Still slides away as Saints’ Sport Republic nightmare deepens – Oppo Profile Tuesday, 4th Nov 2025 19:25 by Clive Whittingham Plenty fancied this Southampton squad for promotion despite just two victories last season, but an ongoing nightmare under Sport Republic’s ownership has now claimed another manager and risks consecutive relegations – Alex Daniel and Martin Sanders describe the horrors. Weirdly bad start to the season for the team you’ve got on paper, take us through the reasons why? Unfortunately for Saints football is played on grass and not paper. On paper it is a very strong squad of individuals, which I think is where the problem lies. They’ve so far failed to gel as a team with any sort of cohesion whatsoever. Southampton in the league so far… Will Still perhaps not the coaching genius he was made out to be on trendy podcasts? How much blame goes his way? AD: I’m very torn with how much blame is to lie with him, there’s two schools of thought here. The first one is that the buck stops with him as the manager, on the flip side I think it’s more than fair enough to say that he is just another name, on an ever growing list of Southampton managers, who’ve been chucked under the bus by this group of players. I think he will go onto be a very good manager in the future, perhaps with the mess that the club are in currently, this was too much of a big job for him too soon, despite him having a good amount of managerial experience, considering his young age. Rewind back to the summer and it looked like a very shrewd appointment, unfortunately for him and the clubs financial accounts, that wasn’t to be. MS: It’s a tough one. It’s been a difficult decision for them to make. He’s a great guy but it just wasn’t working at all. I think he’s a good guy and a great coach, you don’t go and do what he achieved in France if you’re rubbish. He will go on and do very well somewhere else, I’m 100% sure of that. They’ve got a big decision on what to do next, it’s a big moment down here. The next manager is absolutely crucial. Would you have sacked him? AD: I was actually surprised that the club sacked him when they did, although they did allude to wanting to act sooner rather than later, in order to try and change our fortunes around, but I thought they’d have given him the next two games up until the international break. Who comes next? What's needed here? AD: I have absolutely no idea who comes in next, I don’t really have a lot of faith in Sports Republic to get the next appointment right. I think it’s more than fair enough to say that apart from Russell Martin, they’ve got every managerial appointment under the tenure wrong. We need someone to come in and stick a rocket up the players arses. These players don’t seem to be receptive to much in the ways of managers, they seemed to have found something wrong with every manager since Ralph Hasenhüttl. The only thing we haven’t tried yet, in terms of approach and I hate to say this, is to get a ‘big name’ in like Steven Gerrard. That isn’t me saying I think it’s the best outcome for the club, but I think a fair few of the underperforming players would be more receptive to him coming in as a ‘big name’, rather than someone who didn’t have as good a playing career, but may be a better coach, which in itself I think is worrying from a player mentality standpoint. League wins under Sport Republic ownership… What was done in the summer transfer window? What was left undone? AD: We were absolutely screaming out for a big target man striker. We signed Damion Downes from 1. FC Köln in the summer, but I think it was ridiculous to expect him to come in and be the main man straight away. We also had Ross Stewart, who is exactly what we need when he plays and was just coming back into form. Unfortunately he is forever plagued by injuries, so to have thought that he could lead the line throughout the season, with his injury record was shortsighted to say the least. MS: We didn’t get the striker in which we really needed. We didn’t go out and get the out and out target man that we were desperately craving so that’s been a big blow to the team. Damion Downs has just not worked out at all. Ins >>> Finn Azaz, 24, AM, Boro, £10m >>> Caspar Jander, 22, CM, Nuremberg, £10m >>> Tom Fellows, 22, RW, West Brom, £8m >>> Leo Scienza, 26, LW, Heidenheim, £7.5m >>> Damion Downs, 21, CF, Koln, £7m >>> Joshua Quarshie, 20, CB, Hoffenheim, £3m >>> Elias Jelert, 22, RB, Galatasaray, Loan >>> Mads Roerslev, 26, RB, Brentford, Undisclosed >>> George Long, 31, GK, Norwich, Loan Outs >>> Mateus Fernandes, 21, CM, West Ham, £40m >>> Tyler Dibling, 19, RW, Everton, £35m >>> Kamaldeen Sulemana, 23, LW, Atalanta, £15m >>> Jan Bednarek, 29, CB, Porto, £6m >>> Samuel Amo-Ameyaw, 18, RW, Strasbourg, £5m >>> Paul Onuachu, 31, CF, Trabzonspor, £5m >>> Juan, 23, CF, Goztepe, £750k >>> Kyle Walker-Peters, 28, RB, West Ham, Free >>> Joe Lumley, 30, GK, Bristol City, Free >>> Aaron Ramsdale, 27, GK, Newcastle, Loan >>> Juan Larios, 21, LB, Leonesa (Spain), Loan >>> Armel Bella-Kotchap, 23, CB, Hellas Verona, Loan >>> Yukinari Sugawara, 25, RB, Werder Bremen, Loan >>> Ben Brereton-Diaz, 26, CF, Derby, Loan >>> Will Smallbone, 25, CM, Millwall, Loan >>> James Bree, 27, RB, Charlton, Loan >>> Charlie Taylor, 31, LB, West Brom, Loan >>> Joachim Kayi Sanda, 18, CB, Red Star, Loan >>> Adam Lallana, 37, AM, Retired Can we have Ronnie Edwards in January please? He seems to be getting middling reviews at best, and playing right back!!? AD: As things stands I don’t think many Saints fans would be against this if this seasons performances are anything to go by. I think there were a lot of high expectations for Edwards this season, I personally was very impressed with him during pre-season of 2024, obviously we all heard him spoken very highly of during his loan spell at QPR last season, but it just hasn’t worked out for him this season yet. Perhaps it’ll be a case of he can be one to improve under a new manager. MS: I think at this stage you’d be more than welcome to have Ronnie Edwards, he’s not been very good down here at all and is really struggling. He looks like a fish out of water at times which is bizarre because he’d been so good for you last season.
Where is the team strong and weak? AD: The team at time of writing don’t seem to be strong anywhere and are weak everywhere. As fans you often hear players, managers and pundits alike say that ‘they’re no easy games in The Championship’ but I think we are the exception to that. Majority of supporters can accept losing when you are outplayed by a better quality opposition, but we have failed to beat some pretty appalling teams. The teams that have beaten us this season haven’t exactly had to blow us away either, it all seems to have been handed to them on a plate. Revised expectations for the season? AD: Don’t think it’s beyond the question to say avoid relegation, Luton went down consecutively last season and I would imagine they had more points at this stage of last season, than we do of the current season. Everyone knows just how quickly things can turn around in The Championship. A few good results on the spin, can see you go from mid table obscurity to pushing for automatic promotion. That said at the time of writing I can’t see this current iteration of the Southampton squad putting a run of games together to fire us up the league. I hope that I’m proved wrong by this, but I won’t be holding my breath. Links >>> Southampton Official Website >>> Southampton Echo – Local Press >>> Ugly Inside – Forum >>> Saints Marching – Blog >>> Saints Analysis – Blog >>> Football Martin – YouTube Channel >>> Saints Web – Message Board Pictures - Reuters Connect Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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