Guy

I agree with a lot of what you say but there'll be nothing 'poor' about Russell Martin by the time he leaves the club - well - not financially speaking anyway!!

Indeed, the bare mimimum for Nigel Pearson in his very first season with us was to achieve immediate promotion which he did with a great aplomb, the same can only apply to Russell Martin now too, anything less will be deemed as a massive failure. Howveer I fear we don't have anywhere near the quality of squad now in L1 as we did last time in 2008-09 when we romped to the title!

Yes, it was a bit uncanny that he was also at Southampton before he came to us! Also strange that Puel had Saints in a league cup final the season before he came to us (which I think they lost to Man. U.) and got them to 8th in the Prem. only to be sacked in the summer to follow! A bit like how he was treated here to be honest...!

I think his appointment smacks of Claude Puel's in 2017 a bit!

Positives are that we haven't re-hired Steve Cooper, Van Nistelrooy or Cifuentes!

Martin O'Neill at 75 went back to Celtic and that worked out well so why not Nige?!

Rhetorical question?! If not then it was because the rules now in place about 'spying' on opposition in training weren't when Leeds under Bielsa were found guilty of the same thing seven years ago, albeit just the one time apparently as opposed to multiple times like Saints!

As others have said on here already we need another fortuitous appointment like Nigel Pearson (and his awesome backroom staff!) in 2008 this time around for League One! I don't know what the general consensus was on Big Nige at the time 18 years ago when he was first appointed (having kept Saints up at our Championship expense of course) but I think many at the time were so beleaguered at being in the third tier for the first time in our history after the mess of a season that had gone before it that there wasn't all that much opinion/ at the time IIRC. We struck gold, looking back but the pessimist inside me says I doubt it will be second time lucky this time around with whoever else! The Challinor or Schumacher shouts are justified, given the logic but as others have also said, it all depends on the play offs outcome.

Same as a year ago really, it's just that the Championship finishes a lot earlier than the Prem. Ruud's "sacking" wasn't even official until the end of June!

Another example perhaps as to how Covid really screwed things up, esp. us/King Power in 2020, with it's legacy arguably still being felt now, 6 years on!

Void comment

They were definitely a classic case of the season after syndrome of missing out on the play offs promotion the season before - much like Walsall in the league below Leyton O. this season!

Definitely maybe (not)!

Not until right at the end of June!

...and so ends our worst ever season - with, fittingly a meaningless win!

It was on the money basically...but probably won't persuade the elephant(s) in the whole club to depart sadly if he/they heard the broadcast (probably not) - Rudkin....or Top!

I think Russell Martin is likely to still be waiting in the wings re being given the task of awakening the "sleeping giant" - unfortunately!

People bemoan Enzo leaving when he did for our present mess, plus Brendan Rodgers' final season (albeit people cited his time here as an overall failure apart from the FA Cup 2021 triumph played out in mostly empty stadiums of course re Covid restrictions!) but for me the rot really set in when the same set of players (mostly), were trying to hound Cooper out at their Christmas party event last season of course with the infamous We Miss You Enzo banner. Fast forward to more recently and the present time then Rowett and Marti should really be largely absolved from blame for this wretched season. The squad(s) they all inherited (and Ruud before them, as hapless as though he was as a manager here after some of Cooper's dud signings also), were/are woeful and although both were to blame for consistently picking the likes of Ayew and Daka over others (like Richards!) and Marti for his ponderous possession based tactics, then at the end of the day they only had a pretty useless squad with an equally bad attitude to choose from! Consistently starting Ayew probably explained why we've barely managed to score in the last few games, with only a win over Bristol City since the fortuitous one in early January over West Brom (who duly sacked their manager shortly after we beat them, as did Bristol City!). The rot truly started in December 2024 for me....

Although it's all about putting the ball in the back of the net more than the opposition to win games (a la the above game) when you break it all down then admittedly we did 100% steal that game, if that wasn't a sign of things to come re the woeful way we played in it under Marti though, then I don't know what else was! It still remains debatable if we'd be where we are now under Marti though, at the end of the day his style of football was dull at best and his tactics were poor and his situation had he stayed would've been tempered by the injury to our only really influential player this season in Jordan James soon after.....not to mention the six points deduction!!!

We'll probably have that double relegation now and yet Top/Rudkin will still be here though!!

We're easy to get a minimum of two points off, so we must be likeable to most (opposition)!

Fair comment, what I meant was at least none of our rivals won apart from Blackburn - which was crucial IMO

A must win but turned into ANOTHER draw! Lucky it wasn't a defeat though I guess and that the results pretty much went for us elsewhere, barring Blackburn. Hopefully if they're safe by the final day though then they might feel like fielding a weakened side at their place against us - albeit we could be down by then of course at this rate....

Yes, King may as well not have been there to be frank! That Southampton capitulation at home in the second half was horrific!

Bring back Marti, lol!