen this season.

Though I was absolutely steaming at the time that our soon to be departing manager didn’t make any changes at half-time, we came out with some more intent, scored via Elyounoussi’s flick header from JWP’s corner and we had Brighton rattled and then the moment of most significance in the game when JWP put Theo Walcott through and he brilliantly finished to send the away end mental, only for VAR to disallow it for really, fuck all.  It’s millimetres, so much so that you couldn’t tell even with the fucking lines drawn across. I know it’s us but that should be a goal, for anyone.  I have always loosely been in favour of VAR and thought that in time it would sort yourself out but it’s not going to.  It’s about 2 1/2 years since we had a goal disallowed against Aston Villa because a randomly selected part of Danny Ings armpit was offside and here we are today still getting an absolutely fucking shit application of VAR. I know people are gonna say that it’s a binary yes/no decision but fuck off, I’m done with it, get rid of it, bring the excitement back into the game.  I’d rather put up with a few wrong decisions than the absolute fucking shambles of what happens now. Scoring a goal with such a big outpouring of emotion (which is what football is all about) and then three minutes later, some wanker at Stockley Park with a fucking Etch-a-Sketch, decides he’s gonna shit over everyone’s enjoyment. Don’t get me wrong, we still would’ve lost because no doubt Brighton would’ve gone straight up our end and scored again but that’s not the point and I am honestly looking forward to next season and not having fucking VAR.  If it hits the net and the linesman hasn’t flagged, it’s a fucking goal and happy days and let’s get on with it.

VAR Can Get In The Fucking Bin

The disallowed goal knocked all the stuffing out of us because it doesn’t take much as you know and then Brighton scored again courtesy of some unsurprisingly bad closing down by Aribo and more hologram by McCarthy allowing a scuffed effort from 20 yards to creep in at his near post. Fuck me we need a new goalkeeper for next season.

Where do we start with Selles this week? With a fucking abysmal team selection for starters. Aribo got given that not today apparently because he looked good in training that’s as we found out a couple of weeks ago when he picked Adam Armstrong.  Shit players will always resort to type in an actual game, regardless of a good training session at half pace with nothing riding on it.

Aribo was lazy, didn’t press, didn’t make runs, wasn’t strong in holding off players and generally was a shit as we all knew he was going to be. Selles is absolutely deluded. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if he thought he’s actually done a good job since he became the manager. What is it now, no win in 14 games. Any manager in the Premier League will be lucky to not get sacked after a run like that so he can demand respect and communication as much as he wants because at the end of the day, he’s been fucking useless.  I agree that there should be communication of course but he’s been shocking and a lot of his decisions just don’t make any fucking sense at all and how can he be surprised – he’s not being sacked, his contract is ending and we’ve getting in someone else.

Though I completely disagreed with Tino Livramento playing this season, he did put in a very good 10 minutes when he came home and looked like he’d never been away. I don’t see what we really have to gain by putting him on the pitch this season but it worked out okay. The other headline news today was of course the full debuts in the Premier League of Dominic Ballard and Kamari Doyle who both looked as you’d expect, slightly lightweight and with a lot to learn. Hopefully they get more minutes next week.

Our away support was magnificent throughout. I stayed long enough at the end to applaud the players off. They had put in a good shift but just weren’t good enough at the end of the day. I particularly liked the fact that Dominic Ballard, Kamari Doyle and Sam Amo-Ameyaw got very close to the crowd and were clearly taking in what it’s like to have a packed crowd of supporters in front of you. It was a good moment and sums up why you should give minutes in games like this to youngsters and not waste them on shit players are definitely not going to be here next season

Brighton’s win of course meant they qualified for Europe and fair play to them. It will be a massive adventure for them next season and one that they should embrace because as we know as a club of similar size, it doesn’t come around too often and you have to make the most of it. Good luck to them and they should are now a model that we should attempt to follow.

One more fucking game to go and it’s a proper dead rubber against Liverpool who are going to have absolutely nothing to play for either. I am certain however that their “getting ready for the beach” level is going to be considerably higher than ours. Bring it on.

Premier League Match 36 - Southampton 0 Fulham 2

It's Time to Play the Music...

