Les-TA-Jon

No Winks in the squad. Another ‘bust up’?

You're normally very measured on here. There's a good middle ground between 'we are scared, and not sure we've got it in us to stay up' and 'We've got PL players we'll be fine, relegation talk is madness'

Win this and we've won more games than we've lost

Draw this and we've drawn more games than we've won and lost

No I didn't think we were? I think we're musing on what his quote says about the wider mood in the camp

It's not just the overpaying. The decline of the club's standing over the last 3-4 years affects the players too. Majority of our players were signed under very different conditions to where they find themselves. Faes joined a team that had just finished 5th, 5th and 8th. Has since had 2 relegations. He'll likely have little love for the club Okoli's career has totally stalled here Souttar probably never wanted to come in the first place but Stoke couldn't turn down such a good deal - since? Loans and injuries... Kristiansen - see Okoli Pereira - probably feels lucky to still be here given his injury record - but would have likely left for a 'big' club at some point but for the injuries. Still he's gone stale and stayed too long. Soumare - thought he'd signed with a top half PL team... And so on and so on It's no wonder the mentality of the squad is in the toilet. I can't think of many players who enjoy being here at the moment

Oh for sure. I'm less bothered about what the quotes say about JJ's character, personally. I'm more bothered about what the sentiment means for the overall mentality of the squad. It's potentially an innocuous comment and of course we can't know what they all think, but it kind of betrays the idea that they think 'we have a squad full of PL players' which could explain some of the lacklustre performances - an assumption that their supposed 'quality' will simply count at some point - rather than you know, actually playing and fighting for results...

He says: Comes across very much as 'we'll be fine' to me.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cx2pe14l240o Shades of Maddison's line... Also I think some of Jordan James' quotes show the thought process inside the club: But do we? We have players that have played in the PL, sure. But do we have PL quality? It's only really Ricky P and Ayew who can claim that and both clearly past their best.

Least worst? So, best then....? Vardy

Again, this is my point though.... He is arrogant - based on what? And what is arrogance in this context? Was Mahrez not arrogant? Was Vardy not arrogant? He thinks he is the bollocks - again, based on what? How can you know what he is thinking? What does 'thinks he's our best defender' look like, in practice, on the pitch? Is there a particular way of playing or kicking the ball that says "I think I'm the best defender"? How do you know!? For clarity - I'm not trying to defend Faes - I don't think he's a good player for us and I think it's clear that the relationship between him and the fans is dead and irreparable. I'm just wary of declarative statements that seem to think they know what's going on inside someone's head when we've got literally no idea and watching from the stands gives us no scope to do so. He's become a lightning rod for criticism; a scape goat. Why not just criticise his football, rather than cooking up some imagined stories about what he thinks and feels?

Well that's my point - the idea that he has a bad attitude/big ego seems to be based on pretty poor evidence and no hard sources. No one can ever come up with anything. FWIW I don't think he's a good player and he's clearly not been a great player for us - but I don't know why so many people seem to think they can determine what goes on between the ears of a player, purely from watching them play. Someone else was writing some proper 'fan fic' of what Harry Winks is thinking and feeling in another thread.

You think Wout will be seeing out his contract here then?

Still think this whole 'Faes has a terrible attitude and big ego' is a bit of a myth perpetuated by this forum. The rap sheet appears to be: - He's had links with other clubs in his time here (fairly standard practice for players/agents) - There's maybe 1 or 2 quotes supposedly attributed to him, about wanting to leave? (anyone got an actual source?) - He has big floppy hair - He throws his hands up in the air when we concede - He cupped his ears to the home fans once after scoring the winner against Sheffield Weds

The key problem being both appointments are reliant on Top / some recruitment consultancy...

Great fan fic of what’s going on between the ears of a footballer you don’t know. (For clarity, I’m no particular fan of Winks and I do think his attitude is particularly poor this season)

It’s so abusable. TBH, stuff your principles - it’s a results driven game - if I were a manager my keepers would be under instruction to go down injured every game, at key moments - and to try and get booked for time wasting. why wouldn’t you?

Can the club afford to sack another manager? I honestly think they’ll only sack Marti if we’re genuinely in a relegation battle. Which is a realistic outcome but we’re not there yet.

all 3 improved us in that 2nd half

Today it’s not even an attitude or effort issue. how does he not have the instinct to just clear that ball?

OK, so say the entire fanbase is in unison and takes part in protests, then what? How does that materially make Top sell the club, if he doesn't want to?

What does even 'hound them out' mean in practice? Top owns the club. Even if there was complete consensus among the fan base, you'd need activism in addition to the consensus and even then - then what? How would Top be compelled to sell up?

We signed Woyo Coulibaly on a 4.5 year deal in Jan 2025. Nowadays, especially for clubs in our sorry state, contract length isn't any sign of how 'important' the player is - it's purely about amortisation and spreading the cost of the player.

Pretty sure the ‘not cooperating’ charge relates to documents not being submitted/not being submitted on time. it doesn’t relate to getting out of past charges due to loopholes

Apart from plenty on here who’d say he was lucky to stay on the pitch, Southampton fans who’d rightly massively aggrieved and match reports which would likely highlight the injustice