DJ Barry Hammond

We’re definitely defending deeper this half. But I think the other obvious difference is because we’re trying to be more controlled with our attacks, they’re a little slower and we have less bodies going forward. That allows Southampton to get a better starting defensive shape and we don’t have as many bodies around the ball when we lose it high and those things together mean that the Saints transitional play suddenly becomes a lot more effective.

It’s so much better for the rest of the team to have a striker that runs hard; sets the tone. I also think Thomas has been decent; not sure what happened early doors due to buffering, but since that he’s been up and down that flank.

I think everyone in our dressing room right now will be saying one thing - we want and need that clean sheet now. That doesn’t mean to shut up shop - but they’ll know how important that is to the performance.

There’s been signs of this in the other games as well. The key difference; the early **** up wasn’t punished and we grew from there.

You can see the difference in the zip of the passes and the hardness of the running - that’s all down to a good shot of confidence.

Yes… but the work rate and organisation is good and sometimes that sort stuff earns you… oh **** me that’s good!

Oi! Behave! I’ll simply take a clean sheet tonight as an extra bonus and not look any further than that. 😂

Any news from the “I won’t be watching this shite tonight” crew yet?

King has certainly got these guys playing for him.

That was on a Saturday I believe. Anyway, any other issues, take it up with the BBC’s statististions, I merely copy pasted.

Apparently we are winless in our last 11 midweek matches - consisting of four draws and seven defeats. Our last midweek home win was in December 2024 against West Ham… with our last midweek win in the Championship being a 5-0 thrashing of none other than Southampton in April 2024. Fawatu scored a hatrick that night.

What I find astonishing is you addressed a sum total of zero of my points. I still have no idea why you’d think having Skipp drop in as an auxiliary centre half would be a good idea.

As do a lot of football clubs. This is much more to do with needing liquid funds up front for heavy spend periods - like transfer windows. TV money and transfer fees will come in tranches across the year, so borrowing the money allows you to get that cash up front. And you know - leveraging future income is a common business practice across any business - it’s not a strange thing to do.

Why not?

The club has borrowed money yes - but there’s been no suggestion the club hasn’t maintained it’s repayments on those loans. I believe the last batch of debt to equity swap made by King Power was £124 million in January 2025 - so I don’t believe the underlying balance sheet of the club is a problem.

If you’re going to spend £100 million + on a football club, you’re going to speak to a lot of people about the subject. You’re going to speak to football people, finance people, commercial people. You are going to want to properly know what your bidding on before you make an approach. It’s not something you just keep to yourself and then suddenly one day go “excuse me Mr Top, would you accept £x for your football club.”

Couple of examples of football club takeover rumours by the way. Bristol City https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c1j8rdy1l4wo Spurs https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/13426968/tottenham-takeover-club-unequivocally-reject-two-expressions-of-interest-in-majority-stake-and-insist-it-is-not-for-sale Manchester United (again!) https://talksport.com/football/3629120/turki-alalshikh-cryptic-man-utd-takeover-update/ None of these clubs are actively up for sale as far as I’m aware.

Buying a club would require a lot of due diligence - so if a party were interested they’d be sounding out all manor of people about the prospect, to the extent you’d imagine there should be some sort of rumour surfacing if there was anything close to a bid being made. The fan unrest would have been noted too by any party - would give them leverage in any deal - although admittedly, any party looking at a deal might wait until the end of the season now. That said, I doubt there is anyone in the wings - someone would have got a hint of something.

Your comments make no sense. If Top is looking for a few hundred million - why would he place the club in administration? Equally there’s nothing at present suggesting the club is not meeting its credit obligations - which is a scenario that could force administration. Yes the club is running at a loss - but so does pretty much every professional club at the moment - and those losses have been underwritten and converted to equity by King Power.

Our losses, whilst they are significant sums - they’ve been between £20 - £90 million a year - the Top’s families reported net worth is around £2.6 billlion, so those amounts remain in a sustainable position for them financially. And I’d say if there was a party actively interested in buying the club - they’d would have let themselves known during this fan unrest. They don’t have to wait for Top to put the club up for sale to initiate a deal.

Well he’s playing against a good calibre of player, so he will get beaten by wingers - just like Fawatu tournaments opposition wingers. But I’d say there are wider issues in our defensive setup and midfield that don’t help. Like say on Saturday with Birmingham’s second goal - Wink’s ended up as essentially a third centre half between Lascelles and Nelson marking Stansfield, which is a horrible mismatch. Now if your defensive setup and shape is more cohesive, one of Lascelles or Nelson should probably be taking charge and taking Stansfield off Winks so he can push on into midfield and help apply pressure on the ball carriers in front - which highlights another issue with Birmingham’s goal, because we were far too passive on Ducksch, we gave him time to pick his head up and spot the pass. On your comment about the “drifting” I assume you’re on about Dykes goal for Charlton the week before - where Thomas is splitting his position between his man on the edge of the box and providing extra cover for Dykes who is being marked by Nelson. Now, again, Thomas vs Dykes is a mismatch, so you’re ideally wanting Nelson to be the primary marker. But a key issue with this goal was Page being too aggressive in the press - which allowed Chambers to easily cut back onto his favoured left foot and pick out a ball of real quality… mean it has to be said, it was sublime by Chambers, it was an inch perfect cross! And then the other thing to remember with Thomas is Marti was asking him to do a lot in his system - he’d often find himself inside the 18 yard box via open play and that was by design as one of Marti’s “free man” fullbacks.

I wouldn’t worry about it - based on the sources below he’s either not interested or dead.

Maybe. However, we know King Power has transferred some £400 million of debt to equity. We also know the club runs at a significant loss. That means any potential buying party will need deep pockets. And as I say - there’s been zero rumour of any interest - so if there is no willing buying party, what happens then?

I think he’d struggle to get a tune out of this squad.