Another day, another last chance as we take on the Fulham at St Mary‘s. All things are possible, we could win and be relegated today, we could do the infinitely more likely lose or draw and be relegated today or we could win and drag this shitshow of a season on to Brighton next week. If the law of sod is to apply, then that is what we will do.  I kind of want it to be done and dusted and I want no possible excuse left for not starting the rebuild that will be needed for next season. I see absolutely no point in wasting time.

Fulham have had a season of over achievement which is markedly contrasted with their usual efforts in the Premier League when they usually find themselves roughly where we are now and immediately return back to the Championship. Not this season though. They were floating around the European places for a while around Christmas but it all came crashing down when they had an FA Cup tie at Manchester United and managed to get two players and the manager sent off in one incident.  The most high-profile fallout from that was of course that their main striker Alexander Mitrović got banned for eight games. Guess who his first game back is against? Yes it’s us today.  Fulham are a very high energy side with the width provided by the full backs Teté and Robinson and the guile provided by 34-year-old Willian. They also of course have Harrison Reed in the centre of midfield who I imagine will be slightly conflicted about what is likely to happen today seeing as he came through the ranks with JWP and joined the club at age 8.  Fulham also have Harry Wilson in their ranks, who has always stood out as a whiny little twat.

I will trudge to St Mary‘s today with very little enthusiasm and I’m sure I will be joined by every other Saints fan who is in there. Yes, we technically still have a chance of staying up but it will take about 15 results between now and the end of the season going our way. Have you ever won a 15 match accumulator when 3 of the results have to be Southampton winning? I very much doubt it.

It will be interesting to see if Ruben Sellers has completely given up himself. His press conference on Thursday revealed that Che Adams was struggling to make the game so will he actually pick a striker or will he go with the false nine bollocks. Will he bring in Dom Ballard and give him a game to see what he’s got or will we go for the same old tried and failed shit. Will the random selection tombola be out in force? If so, will we get Mislav Orsic or will we get Tall Paul, our £18 million striker. I cannot wait to see what Ralph Little comes up with. Maybe he’ll find a new hybrid position for Ainsley Maitland-Niles to be shit in.

Che out, Tall Paul starting klaxon and Lyanco in for ABK but otherwise it’s the same as the Forest game.  Fulham have left Mitrovic out but they scored 5 last week so what’s the rush.  There are a lot of empty seats, usually occupied by Season Ticket Holders – let’s hope they regret not coming and we have a half decent entertaining game at least.

So it’s like a fairly promising start with Stuart Armstrong looking lively as he has done in the last few games, running and beating Tete on the Fulham right but his cross is easily claimed by Bernd Leno when it really needed to be pulled back to the edge of the box.  Then Tall Paul manages to win the ball high and due to lack of support, tries a speculative effort from 35 yards on the angle and Leno just picks it up.  Intent, anyhow.

Fulham have a great chance when Cairney plays the ball square to Wilson the chips into the box with everybody going out for the header, the ball hits Lyanco clearly on the arm and bounces through to McCarthy.  On first glance, I have no idea why this is not given as a penalty as he clearly blocks a goalbound header.

Fulham are taking over now and a crossfield ball sends Tete away on the Saints right and he has all the time in the world to find Wilson, who bursts past Maitland-Niles before setting up Reed and his shot is deflected to Willian, who tees himself up and volleys it past McCarthy but Lyanco has got back to head it off the line. Great defending to be honest and a mad celebration.

Lyanco Celebrates His Clearance

Fulham are keeping the ball well and we are doing absolutely nothing and it’s the same pattern as so many of our home games. It’s really noticeable how deep Walcott and Armstrong are playing which in turn makes Tall Paul completely isolated with Alcaraz trying to get up and support, but we’re not good enough on the ball to enable aim to get there. Theo Walcott on the right is having an absolute beast of a game.

Half-time and that was really fucking boring.  To be honest I’d take Walcott off at half-time and shove Sulemana on and see if he can make anything happen but Selles doesn’t think like that of course so there are no changes.

