About halfway through the international break it became apparent that Saints were not going have a permanent new manager in charge for today’s visit to Charlton Athletic, and that interim boss Tonda Eckert would still be in place and locking horns with a certain Nathan Jones. The irony is that in a week where we’ve been talking about Sport Republic managerial appointments and generally how crap they have been, Jones was of course the first managerial appointment by Sport Republic, championed by Rasmus Ankersen for his metrics accrued with his Luton town side in the Championship that Rasmus assured us were going to translate to the Premier League. They didn’t and he was gone after a few months.

Jones of course took over just before the mid-season World Cup and after a five week virtual pre-season, Saints returned and it looked like he had basically achieved nothing in those five weeks and we were if anything, worse. If Rasmus was after metrics about how many times we could launch the ball into the floodlights, then the infamous game against Nottingham Forest would’ve told him all he needed to know. Jones had a couple of notable cup wins at home at Manchester City and away to Crystal Palace, but all they did was kept him in the job for a few weeks longer than he should’ve been. Mind you, Sport Republic replaced Jones when they eventually sacked him, with Ruben Selles, who in the cold light of day, was even more shit.

Jones left in quite spectacular fashion, fired after an abysmal 3-0 defeat at Brentford when he gave an amazing press conference afterwards, basically blaming everyone else and coming out with all sorts of shit about how he could’ve lacked ambition and stayed in his Welsh mining village and married a Welsh girl but he wanted to test himself. Women from Wales were not particularly impressed. The other thing that he came out with at that presser, was that statistically he was one of the best managers in Europe and that of course just provoked universal ridicule. Oh yes, Jones had spent his time as Saints manager being a bit of a car crash in interviews. Beneath the Premier League, he could say stupid shit and largely get away with it but under the gaze of the media in the Premier League, his utterances became comedy gold and were basically fucking embarrassing.

Away he went and licked his wounds, no doubt buoyed by the salary that we were paying him for a full year, before he took the Charlton job and led them to promotion last season via the playoffs. Fair play. Charlton have started this season relatively well too, with a habit of getting late winners. If this game had been in the first few weeks of the season I would have been confident of winning it but with our weaknesses laid bare all season, it’s a very difficult game with this expected to be a physical battle. I imagine that Jones’ side won’t be particularly subtle but they’ll have to do it without their best player, who is of course James Bree, on loan from Saints. I guess it’s a thing that some players can only really do it for certain managers because Bree has never done it for us. One of our former players Kayne Ramsey is also in the Charlton side. Of course he played for us in the 9-0 defeat at Man United and was no worse than anyone else but I don’t think he played for us again and he must be enjoying that he’s in the same division as us now.

It’s hard to know what Saints fan reaction will be towards Jones as he takes to the touchline today. Former managers always get a bit of stick of course and Jones will no doubt bouncing up and down the line and generally being a dick, which would get you stick whether you managed the opposition before, or not. However, he wasn’t really with us for long enough and in the cast of villains from the last four years, he is not really top billing, though memories of his tenure do highlight how Sport Republic started off by getting things horribly wrong and how they don’t appear to have learned a thing.

I don’t think any of Saints starting eleven today will have played for Jones apart from maybe Adam Armstrong and he was very much in and out of the team when Jones was here. The task for our players of course is to win the game and not to worry about anyone making an idiot of themselves in the technical area . I really want to see us win and I want to hear his interview afterwards however.

With no reports of any injuries coming back from international break, I would expect Tonda to go with more or less the same team that played at Sheffield Wednesday. Finn Azaz and Ryan Manning had a very good international break with the Republic of Ireland, managing to qualify for the playoffs with both Saints players making notable contributions. There is the tantalising prospect of Oriol Romeu being involved in the game, though barring injuries, I would anticipate him starting on the bench.

So, the biggest test so far comes in Tonda’s third interview for the job. By giving him another week and another three games, Sport Republic are probably just delaying their next bad decision by a week. All you can do is hope that their cunning plan comes together and Tonda and the team keep winning games. This is the backup cunning plan of course – the first one was for Will Still to be in charge a few years, then get poached by a big club and for us to promote Tonda from within. Baldrick would be proud.

