Match Day Thread Southampton v West Ham 04/02/2017 KO 3 pm

I can't believe we're actually talking about relegation. Really stark contrast to past 3 seasons. So much forward movement, smarts a bit to actually consider relegation.

Think we will be ok but worrying that we're banking on return of injured players. More worrying is why we are in this situation?

 

I agree, and would also add that squad wise it's a huge Summer for us too.

 

Massively reactive, re: Silva - he's been in the country for four weeks - not even enough to represent his club for full block of six games in the league form guide.

Claude has been dealt a bad set of cards, and is clearly focused on winning the club some silverware. He's also working with a CB partnership that has had a couple of games together, one of whom has only recently made his debut. We'll find out in a few weeks what his real plans are going forward in the league.

We are sick of any manager (and player) who performs slightly above par disappearing at the first sign of an offer elsewhere - I think we should support a guy (admittedly getting under par results) who might be able to gain some traction here (he has shown enough signs of being a good manager imo).

 

Not used to seeing such logic on this board!

 

I'd agree but for the fact I've extolled the virtues of Silva from before. It's not just a Hull thing.

I do agree re Puel though. I've been arguing his case from day one, but that doesn't mean I'm convinced by him.

 

What is amazing is that there is actually a set of people on here who live inside the overlapping areas in a Venn diagram who a. want Puel out, b. were open to giving McClaren a turn when we were looking for a manager post-Poch, and who c. were desperate to land Andre Villas Boas last summer.

 

i don't think we are to good to get relagated. All the bottom 5 think that. We can all say the our summer or January had been the reason we are so ****, but puel has to take the blunt of the blame.
How many of our players under performing? That all lays on the managers desk.

 

I keep hearing this about Koeman.

It's bollocks imo. We played a lot of hoofball up to Pelle.

 

I'm not considering it


Does anyone seriously think we won't win 4 games, and draw a couple?

 

I don't agree. Some are underperforming. Some aren't.

Flip your view: will you give Puel credit for making Romeu a magnificent CDM, or do only bad things count?

Shane Long played right wing under Koeman for 18 months and it was only through injury he played him down the middle and he went on a good run. I presume this means you'll allow Puel 18 months with Long?

 

Whilst I don't really think we will get relegated, I did find myself cheering on Utd and City yesterday so those below us stay there. Shame, because although I would happily see Vardy dispatched unceremoniously into the Solent, I do like Claudio Ranieri.

 

Definitely. I take no pleasure in seeing either Swansea or Leicester get beat, as my sympathies are always with the underdog. Except that at the moment we want the underdogs to remain under us, so I was actually relieved by both those results. Shame, that.

 

Genuine question - what are the signs of him being a good manager that you're talking about here?

 

Reaching Wembley perhaps? It's not like we had an easy route there either.

 

He had a stuttering start to life here, but turned it around to make us the most miserly defence in the league. He had us getting results for a while, which gave us the buffer of points that is keeping us out of the true danger zone now. We were stable around seventh for quite a while - injuries and a lack of depth upfront, having to work with tired (Shane) and injury-returning (Jay) strikers, during which time he engineered a lock out against an in-form (if post-international break) Liverpool in the league, plus a draw against City.
He's got us to the EFL final, without conceding a goal. We helped start this Liverpool slide (rather than being a side who lucked out by meeting them during this bad run of theirs).
He's got some performances out of a number of Academy players.

Don't know what anyone expects with such a threadbare squad, with our best players out, and other good players only just returning. I've said it before, he's been given the toughest job of any Saints manager who's started here during our PL era.

 

Everton fans were calling for Koeman out a few weeks ago.

 

Fair enough. I'm not Puel out yet, but I am feeling very down about the club and recent performances. West Ham weren't even good and we barely troubled them.
I'm in agreement that we should focus on Wembley, then get a couple of wins and write the league season off. As long as we don't sink any further (which is pretty unlikely as there is some real dross in the league this year), we can hopefully kick on next season.

 

i'd be surprised if they sack puel before the end of the season
that said if we lose our next 2 or 3 games it will get very unpleasant

 

Yes, I don't think anyone can say wholeheartedly that Puel is the man here. But I think we have to judge come the end of the season - given that no one is going to turn around this season better than he can imo.

I can personally live with the apparent lack of personality/character - what I want it to reflect is a snub to the bullshit of the weekly tabloid fodder soundbites, and a refreshing focus on the training of the footballers (at all levels). Granted, we are currently rather underachieving on both those facets. But I have faith that he has the ability to step up on the latter aspect - given a solid pre-season with his players. He clearly has input into the players we are buying now - not to be mistaken with it being his fault if we don't get a player or players in. He's working to the limitations set by the Board - this could be down to the potential Chinese partnership, or it could be financial, or any other number of reasons.

Better teams than ours have stuttered around a cup run - and we've attempted two this season so far. Leicester are experiencing the same, and it's no coincidence they're doing well in the CL.

His profile at clubs like Nice bodes well for Saints, should he prove to be the right man come season's end. And we can't have it all, because if he was performing as his predecessors have, we all know he'd be off shortly. The same people who were calling for Koeman to play Academy players are in some instances the same people calling for the head of a manager who is doing just that - you can't be expected to succeed on all levels at once. Likewise, maybe he'll turn out to be the wrong guy - or at odds with the direction we're taking - in which case we know we gave him a chance, and once again distinguished ourselves by refusing to join the reactive, entitled, 'one swallow makes a summer' crowd of teams who fire and hire at will.

 

As i've stated before there have been positives in this transitional season, namely VVD, Romeu, JWP and Cedric, wins against Inter, Arsenal and Liverpool and getting to Wembley plus the successful introduction of many Academy lads.
The league campaign has been inconsistant and not getting though the EL group stages was disappointing, but I haven't given up on a decent finish in the league yet, we have a top ten squad in my opinion and if we had finished a few more the many goalscoring chances we created then we would probably have had 10 more points in the league and still be in Europe.