Ten minutes into the second half and we build up to the right hand side with some decent hold-up play by Tall Paul allowing KWP pick out JWP breaking forward and his ball sends Alcaraz through on Leno one on one, and one of the few good finishers we’ve got at the club sticks in the net and the flag goes up straight away. Close but it’s certainly felt like offside when the ball got through to him.

Straight after that KWP, tries to press gets caught out and Fulham break with Cairney finding Wilson on the right hand side and his ball across the box is read by Lyanco who tries to clear it but it deflects off of the sliding Reed straight to Vinícius who has an open goal. A bit lucky but absolutely fucking typical.  Dead.

KWP tries to make amends by bursting past Willian down the right and slings over a great cross and Tall Paul rises and head is it narrowly over the bar. Lots of power but not much direction but the closest we’ve come to a goal bar the offside.

Having had his first chance and probably feeling a bit better about himself, the big man of course gets substituted along with Walcott, who hasn’t improved.  The boos accompanying Tall Paul off are ridiculous.  It’s not his fault we signed him and it’s not his fault we’re getting relegated as he hasn’t been in the team.  On come Sulemana and Sekou Mara.  Fulham have taken off Vinicius and put on Mitrović and needless to say it’s their sub that works better. Fulham spread play out to the right hand side and Harry Wilson has all the time in the world to measure a cross into the middle to find Mitrović, who bullies KWP out of the way and heads it back across McCarthy and in. Easy.

The rest of the game is an absolute fucking shambles as Selles goes shit substitution mental. Alcaraz and Stuart Armstrong come off to be replaced by Elyounoussi and Moussa Djenepo. It always feels like self-sabotage. I know we’ve lost the game already and we are going down already but it’s like smacking supporters in the face, making them watch those two jokers. As if that’s not enough, off comes AMN to be replaced by Adam Armstrong.

Fulham fail to clear a ball and it drops to Sulemana on the edge of the box and he drags his shot across goal and wide. Fuck all happens for the rest of the game apart from Fulham substitute Solomon cutting in on the left-hand side and trying to curl one into the top corner but McCarthy is equal to it.  Fucking rubbish, again and we are finally mathematically down.

It’s probably about 40% of the original crowd left and the players are just standing around chatting to the Fulham players because that gives a chance for more people to leave before they go on Mike at half past efforts with knowledge the supporters. Down if you do and damned if you don’t I suppose. Personally, I decided at that point it was time to go.

The Fat Lady Sings

A completely useless flaccid performance to confirm our relegation to add to all the other completely useless flaccid performances that we’ve seen.  Fucking hell, what a load of shit that was.  An absolute piss boring first half followed by a second half capitulation and another round of my new favourite game show, “Ladies and Gentlemen, come on down and let’s play Selles Shit Substitutions“…. The object of the game is to make up to 5 substitutions and to make your team worse as many times as possible.  It was good that he brought on Adam Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Djenepo and Mara so they could actually be on the pitch when it was finally confirmed how shit we are.

Not that it really matters but the game itself had the most tediously dull first half with neither team looking like they were ever going to score but Fulham at least looking like a functioning team with some sort of idea how to pass the ball to each other and get it from one end of the pitch to the other. Saints had no clue and passed the ball about until they tried to go forward when they lost it.  We didn’t even try to hit the big target man upfront, hamstrung as we were by Selles defensive tactics yet again as Armstrong and Walcott were clearly reined in. No changes at half-time and the key two minutes of the game was when we had a goal correctly disallowed, closely followed by Fulham taking the lead through Vinícius.  Of course, we were never gonna win at that point to carry on till next week but we weren’t even going to draw either and the rest of the game was absolute fucking wank as Selles played his substitution gameshow and brought on mostly utter garbage. Moussa Djenepo had obviously been on speed at half time because he came on, ran around like an idiot, crashed into people, ran randomly offside and was his usual embarrassing self. Remember, we gave this guy a new contract at the start of the season when we had already watched him be shit for three years.

The second Fulham goal by Mitrović sparked a bit of a stampede for the exits as many people understandably couldn’t be arsed with the last 10 and couldn’t be arsed with the crocodile tears from players pretending to care. We all know the ones that care and there aren’t many of them.