The team news is as you’d expect, bar one surprise with Flynn Downes on the bench, in a hazmat suit, on a toilet, taking antibiotics and having his food prepared for him in a sterile environment. So, it’s a first start for Cam Bragg in the centre of midfield alongside Caspar Jander, giving us a combined weight in midfield of about 15 stone. Tonda seems to pull an Under 21s surprise every single game but let’s at least hope that Cam has a shirt with his name and number on it this time.

Saints tear into Charlton early with Scienza winning the ball in midfield and spinning away and combining with Azaz to get a run at the fullback. He beats him and pulls it back to Jander. His first touch takes it away from him slightly before he can hook it wide. Good start but he should have at least got that on target..

Bragg has started the game really well and plays a lovely ball around the corner, forward to Armstrong, who is allowed to turn about 35 yards out and cuts inside before firing over the bar. Fellows breaks away down the right and puts over a brilliant cross despite two Charlton defenders being in close attendance and his cross lands perfectly onto the head of Adam Armstrong who heads it over the bar in slightly crap fashion.

Saints create another clear chance of a minute later as Armstrong brings the ball down and plays it through to Scienza who once again beats the defender and flicks it across to Azaz, who’s first touch his heavy which allows the keeper to get a bit of it and deflect it wide for a corner. Sitter, in all truth. The corner goes short to Bragg, who tees up Ryan Manning and he takes aim with his left foot and it spears past everybody and flicks into the side netting with the goalkeeper nowhere

Ten minutes gone and three decent chances passed up and several other attempts already narrowly missing the target so of course minds turned towards Charlton inevitably taking the lead but before that inevitability fucks off as Bragg and Armstrong combined to send Fellows away again down the right, and he beats the left back again and stands it up and Ryan Manning comes flying in past three static defenders to nod it into the top corner of the net. What a brilliant cross and header. Fucking get in.

Jander immediately tries to get Saints moving forward again by winning the ball deep in our half and knocking it out to Scienza on the left who is hemmed in but instead of going backwards, decides to turn and run headlong at the Charlton defence and he carries the ball almost to the edge of the penalty area before slipping it perfectly into Armstrong, who makes a complete fuck of trying to control it and for a second the ball is behind him But he digs out a shot eventually which is blocked and from the rebound he rifles it left footed into the roof of the net. Another superbly created goal. Nathan Jones is not having a good day but still doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it.

Saints are passing around in their own penalty area with four Charlton players in a kind of half-arsed press. Baz to Woody, Woody to Bragg to THB and then a long ball along the ground straight to Adam Armstrong‘s feet. Armstrong has peeled off a defender and is allowed as much time as he wants to turn and play a straight ball through the defence and Jander is clean through on goal with the Charlton player who is supposed to be marking him puffing like a bastard with no chance of catching up. He 100% is going to score and I am that confident that I’m celebrating already as he goes through sits the keeper down and rolls it in at the near post. Superb finish and another brilliant goal from back to front.

Again once the game restarts we are popping the ball around nicely with Bragg and Jander at the heart of everything in the centre of midfield. Captain Jack lends the ball to Bragg who pops it forward to Armstrong, who has once again come away from the defenders who have not followed him and he slots the ball through for Finn Azaz to pick it up on the edge of the penalty area with just Kaminski to beat and he skips around him to his left and knock the ball into the net for number four. This is amazing.

We have scored four goals in eight minutes which statistically is pretty good an statistically that’s good xG. One of the best managers in Europe decides that statistically this would be a good time to make a substitution and so he makes one in an act of bolting the stable door when the horse is already 20 miles away and your xShitTheBed rating is very high.

We continue to absolutely toy with the Charlton defenders. Armstrong seems to have some invisible forcefield around him that prevents defenders getting anywhere near him as he stands with his back to goal, deep in the penalty area rolling the ball around under his foot before teeing up Scienza to fire over the bar.

When Charlton get into our half, it’s just an invitation for us to nick the ball and hit them on the break and from one such break, Armstrong and Scienza combine again with Leo steaming into the box from the left and forcing a decent save out of the keeper which the referee doesn’t spot and so gives a goal kick.

As half-time approaches, Azaz finds Armstrong who plays it out wide to Fellows and he drives into the box before hammering a cross / shot at the far post where Azaz sticks out a foot to knock it into the net. The Charlton players half arsed appeals for offside are not heard, and that’s five, statistically.

