'Loss of players in the summer left us short' Surely this happens every summer and we should have moved to get appropriate replacements? I'm used to it, but he can't really use that as an excuse as we knew players would leave and that we'd need to replace them.
The general view was that our expectations are too high...."What do you expect?" We sell all our best players every summer, we bring in replacements who need to bed into the team/country, we change our manager every couple of seasons with no premiership experience who need to settle into England and the pace of the league as well as bedding in the new players into a squad that has seen its best players disappear. Tenth isn't bad for a club like Southampton and the cup final is a bonus that previous managers hadn't achieved Thats my take on the article by Jim White
Could be off to St Etienne http://readsouthampton.com/2017/05/10/saint-etienne-lining-claude-puel-manager/
Exactly. He's a coach for god's sake, a professional. His job is not to inspire players with the power of his personality, but to get the best out of his players individually and collectively, by helping them to improve their technique, their understanding of the game, & the way they fit in to the team. Him throwing a strop on the touch line, arguing with officials, and lobbing water bottles about will help his players development how exactly?
Teams often add players/managers to their list in case they are available or willing....doesn't indicate insider knowledge. I can see no real reason for Puel to lose his job....I think it will come down more to what he wants. If he is happy, he will still be here next season....if not, perhaps he will be gone....though it usually takes at least 1.5 seasons for us to piss off a manager....one season would be a record.
No, you've missed my point. My point being towards the board. The coaching staff/Eric Black can't use the excuse of selling players and leaving us short as the board would have known this and should have prepared accordingly. Or he's having a pop at the board for not bringing in good enough players. He can't blame that for our season, it happens every summer.
I think if Jose had the chance to assemble a new back four from any teams, there wouldn't be more than one of those Spurs defenders in his defence. Doesn't mean that Spurs back four is not the best defence in the league - just that Man Utd. have a different brief. There's a certain profile of players they need to buy for commercial reasons. Their teams also set up in different ways, and Mourinho will be after certain defenders that suit that. He'd fill it no doubt with some Latin experts in gamesmanship too.
I'm pretty confident he won't be doing it with Spurs, though. Imagine he has two more seasons there max, before his project will fizzle out a bit. And that's only because he'll want to see in the new era in in the new stadium - otherwise I'd expect him to go earlier, through pressure from one of a number of European giants. Neither playing your home games at Wembley, nor adjusting to a new stadium, are ideal circumstances to carry forward momentum. They will hopefully just be one of the great also-rans of the PL era.
I think fans (not on here, just overall) need to decide what they want - overperforming managers who get poached after a season and a half, and speculation about whom destabilises the team for at least half the season; or a manager who will not make waves or necessarily pull up trees in season one, but who demonstrates imo enough to suggest he will gradually improve a team and its players over a few seasons (against his own league finishes rather than that of previous managers), so that the club development moves at a more manageable pace. Where else would Koeman have taken us past being three points off CL and Europa qualification? We certainly wouldn't have been shifting up a gear into a CL team all of a sudden this year.
Ah, okay, I misunderstood. Let's hope we can finally have a summer where we don't end up selling the heart of our team I appreciate this may seem naive of me, but I can hope.
Apologies to rekindle this thread. Feel free to shoot me down. Thought we played OK in patches today. Still riddled with negativity and painfully obvious that apart from shoving 10 men behind the ball, we have no other plan. Despite the encouraging 1st half performance. I came away with bitterness and I'll explain why. For the last 5 seasons, I used to go to games against top 6 teams, hopeful. Expectant. At least for a draw. Today I left work early, knowing that we'd lose. God knows why I got into work early to justify leaving London at 5. That's fine though. It's what supporting a team is about, and you enjoy doing it regardless of result with the people around you because it's a social activity. For me. The saddest thing about our current state of affairs is that Puel has lost the fans. I've had a really tight knit group of fans - No, I'll call them friends now - Who for the last 10 seasons in Northam, I've stood next to, cheered with, been in despair/elated with, whinged with, had beers in Europe with etc etc. And it pains me that none of them are renewing. They can't stand to come to another season watching this football. To be honest I don't blame them either. Especially with 12 shots on target in the last 6 games. I know you all want to give him time. I wish I could too. I'm not normally fickle. But when it's clear that the players faith is gone, and the fans faith is damn well gone... surely some of you have to agree that it's simply not worth the risk to give him the time he probably deserves. A club is the sum of its fans. And if the fans have lost the faith. Change is needed.
Time to change the fans you mean? I can go along with that. If one frustrating season means the whole of your "tight knit group" is not renewing, then with any luck perhaps they will be replaced by people who are not so spoiled.
Edit: upon reflection, what I wrote seems a bit harsh. But I'd rather lose a handful of fans than lose Puel at this point. As for the style of play - I dodged a bullet by not going to the Hull game and perhaps that has coloured some people's attitudes; but today I really don't see how you could call that performance negative or unduly defensive. We ha as many attemps on goal as they did, and would have gone in at half time 1-0 up were it not for a brilliant save from Czech.
Preferably some with a bit of passion, I often wonder what has happened to "the spirit of Southampton". we witnessed some pretty dire football in the 90s (apart from moments of Matty magic) but the fans always backed the team when times were rough. Today's mob don't know they are born by comparison.
I don't think that you were harsh Archers, it's ridiculous that some are moaning when you see the sort of football Sunderland and Boro fans are being dished up.
It's cool mate. As I say. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Hence this being a forum. Agree. Today was a good game lacking clinical finish. But when you've scored 17 goals in 17 home games, there's only so many times that excuse washes. I'm not a boo boy. I've been there in the sh*t. Great escapes. Administration. League one 1-1 draw away at Plymouth. We had some pretty poor managers in the run up to the Leibherr revival. Since then we've played consistently exciting attacking football. We pressed hard. And that's probably why we've scored so many goals since. But to go from that to this is a bit of a shock to the system. I get the comments about being spoilt and im definitely in a minority on this forum but having seen and heard not a single empathetic thing towards Puel in the stadium or on social media. Feels like this forum is in the minority with a stubbornness and motivation to do what is morally right (in keeping him) I also get the Middlesborough Sunderland comment. But you've proven your own point. We aren't that any more. For the last 3 years we've earnt a reputation for being the best of the rest. Teams feared playing us because of our free flowing fearless football. That's changed now. We play possession. Look back first before trying to push forward and then lose it in the last 1/3. I don't pay 600 odd quid for my season ticket plus 40 quid return train fare for every game to be bored to tears, watching us play for a draw and not admit to myself that maybe, just maybe, it's not going to work out for Puel. I'm not that stubborn. Or maybe I'm not that educated enough in the ways of football. Maybe I'm spoiled for having ambition and wanting to be excited watching the team I'm so passionate about.
Sorry, but I remember us being famed for our tight and organised defence rather than our attack (since promotion). I also remember laughing at many of the big boys complaining we came for a draw and didn't deserve to win when we nicked points on the counter. *shrug* Even In this game we exceeded Koemans average shots per game.