Selles turned up in his milk tray man outfit today, winning in the fashion states and that’s all, as usual. Prick.  He bounced up and down on the touchline berating everybody and anybody all day. Once you notice it, you realise how fucking annoying it must be to be trying to concentrate on what you’re doing on the pitch when you have this fashion model in his first managerial job barking constantly like an irritating Jack Russell from the sidelines.

Fulham won the Championship last year and they were light years better than us. Even before they scored, they were the only team who passed the ball with any intent and they kept finding space because their players made intelligent runs off the ball.  

Sellers of course gave rare start to Paul Onuachu today and once again the team totally failed to play to his strengths. One cross came his way in the second half which he headed narrowly over, but other than that there was next to nothing. Not one cross for him to attack in the opening 50 minutes. We weren’t even playing long balls up from the back. Having said that we didn’t play to his strengths, his first touch is often dreadful, he is incredibly clumsy and very slow and his inclusion today probably explains why Selles shat himself and made Stuart Armstrong and Theo Walcott play as conventional wide midfielders in what was basically a 4-4-2 formation, old style. I guess he did that because Paul is not going to lead the press particularly well. I mean, we needed to be careful today because it wasn’t like we actually needed to fucking win or anything. Selles is a joke and the club right now is like a shit episode of the Muppet show.

It's a shame that he was partly, unluckily involved in Fulham’s first goal today but I was impressed with Lyanco.  He has personal pride in his performance and cares about doing well.  I certainly wouldn’t be against him being around next season and with a run of games, he might be a very good option next year.

Rasmus and Henrik Waiting for Metrics to Work in 2063

Now we are officially down, Sport Republic can stop deluding themselves that everything is okay and can get to work and find people behind the scenes to fill the senior positions that have suffered the exodus. Next season starts on the first week of August so we have 2 and a half months, about 11 weeks.  No time for fucking about, no excuses. Learn from your mistakes, draw a line under it, move on, get things done quickly.  In the aftermath of the game came a statement which didn’t really say much, just a promise that a further announcement was incoming that would say something.  Talk is cheap though.  The statement and the early activity as a result had better be good though because season tickets will be a hard sell next year.  Finding £500 to £800 isn't easy these days (is it Rishi?) and fans will need encouragement.  A decent manager appointment would of course, help massively.  I would suggest that appointing Selles would guarantee selling less than 10,000. 

Life is going to come at Sport Republic fast.  To give yourself an idea of how much work there is to be done before the start of August, imagine for a second that we had this manager and this squad of players in the Championship next season? Where do you think we would finish? I would suggest that if your answer is top half then you are wrong.

Next up is a trip to Brighton for a dead rubber – not for them though because they have Europa League places to chase whereas all we can get out of it is to blood a couple of youngsters to give the travelling fans something to look forward to.  We can’t move in the table, we are finishing last so there is no excuse for not doing so.

Just two dead rubbers to go.  Thank Fuck for That.

Getting Relegated The Southampton Way

Semmens: This is Looking Dodgy
Solak: Where is My Money Going?
Kraft:  You Kept To Your Motto Rasmus
Ankersen: If It Isn't Broken, Consider Breaking It

For a club the size of Southampton, it literally only takes one bad season and you can go down.  This can be triggered by a bad transfer window, a few injuries, a bad managerial appointment or all of the above and much more besides.  Like we proved in 2004/05, it can also be impossible to just pin it on one or two things – sometimes it can be an endless number of things that cause the relegation and it’s just a colossal omnishambles from start to finish.  Such is the case with Southampton 2022/23.  I’ve tried to put these roughly in order but it’s difficult because they all overlap but it does paint a picture of a club acting like a bad gambler, chasing his losses with a succession of ever more desperate decisions.

Firstly, let’s deal with what has gone on before this season…

The lack of investment during Chairman Gao’s regime
This meant that basically the squad got weaker and weaker every season. If you stand still in football at Premier League level, you inevitably go backwards, and we did until he left. 

And then of course, the new owners…

Sport Republic getting very heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the football club
They of course, said they would never get involved too much, which is probably why they were chosen as the preferred owners.  So many senior staff leaving tells you that the Sport Republic way must be questioned massively.  The exiting staff can’t all be wrong.  Sport Republic have tried to do too much too quickly and it’s backfired massively.