With a minute left of the first half, Charlton win a corner on the left. Over it comes and we have obligingly left Lloyd Jones completely unmarked about six yards out and he’s really not gonna miss from there and he doesn’t. It’s a minor irritation but who could complain about going in at halftime 5-1 ahead?

The second half starts and it becomes apparent how it’s gonna go straight away, after Armstrong‘s early angled effort is pushed away. Charlton are going completely for damage limitation and are not committing the bodies forward either with or without the ball, and Saints are happy to see out so it looks like we’re in for a long boring 40 minutes or so.

Bragg and Armstrong combine again to send Azaz through any chips over the keeper and it bounces off the far post, but the flag is up anyway. That’s his last contribution as he and Scienza are replaced with Aribo and Robinson, with Aribo making his long awaited (by someone I’m sure) return to The Valley, where he started his career. It would be nice if he touched the ball in the opening ten minutes on the pitch but he doesn’t. Impact.

As time goes on we replace Armstrong, Fellows and Bragg with Damien Downs, Ronnie Edwards and Flynn Downes and the game kind of meanders, with Charlton picking up a succession of yellow cards. There is time for Robinson to break through midfield and feed Jander who should take a shot with his left foot, but instead he gives it to Manning, whose effort is blocked away for a corner. The only other thing of note in the half is Damion Downs having a shot from 25 yards which ended up in Row Z. He’s not gonna score if he plays all season.

The end and job done in the second half. We didn’t need another goal and Nathan Jones didn’t need to get humiliated, so the insufferable bellend at least got something out of the game apart from lovely songs being sung about him. The second half saw Charlton dropping off to not get embarrassed and as you would expect, Saints did not really have the urgency to score more against a team dropping off.

Back to the start though and after 10 minutes, it looked like it was gonna be the normal story where we miss chances and then all goes to shit, but the first goal, with the brilliant Fellows to Manning move, was the first of four goals in eight minutes, which has got to be the best time on a football pitch that Saints have had since the play-off final. Adam Armstrong put in the performance of the perfect centre forward, scoring the second goal before creating the third for Jander and the fourth for Azaz and then Tom Fellows, tormenting the left back for the 200th time in the opening 45 minutes created the fifth for Azaz. It’s just a shame that we let in a shit unmarked header for Charlton to get a goal back just before half time but not worth getting annoyed about in the scheme of things.

All this has to be put into context against the fact that Charlton and Jones completely played into our hands. In all seriousness, Jones was asleep at the wheel because we should’ve scored two goals before we actually did so he should’ve realised, because he had those two warnings, that we were going to tear them apart if he left things as they were and he did nothing and so rather predictably, we tore them apart . It wasn’t until the fourth goal went in that he decided to do anything about it even so, if you wanted to set a team up so this Southampton side could dominate the game, then he found the perfect way to do it. A half assed press by the front players and the rest of the team not pushing up or being aggresive in the challenge, so once we beat the press, which we did constantly, there were absolutely acres in midfield. It turns out that if you beat the press and don;t then slow down and pass backwards, that you create more opportunities at the other end. Who knew?

We had to take advantage though and it was a joy to watch us do that. With Armstrong able to drop deep control the ball, turn at will and get us playing forwards, which is the sort of thing he usually struggles with, Charlton made him look like a world beater. But credit where it’s due, Armstrong had probably his best all round game in a Saints shirt and all of the attacking players were excellent with Scienza, Azaz and Fellows terrorising the Charlton defence. In midfield, Jander of course helped himself to a goal and there was a monstrous performance by Cam Bragg in his first league start. Very quick into the tackle and happy to play forward whenever possible and what was an excellent debut for him. We have options there now with the two that played today, plus Flynn Downes, the soon to be returning Shea Charles, not to mention Oriol Romeu.

Defensively we were sound in the second half aside from causing ourselves issues a few times. Nathan Wood gets himself drawn into these battles where he’s determined to prove he’s bigger and stronger than the opposition striker. This is as opposed to actually defending properly and getting the ball away from our goal and he ends up giving away possession or giving away free kicks because he’s trying to get in a fight rather than just rising above it and doing his job. On a couple of occasions he was the clear favourite to get to the ball first but instead, he slowed down almost to initiate contact and have a tussle with the striker. We were also maybe slightly fortunate not to give a penalty away when Manning decided to shove Lloyd Jones into Baz from a cross. I think we got away with it because none of the three players concerned were anywhere near the ball. In possession, the defenders were largely excellent, with THB in particular getting back to his best, playing a big part in the Jander goal and also find another excellent forward pass to put Armstrong through for a shot at the start of the second half.

