ALC Fox

I remember as a kid running around my grandparents' dining room table like a maniac when the goal went in

Having not read anything in the preceding 13 pages of this thread yet, my initial feeling is that I wouldn't be too against this. He's still relatively early in his managerial career and has tasted a decent amount of success in that time. Southampton were, at times, excellent in the Championship under his leadership. But being so wedded to a specific style of play did hamper them at times and make them quite inconsistent. Plus we battered them twice. But let's not beat about the bush here. We're absolutely fvcked right now. With the PL.and EFL out for blood, we may aspire to be in the Premier League but the chances of us bouncing back straight away are quite slim, I'd say. Our better players may go and we need our not so good ones replaced as well. If Russell Martin comes here and can establish a squad over a number of years that know his football inside-out, well, that might be something to be excited about in a few seasons.

Tear it down and start again. Take our punishment, live within our means, take more relegations if we need to and rebuild again. Sell Seagrave to King Power and rent it back until the club can buy it again. We'll be back. We always are. And when we are we fly high and proud and bloody the noses of the clubs who have commandeered the game to work in their favour. And every so often we'll remind them that they're not the be all and end all in this game. But for God's sake, build the statue.

Totally forgot about Amani Richards. Does anyone who's seen a lot of him play think he's got the ingredients to make it here? It seems he's gone off the boil a bit and not had the best loan spell away, which usually signifies not. But Kasey McAteer surprised everyone after indifferent loans at Forest Green and Wimbledon and came straight into the side and hit the ground running. Could we be thinking of Richards as a decent first-team squad member in two or three years time?

Sorry, I was just making a joke about how the bit I highlighted in your quote could have read as though Mads is an alien 👽 Absolutely understand at the time that Mads was young and unproven in the division

Some of Hermansen's saves have been out of this world to be fair

He's young enough to give us a year in the Championship. Same with Fatawu. If we go up again, maybe we can convince both of them to give it another shot, providing we have a much better pre-season next time around. I presume wages won't be too much of a problem with them but they do remain two of our most sellable assets. It'll be sad if we do have to sell them, and I'm sure they'd jump at the chance to play in the Premier League again, but I can see them both helping us next season.

The amount of guff we sign for fees higher than that, this would really hurt. It's true that we don't know how he's going to turn out. But we've been pinning our hopes on Braybrooke and Alves for a few seasons now but lads like Monga and Evans have stormed onto the scene in the last year or so and have quite possibly overtaken them already. We do need to sort our finances out. But these lads could become worth multiple times that amount in a few seasons. They could become part of our next cycle of success or they could help to really fund it properly. Selling them to balance the books after blowing more in each deal on Souttar, Faes, Kristiansen, Ward, Okoli, Soumare and Skipp would really stick in the craw.

Absolutely insane that we didn't accept money for him. Also criminal that he's been allowed to rot here until he's 27. Hope he has a good 10 years or more establishing himself. A really top shot-stopper who could have a good career in the Premier League at the right club.

Genuinely if he, Evans and the other really talented youngsters he's been giving bench time and minutes to stay and become genuine options for us over the next few seasons, that could be bigger than surviving the drop would have been this season and could set us up for future success and get our finances back on track either by selling a few of these lads for big sums down the line or if they stay here and propel us towards our next period of success. Maybe that could be RVN's legacy at this club.

Without wanting to divert attention from the gravity of the post above... Cars that give a little beep of their horn whenever they're locked or unlocked. Heinous.

Start him every game. Get as much as we can for him if he's going. I'd rather he stayed, of course. His rise is meteoric. Considering Alves was just appearing in young baller YouTube videos and BBC segments and not getting anywhere near the first team at 15, I think it's reasonable to say that Monga would trouble the first-team squad next year and get quite a number of appearances.

I'd take Farke if he were sacked. Proven at Championship level and plays exciting football. Whether he's good enough for the Prem is kind of irrelevant as we're likely to be in the Championship for a couple of seasons or more anyway because of potential EFL penalties and because we need a massive overhaul. Also, if he gets us up at some point, he'd surely be motivated to prove Leeds wrong if they do sack him.

I agree Ange could be horrific. We'd start well but his style and methods has been known to produce injuries not just with Spurs but also with Celtic too. In a 46-game Championship season, we'd have no players left.

Could've been Buonanotte if he hadn't have been dropped like a stone by RVN. Probably should be Mads or El Khannous on performances but will actually probably be Vardy.