So – to this season

Ralph Celebrates Getting Out

Ralph not being replaced in the summer
Ralph Hasenhuttl should have been replaced in the summer and not left hanging on until the World Cup. It was obvious at the tail end of last season that he didn’t have the energy for it anymore.  Sport Republic dithered and had a kind of “lets see how it goes” attitude, which is pathetic for top level sport.

The Summer transfer window
This window focused mainly on bringing young players with resale value and very little attention was given to what was actually needed to give us a functioning football team on the pitch.  Signing no striker of any pedigree was the biggest glaring omission but no one also faced up to the fact that our creative players just weren’t good enough.  Some players, like Joe Aribo, were signed seemingly because we could (the Joe Shields connection) rather than because it was what we needed. With Ralph still in charge and the playbook still being adhered to, we signed players like Aribo, who didn’t fit anywhere into the 4-2-2-2 formation.  Maybe he could have fitted into the 3-5-2 that Ralph was attempting to transition to…

Ralph’s Summer Reset
Ralph attempted to change his system in pre-season despite having proved over time that he was not really an effective coach with anything that wasn’t his trademark 4-2-2-2 high- pressing style.  Going to a 3-5-2 formation all seemed very last minute, even though it had been spectacularly unsuccessful at the end of the 2021/22 season.  Having played all pre-season with it, it was then abandoned after a game and a half of the season starting.

We let go the more experienced battle-hardened players.
This is hindsight of course but if Fraser Forster, our first-choice goalkeeper for the previous season, had been in goal this season then we would undoubtedly have been better.  Gavin Bazunu is promising but there is no way he should’ve remained in goal virtually all season.  Forster apparently was difficult, mainly because he wouldn’t accept being second choice behind McCarthy, a player who has virtually had an entire career being happy to be second choice.  Selling Oriol Romeu was calamitous.  Whilst it was good of us to respect his wishes to leave out of respect for his years of service, it took away so much.  Romeo Lavia had already got injured and like idiots, we believed Ainsley Maitland-Niles could fill the void that we already knew Ibrahima Diallo couldn’t fill.  This is one example of experienced players that we have not being good enough to pick up the slack of having youngsters in the team.

Ralph getting burnt out with the difficulty of being Saints manager.
Ralph Hasenhuttl – a Champions League experienced manager – lest we forget, needed replacing because he had no more miracles left, having kept us up with an ever-weakening squad. The playbook wasn’t working any more and he became too obsessed with our work against the ball and basically, got rid of the things we were previously good at.  Do you remember when the buzzword was ‘bravery’?  – well that all disappeared completely and all we heard about was ‘rest defence’.  When he was finally removed from his post, I thought that in time that people would realise what a good job he had done over the previous four years but I didn’t really think that it’d be so obvious, so quickly.

Calm Down and Look at My Metrics

Metrics vs Football Knowledge and Common Sense
Sport Republic and Rasmus Ankersen’s first chance to put their principles and philosophy in place in a really noticeable way, came when it was time to choose a new manager.  Solely trusting metrics rather than looking at the situation we found ourselves in and using conventional football wisdom (and common sense), was a complete disaster. Appointing Nathan Jones was the most ridiculous idea and the single biggest reason why we got relegated. The assertion from Rasmus Ankersen that stats built up in the Championship we’re going to translate to our Premier League team in the situation we were in, was laughable at the time and it’s laughable now.  Meeting Nathan Jones for 5 minutes would tell you that it was never going to work but metrics trumped everything.

The Wasted World Cup Break
You could tell after the first game after the World Cup break, the League Cup game against Lincoln, that Nathan Jones had completely wasted the World Cup break.  We had just two players away but nothing had changed and we looked no better in any aspect of the game.  Giving everyone two weeks off at the start of the break said it all.  Whoever signed off on that alone needs to be made accountable.

Beating Man City and Palace in the Cups
These wins kept Jones in a job too long.  They kept him there long enough to waste a very favourable run of fixtures after the wasted World Cup break, in which we won 1 and lost 6.  Losing to Brighton, Fulham, Forest, Villa, Brentford and Wolves.