This game will be remembered though for the quality of the goals. Firstly, a perfect example of how wing backs should work with the cross from one wing back to another with Tom Fellows beating the Charlton left back with ease before standing up a great cross to the back post, with Ryan Manning throwing himself at it in front of the defenders and heading it in off the bar. Brilliant commitment by the goal scorer to get to the ball first, which ironically is the complete opposite of what he did at QPR when he had that chance at the back stick. Fair play to Ryan Manning for that goal and I guess the impetus from his international break with the Republic of Ireland must have him feeling pretty good about things right now.

Goal number 2 was all about Leo Scienza picking the ball up in his own half and instead of playing safe and backwards like team expect us to do, he just turns and runs and no one on the Charlton team had the presence of mind to pull him back or bring him down and if you don’t do that with Leo, he will create something and though Armstrong fell over his initial pass and got a bit fortunate with his initial effort rebounding back to him, drilling the finish into the roof of the net was an excellent end to things.

Goal 3 was the back to front team move that was brillaint from us but also highlighted the way Nathan Jones had set up Charlton to fail. Beat the press (THB’s pass) and then get it under control quickly (Arma) and play forwards to Caspar Jander galloping through and he was never going to miss.

Goal 4 was Armstrong this time turning and playing Finn Azaz through with just the keeper to beat and in a rarity in today’s game, he skipped around him easily before finding the finish and it was another great move to free Fellows on the right to tee up Azaz for the 5th.

Non-Saints fans don’t understand what it was like with Nathan Jones in the Premier League, shittng on about his football philosophy and style of play. I’d forgotten about the “Nathan Jones, your football is shit” chant, so it was nice to hear an airing of that. The version of Daydream Believer with sheep reference was good-natured fun as well. Did it go too far? No. He’d have been 100% been an unbearable twat if Charlton had won and there would have been knee slides and all sorts. If there’s ever a case of reaping what you sew then it’s Nathan Jones, with the way he carries on. Nathan had a bad day on the metrics. His xDickhead rating didn;t go up today but his xShitTheBed rating certainly did. I wonder if Ramsus Ankersen has updated his ‘next Saints manager’ metrics spreadsheet.

All the stuff about Jones should not detract from the main manager story of the day, which is of course Tonda Eckert. Three wins out of three as a caretaker manager is an amazing start to things and if this is an audition for the full-time gig, then he couldn’t have done any better. You could argue that we have dispatched three very poor teams but wins like today and the style it was achieved in, will massively count in his favour. I feel that if we win against Leicester at home on Tuesday, and what will be the most difficult game he’s had so far, then he will be offered the full-time position.

The attraction to the owners is plain to see – he will tick their “we’re so clever” box. He also will be a relatively cheap option after the shambles and payout with Will Still. Also, he has got the summer signings, like Fellows, Azaz and Jander, all performing to a high level and also, is giving chances to young players. He hasn’t got Damion Downs scoring yet and if he does that, he should be given a ten year contract.

You can argue all day whether he should or whether he shouldn’t get the job. If they give him the job whether it’s after 3, 5 or 10 games, it’s still another Sport Republic gamble because as it stands, the three games he has had as interim manager, are the only games in his entire life where he has managed a team where the result is everything. He’s only previously had ten games in charge of our Under 21s, which at the end of the day are development games where the result is secondary. Before that he had only ever been an assistant manager in various places and that role for me, is balls, bibs and cones and doing what the manager tells you to do and chipping in ideas occasionally. If he does keep winning however, they are going to have to appoint him because if they don’t and the new manager loses a couple of games they are going to get absolutely slaughtered. If they do appoint him and it then goes pear shaped, they are going to get absolutely slaughtered.

It’s a head scratcher for another day so I think we should all just live in the moment and bask in the glory of putting Nathan Jones back in his Welsh mining Village box.

Up the fucking Saints