BenTheFox

Mad to think that he was Porto manager when we played them both times in the champions league. Also, he had an 18 year career as a player and made 199 appearances. Such is the life of a backup goalkeeper.

Legitimetely one of the few I can think of that worked under Mourinho that went onto have success as a manager. Maybe there are a few obvious ones I'm missing?

Guardiola is the influential manager of the past 25 years. Cruyff is the most influential manager ever.

He is by far the most influential football manager of the past 25 years, and it's not even close. It's testament to how good he is that many that have worked under him have gone onto to be very good managers/coaches themselves (Arteta, Alonso, Xabi, Maresca etc.). Whereas you'll struggle to name many successful managers who worked under Alex Ferguson or even Mourinho.

This would actually kinda make sense. Whenever I watched him for us I thought he looked good abd that deserved a few more minutes.

I don't give us much of a chance of getting anything out of this one. If Soumare and Ndidi were fit, I might. That feels really weird to say.

Julen Lopetegui left them in the lurch not long before the beginning of last season, they had issues with PSR and O'Neill was available having stayed up with Bournemouth. Up until their FA cup game against Cov last season he was doing a very good job at Wolves and was very popular with their supporters.

It wasn't him, sorry.

Pretty sure I just saw Ndidi training with the squad in a video the club just put out.

Wolves have Ipswich at home and then us in their next two games. If they fail to win either of those games, then I'll probably come around to your way of thinking.

Corberan will make himself truly hated by WBA fans, but I get why he'd take it. Wolves is the best job he's likely to get at this point. Southampton is the other premier league job that will become available, and saving them would be a huge task. I saw enough from Wolves last night to tell me they can get out of this.

Him keeping us up alone should not be enough to land him a top job. If he keeps up, we've got him until at least 10 games into next season.

He still had to pop up in the right areas and put the ball in the back of the net. He scored as many goals as Fatawu in the championship last season with much fewer appearances. Obviously Fatawu got loads of assists and is a far far better footballer. I'm not suggesting otherwise. Do you think Maresca would have given him those minutes after the first handful of games if he was that bad? Surely he would have just kicked him to the kerb completely once we had Fatawu and Yunus through the door, like he did with Wanya Marcal.

I don't know every championship club's starting 11. I do know that he scored 6 goals in 23 championship games last season, so he clearly isn't completely hopeless at championship level. For the record, I don't think he'll ever be Premier League standard footballer.

I get why he's in the side. He works hard, has a bit of pace and is disciplined defensively, but in terms of footballing ability, he's mid-table championship level.

Southampton are projected to finish on 12/13 points based on their current points per game ratio. The funny thing is they're not actually THAT bad. They've probably not got enough in that squad to stay up, but they shouldn't be in the conversation for the worst premier league sides ever. If they part company with Martin and replace him with a manager who isn't going to play high risk football with a squad that isn't capable at this level, they can at least make it look relatively competitive.

They're in a tricky situation as to what decision they should make. They're not completely out of the fight yet so you think that maybe they make the change to give themselves a chance. On the other hand, it's going to take something big to turn this around and Martin is probably better equipped than most to get them out of the championship. If you're a Southampton fan, then you probably want a change. Even with relegation looking likely, you don't want it to be completely humiliating.

That's a fair point. Those defenders are certainly not 'conceding nearly three goals a game' bad.

Having watched a fair bit of the championship this season, I'd say the biggest positive if we stay up would be that it will most likely be more straight forward for us to stay up next season. We'd probably be a more attractive proposition to potential signings and I can't see Sheffield United, Burnley, Watford, West Brom or Middlesbrough seriously competing if they get promoted. Sunderland or Leeds with their current squads would get slaughtered but are big enough in stature to make a better fist of it.

To be fair, they got promoted last season with many players who were playing for them in League 1 the season before. The gulf in quality between the Premier League and the Championship is big and they're not being embarrassed at this level.

Villa had been circling the drain for a good four seasons before going down that season to be fair. They finished 16th or 17th in 2014/15 and lost Benteke and Delph that summer.

I've criticised people for this in the past but I understand it yesterday. Rubbish late kickoff time three weeks before Christmas and the public transport links aren't great. If you live in one of the towns/villages out in the county, you're not getting a bus home after 10:30.

Yeah, I did just somewhat illude to this.

Don't get me wrong, James McClean doesn't do himself any favours posting pictures of himself talking to his kids whilst wearing a balaclava, but his reason for not wearing a poppy is a justified one.