Philosophy Changes and the January Window
The appointment of Nathan Jones diverged completely from what the still lauded SFC Playbook was all about.  In the January window, with no Head of Recruitment, Ankersen changed focus away from ‘players for the future’ and acknowledged we needed players for the here and now.  Paul Onuachu was obviously signed because he fitted Nathan Jones‘s style of play and we signed James Bree from Jones’ previous club.  We also signed two wingers in Sulemana and Orsic who didn’t fit Jones’ way of playing at all.  Of course, we sacked Jones soon after.  So much for the ‘aligned departments’ that Henrik Kraft talked about.  Also, despite saying that we wanted players for the here and now and we weren’t after young players for their development and resale, two of the players signed, Sulemana and Alcaraz, were raw 20 year olds.  . 

Key staff especially in recruitment, not being replaced in time
When you have no Head of Recruitment in place in time for transfer windows, it leaves you with Rasmus Ankersen overseeing recruitment.  When data and stats doesn’t work – what else has he got?  Who oversaw that the players being recruited were actually going to make us a better team or at least, fit in with the philosophy of the club or make us a better team in the short term.  See previous point. 

Allowing Nathan Jones to make decisions
Not recalling Nathan Tella in January on the say-so of Nathan Jones, is another classic decision. Instead of recalling him, we went out and signed Kamaldeen Sulemana and Mislav Orsic, neither of whom have performed any better than Tella would’ve done.  Not really a reason for relegation but another example of not thinking and not having departments aligned and as a result, wasting a load of money.

The Goalkeeper Situation
Bazunu is 20 years old and was beginning to badly struggle around Christmas.  In fairness, Nathan Jones would probably have brought McCarthy in but he got injured.  He still had Caballero but didn’t use him.  Bazunu just carried on losing confidence and that spread.  Dreadful mismanagement.

2 Wins in 14 Games

Sport Republic Still Trying to be Clever With Managerial Appointments
Having ballsed the appointment of Jones with his metrics, we then went with Selles, who had zero experience as a manager.  In everything he’s done in his career, results have been secondary to player improvement, yet here we were, with a manager with zero experience of ‘having’ to get results and signing players to make an immediate difference now as results were all that mattered.  Why does a Premier League team in the situation we were in, appoint someone like that and expect it to work?  Why are we as a Premier League club, taking a massive punt.  Selles still talks like he’s a development coach.  He’s been useless.  In some ways, Selles is actually worse than Nathan Jones.  Trying to be too clever when we can’t even manage the basics.  There’s a reason no one else does it… and it’s usually because it’s already been proven that it won’t work.

Managerial Appointments to End Up Worse Off
We sacked Ralph because his tactics weren’t working anymore. We then paid millions in compensation to Luton for Nathan Jones.  We then kept Nathan Jones too long because he won a couple of cup games and then we sacked him and had to pay off his contract. Then we appointed Ruben Selles who is mainly employing the tactics from the end of Ralph’s reign that weren’t working anymore.  Managers 2 and 3 have been completely useless and out of their depth but it has cost us millions to find that out and having two of your worst ever managers in the same season is never going to work out well.  More money down the drain to end up back worse than where we were.

Selles not using January signings
We signed players in January to fix the short-term goal scoring issue. The players brought in specifically for this purpose and for the now, were Mislav Orsic and Paul Onuachu. The latest manager has not played either of them, instead reverting to the tried and failed and repeating it until we ran out of games. Rasmus Ankersen was responsible for the recruitment in January so I find it very strange that the players brought in to solve the lack of goals have not been used, especially when we still aren’t scoring any goals.

The Selles Delusion Part 1 – Front Footed
Ruben Selles describes this as a front footed team. When the pressing is working on the opposition have the ball then you could argue that but when we’ve got the ball we are not a front footed team because we don’t know what to do and we just pass sideways and backwards which is not a definition of front footed that I would use.  How about making runs ahead of the ball?  Can’t possibly do that as we have the ‘rest defence’ to worry about.  Maybe if we attacked the crap sides, we might score some goals.  Just a thought.  If you delude yourself about what your team is, how are you going to correct it?

