Match Day Thread Southampton v Newcastle Arabia FC, 06/11/22, 2pm, Sky Sports

Also the way he has transformed the likes of Almiron and Joelinton.

 

We make it easy for teams since we barely ever try to attack through the middle.

 

Amended for you

 

So Steve Bruce finishing 12th/13th with **** all money = shambles

But Ralph finishing 16th with **** all money = genius?

Got it.

 

Yeah he's done brilliantly with Almiron especially who I always rated. That's always been a strength of his tbf.

 

Almiron, yeah. Much better than Almirante now I think about it

 

You mean the normal wall? We're used to that and could even surprise with a win on a rare trip towards their goal!

 

Just realised we could be 19th by tomorrow afternoon. Scary.

 

We could also be 12th. It's so tight that one win can propel you right up the table and one loss can send you into the bottom 3. Not scary at all.

 

Only if it's the last day of the season. As Saints fans, even that unlikely event would be met, after a brief period of gloom with a 'c'est la vie!'

 

I'll be happy if we can put in a decent performance for most of the match and be competitive with accurate passing and not piss poor for 45 minutes at a time.

 

Thought we were talking about Eddie Howe, and how he’s improved Newcastle? Which he quite clearly has

 

Except that is not true about Steve Bruce is it? Take a look at what they spent on Joelinton. Double our record signing. Just because Newcastle fans bitched and moaned about money not being spent doesn’t make it true. I thought that had been debunked by now? And that Newcastle were surprisingly his on the net spend charts

I think there are many people who really fail to appreciate just how little has been invested into our side in recent years prior to this summer relative to the rest of the league. And this summer’s net spend was still I think in the lower half of the net spend.

There are a few outliers like Brighton and Brentford that show it isn’t always necessary. But not many

And then look at where the likes of Leeds, Villa and Everton are sitting with their spend relative to ours.

Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing better and at least making more of an effort in games. But there seems to be some rather effective messaging put out about spending and investment (especially by Newcastle fans claiming they haven’t had any)

 

He has for sure and not sure I said otherwise tbh. I just don't think they were a shambles and had a solid mid table squad before he rocked up. I think whoever takes over from Ralph has a far bigger task.

I had forgotten about Joelinton to be fair but I don't think Bruce had huge amounts other than that. More than us of course but that's not exactly hard as you allude to.

You're right about Ashley spending more than they make out but a lot of it was Pardew/McClaren era I thought.

 

You could be right. I think the tables I am thinking of cover 5 seasons which would not be just Bruce (I can’t remember how long he was there)

 

Looks like 18th it is. I agree it’s tight, but the scary thing is I can’t see us winning many football matches.

 

Nor could lots of Leeds and Forest fans before they beat Liverpool.

It's a funny old game

 

A pragmatic hope. Obviously hope to win the euro millions regularly, but hasn’t happened. Yet!

 

Surely once is enough.

 

The list here (Link: https://www.football365.com/news/transfers-premier-league-five-year-net-spend-man-utd-man-city) says the following:

Southampton: £-121.93m

22/23: £-64.26m
21/22: £15.54m (15th)
20/21: £-9.9m (15th)
19/20: £-28.17m (11th)
18/19: £-32.54m (16th)

Newcastle: £-314m
22/23: £-120.32m
21/22: £-117.45m (11th)
20/21: £-34.85m (12th)
19/20: £-33.53m (13th)
18/19: £-7.83m (13th)

Obviously the last couple of years are very different but 18/19 to 20/21 are pretty similar.