For a player not born in the city or county nor come through the academy to stay here for 13 years, win the Premier League and FA Cup for the first time in the club's history, to reach the Champions League quarter finals and also play in the Europa League and Europa Conference League with us, is just remarkable. The loyalty he's shown this club when he could have moved on multiple times is absolutely staggering. If the club aren't going to do it, someone please put a statue in town, on Vicky Park or Abbey Park, please.

The club has existed for 141 years and we have seen its greatest ever player achieve the greatest things this club has ever achieved. In 141 years' time, it's likely that he will still be our greatest ever player. What a privilege to witness. Thank you, Jamie, for everything.

Build the statue.

I thought it looked weird at a distance but close up looked the same. Glad I wasn't going mad though!

Rudkin, Top, Ruud and the crowd's reactions are all telling in their own way. Rudkin and Top looked far too blasé. Ruud smiling. The crowd just silent until a few boos at the end. Apathy all round. And I feel it too. We need a proper reset and I don't think we'll get it with the financial issues hanging around our necks. What a long summer this is going to be.

I'd say it's perfectly fine to be annoyed at the current state of the club. We shouldn't be in this position. Getting relegated with a squad that included players who have just been eliminated in heroic fashion in the Champions League (Tielemans) and who are in top form chasing a CL place (Barnes) shouldn't have happened. But Tielemans, Soyuncu and several others had been here too long as Rodgers sought to keep all our 'good' players and we recruited very badly in an attempt to supplement the squad. This led to high wages and a stagnant feeling in the squad and we went down while being 'too good to go down'. After being promoted back up on largely a feeling of real positivity and a thought that Maresca was going to change the club, the club's lies to Maresca (or hiding of the truth) were really laid bare and he left. Of course he would have gone anyway, but we then appointed the wrong man in Cooper, sacked him to appoint somebody a lot worse in RVN, and were unable to refresh the squad (the defence especially) to give us a proper chance of staying up. We've deserved to go down all season. The amount of chances we've conceded, it's probably a miracle that we have any points at all. This is the worst Premier League team we've ever had, and when you consider just how likeable our title winners and also Martin O'Neill's fighters were, that is just incredibly demoralising as a fan. After witnessing the greatest escape under Pearson and comparing that to the capitulation all season long under Cooper and RVN, I think we're within our rights as a fanbase to expect a lot more than this. I can accept relegation, but this is truly abhorrent.

I'm fully on board with wholesale changes. Rudkin, Whelan, anyone who makes decisions about strategy. I'm happy for Top to take back seat and just let someone else make decisions if that's the case. For me that would count as learning from their mistakes. If they can't, then I'm happy to admit that KP should go. I still think they could turn it around, it just remains to be seen if they will.

If they can get so much right before, they can get it right again. It isn't inconceivable. Whether they will or not is another matter, but people commonly learn from their mistakes in all walks of life.

We can be absolutely appreciative that we were champions of England for the first time ever and won the FA Cup for the first time ever. We can be in awe of the great work that the owners have done and continue to do around the city. We can sing Vichai's name and love him forever. But we can also voice our complete dissatisfaction about how the club is currently being run, the financial hole we've found ourselves in, and the sh!thouse legal crap we've pulled to delay or completely wriggle out of any PSR punishments that makes every other club look at us with disdain. KP need a wake-up call. I'm 100% fine with them remaining the owners and being in charge of the club. But they need to learn from their mistakes and correct things from the top down. We're falling behind in the professionalism and talent that is being employed at board level and - for all that loyalty is to be admired - we need change. Good luck with the banner, I hope it makes the desired impact

While the gap between the Championship and Premier League is huge and getting bigger, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to have made a better fist of things this season. Southampton are historically bad and were lucky to be promoted really. Last season they were really streaky and we hammered them twice. Ipswich still have many players who have come up with them from League One. Yes they recruited well but really that was with one eye on having the best side in the Championship next season. Wolves and West Ham have always had better squads than us this season and it wouldn't have been a catastrophic failure to be relegated in 18th having scored more goals and defended A LOT better throughout the season. Cooper had us fighting but we were still giving up far too many chances. He was the wrong appointment at the wrong time and Ruud has been magnitudes worse. We could be taking this fight towards the last couple of games of the season but in reality we've been gone for a while. And that really isn't good enough.