The Selles Delusion Part 2 - Over being in a relegation battle
Not just a Selles thing but a club thing.  A general lack of awareness of the situation that we are in. We have been battling relegation ever since Ralph got sacked. We don’t seem to have realised this at any point aside from Ankersen saying we were signing players for the here and now. Ruben Selles kept going on about trusting the process and the process clearly wasn’t working and the process was clearly not going to get us enough points to survive this season.   He kept going on about performances being good when we were losing every week and not scoring any goals.  Who are you trying to convince and what good will it do?  There was a point where I thought that Selles had actually been given a free pass to get us relegated and he was the man for the rebuild.  Selles lack of urgency about the situation has translated to the players who just don’t look that bothered, with a couple of exceptions.  After the Forest defeat, it was like everyone finally realised we were in trouble.

The Selles Delusion Part 3 – You Can’t Play Like Pep with Inferior Players
False 9’s, No Strikers, Full-Backs in midfield in possession etc.  All of these things are tactical innovations brought in at the top levels of the game, by elite managers like Pep, working with elite players.  That list of elite managers and players does not include Ruben Selles and Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

The Goalkeeper… Still
Selles persevered with Bazunu, who was shot by this stage, until we were virtually dead and buried.  Selles had seen every game this season and not deemed it worthy of rectifying.

Having no Bravery… Still
Selles continued the theme of playing risk averse football when we were playing fellow strugglers, even though he’d been there seeing this not work, all season and even though we were in ‘must win’ territory for virtually the whole of his tenure. So many times this season we have played teams around us or teams on rotten runs of form and who needed to be hit hard and early to give us the upper hand in again but instead of that we just passively let them grow into the game, score and win 1-0, with us doing nothing at all.

On a similar theme… Selles not interested in attacking
Occasionally we went in front in games and Selles response was always to try and defend the hell out of it for the second half.  He failed to realise that whilst our defence is not the weakest part of the team, if it is put under pressure for 45 minutes with no respite, it will crack.  We need to attack, keep the ball and have a goal threat to take the pressure off as much as anything.

and Generally…

My Suggestion For the SFC Playbook

The Playbook is out of date.
The playbook, which we have been not using under Ralph, using under Ralph, not using again under Jone and then using again under Selles - is all about high energy pressing and as we have seen, it can’t be maintained endlessly and eventually before there is a drop off because the energy level of the players drops off.  Experienced players seem to become weary of it.  If you take the departed Nathan Redmond as an example, he went from player of the season to a player that most fans couldn’t wait to get out the door over the course of Ralph’s reign and he cited on a couple of occasions how hard it was to do the pressing all the time. The whole thing needs adapting. Stuart Armstrong at 27 was probably fit enough to do it but it’s 31 he certainly isn’t, so that’s another underperforming senior player.  The playbook relies solely on winning the ball high up the pitch as your attacking weapon.  Once other teams negate that you have to have something else and we don’t have it. The playbook has to be adapted or binned as in the Championship you have to go out and win over half of your games. Just staying in games it’s not enough.  It needs to be possession based and playing with pace.

Really poor players
My definition of a good Premier League footballer is one who can put in 3 decent performances in a row in the Premier League.   Not a particularly high bar but one which a vast majority of our squad can’t reach.  Youngsters by definition are inconsistent, but who over the age of 23 can honestly say they can put in three decent performances in a row – KWP, JWP, Adams (just about), Bednarek (just about).  You can add Lavia and Charly Alcaraz to that list as well as youngsters who are good enough now.

That leaves the following experienced players who don’t cut it to varying degrees: Maitland-Niles, Stuart Armstrong, Lyanco, Salisu, Djenepo, Diallo, Caleta-Car, Adam Armstrong, McCarthy, Perraud, Orsic, Onuachu, Aribo, Elyounoussi, Walcott, Bree

And the following youngsters who aren’t quite there yet but may be in the future: Bazunu, ABK, Larios, Edozie, Sulemana, Mara

Lack of Leaders
As has been mentioned already, experienced players leaving has shorn the squad of important figures.  Not just Oriol Romeu and Fraser Forster but also to a lesser extent Jack Stephens and Nathan Redmond who were looked up to by the younger lads.  Every successful squad in history as a core of experienced senior players but Rasmus knew best and they weren’t suitably replaced.

Home Form
Two home wins all season.  You don’t stay up with two home wins all season.  You don’t sell many season tickets for next year either.  The atmosphere at St.Mary’s is dire as there is no belief from the fans at all due to about 3 years of being poor at home. 

Form Against the Other 12
Here’s the points we got against the teams not in the Super League 6 and Newcastle.  We have to pick up the majority of our points against these sides, especially at home, where we have picked up 5 points out of 36.  9 points out of 33 away from home (at time of writing) is better but still dreadful.

	Home	Away	Points
Brighton	Lost 1-3 Bazunu masterclass	Irrelevant as we were already relegated	0
Aston Villa	Lost 0-1 in the drone game. Drone was more exciting than our efforts	Lost 0-1 against a Steven Gerrard team who had lost previous 6.  Pathetic lack of intent from Ralph.	0
Brentford	Lost 0-2 pathetically	Lost 0-3 but worth it for Nathan Jones press conference	0
Fulham	Lost 0-2 pathetically to confirm relegation	Lost 1-2 conceding a basic set piece goal in the 90th minute.	0
Crystal Palace	Lost 0-2 when Selles picked Aribo to start and no striker.	Lost 0-1 and barely had a shot.	0
Wolves	Lost 1-2 against 10 men, having been 1-0 up.  Jones masterclass.	Lost 0-1 thanks to Che’s handball from six inches out	0
Bournemouth	Lost 0-1 pathetic surrender	Won 1-0 quite comfortably because Bournemouth were shocking.	3
West Ham	Drew 1-1 which was fortunate.  Perraud’s judo move not given as a penalty.	Lost 0-1 pathetically after international break where Selles came up with picking 11 defenders.	1
Nottingham Forest	Lost 0-1 in the worst game ever.  Jones should have been sacked that evening.	Lost 3-4 when we had a go but threw in 4 soft goals.	0
Everton	Lost 1-2 to a Frank Lampard team.	Won 2-1 because Lampard that day, was worse than Jones.	3
Leicester	Won 1-0 because Brendan Rodgers was clueless and Leicester’s forwards missed everything	Won 2-1 when Che was clinical.	6
Leeds United	Drew 2-2 when we abandoned 3 at the back for 20 minutes when we were 2-0 down.	Lost 0-1 and did nothing.  Pathetic Selles masterclass.	1

And Finally….This Years’ kits
This year‘s kits are all absolute honking and we deserved to get relegated for the away kit alone, which would have been more apt if it was in various shades of brown.  It’s some comfort that in the future, these will be known as the relegation disaster kits.  I am being facetious… as kits made no difference.

Summary
So, there’s not one overriding reason we got relegated (unless you count ‘dreadful results’ as a catch-all).  We’ve basically made every mistake in the book.  It wasn’t so long ago that we were the model club if you were of similar size to ourselves and of course, Brighton chairman Tony Bloom held us up as a shining light that he learned from.  For his sake I hope he stops taking notes from us, unless he wants a blueprint of how to wipe millions off of your turnover at a stroke.
 
In short, we totally deserve to get relegated and bring on the Championship!

PS...

An important thing to remember is that this is all written based largely on my opinion on events that I could actually see. There are of course things that happen behind the scenes that I was not aware of. In the aftermath of the game against Fulham, it became apparent that there was another reason to add to the list.

The general dropping of standards
James Ward-Prowse, our longest serving player and captain was interviewed after the Fulham game had squarely laid the blame on the fact that standards have dropped around the training ground. It’s another indication of how beaten down Ralph had become that he allowed this to happen.  It’s another indication of how useless Jones was because he didn’t recognise it and I’m sure that it wasn’t this way at his perfectly oiled machine at Luton Town. Selles with his extensive training ground experience, which is the only experience he had, has been there all season and didn’t recognise it either or do anything about it. You could argue why JWP was unable to do anything about it bearing in mind he is the captain. I guess though that if you lead by example and players choose not to follow your example, that is an indication of how rotten some of the apples in the barrel must be and it also points at recruitment and whether enough research was done into the character of some players.  I've certainly felt this season that some are here purely for the pay day and are not particularly interested in doing the work.