Redmond and Bertrand work best together for me on the left hand side, and Tadic in the number 10 role so we can make the most of his passing etc. Funny that!
Tend to agree about hoofing it up to Gabby who isn't a target man so will very quickly loose it. That said when we (Romeu) inception and break it invariable is a slow break so that the opposition defence is back in place by the time we are ready to deliver into the box. Regarding Boufal.....well where do I begin. I think the negative crowd reaction is because of a complete lack of confidence that he can deliver. Added to that once JWP is taken off we don't have anyone who can take a deadball and that is disappointing. Then by not replacing Tadic off instead of JWP we are overloaded with "Claire players" especially as Tadic has drifted completely out the game virtually every time by about 60 minutes at best.
I remember a previous manager who one season got us to an 8th place finish and a major cup final. His teams were workmanlike and without much flair. We only scored 43 goals in the league that season. His name was Gordon Strachan and he was almost universally loved by Saints fans. Maybe that was because he was verbose and witty in his media interviews, what else could the difference be...?
The surrounding circumstances, I'd imagine. The goals total wasn't an unusually poor one; it had been several years since Saints managed 50 in a season, and that was the high-water mark since Alan Ball's short tenure. Further, that squad had a pretty limited supply of attacking talent. There was Beattie, and then there was...Ormerod, I guess? A perpetually injured Pahars? Delgado and/or his equivalent in yogurt?
You make a very good observation Schad, but it still feels to me that a lot of the "discontent" with Puel is to do with his perceived personality (or lack of it) from a lot of our supporters. I don't feel that he is being judged entirely fairly on football matters.
Shared a drink with a few Bradford supporters this evening following their play off defeat. When the conversation moved to Saints and I explained the fans were not happy and some preferred our time in the championship/league one to the premier league, it was met with a "don't know ya born" style of Yorkshire put down
No matter what anyone says, a top half position in the top league is a good achievement for Southampton Football Club. The team immediately above us poached our manager by offering to triple his wages and bought a player who left us for £25m two years ago because we couldn't match his wage demands. We fans have to recognise our identity, we are a mid--sized club punching above our weight in the top league, we cannot compete long term with mega-rich clubs, we can only do things the way we have to survive in the top league by developing talent and scouting stars of the future. I'm proud of the way we conduct our business and how we compete, we are a club to look up to.
Have to disagree. The club that poached our manager (though by most indications, we weren't adverse to him leaving given that he wasn't going to sign an extension and it made little sense to have a lame duck helming the team) had revenues that were nearly identical to ours last season...marginally lower per Deloitte, actually. We cannot compete with the mega-rich, but we absolutely could compete financially with the likes of Everton, and West Ham, and with 99% of the clubs on the continent. We haven't, IMO, because we had different aims...to get our balance sheet to a place where we could maximize the profit on the sale of the club. Puel got caught in the middle of that, to some extent; he inherited a team with some noticeable gaps, and when we fixed one in January we opened another. That wasn't his fault. But at the same time, I can understand why the board and some fans feel like he hasn't played to the strengths of the squad from an attacking sense, and why -- if many of the players truly are unhappy -- the board is exploring other options.
I recognise that the top half is a good finish for Saints, but at the same time I recognise the writing is on the wall and the warning signs which abound when you have a manager who has lost the dressing room, is churning out dull football (with a bloody dire home record) and seems to have disenchanted large parts (if not the majority) or the fan base. I don't think it's all Puel's fault, I don't even think he's a bad manager. He's been unlucky to some degree, and both the players and board need to admit they have both let him down too at times. I just can't say with any certainty that he's the right manager for next season. If the board make a change, then I can understand why and would see it as a proactive move and would wait to see who the new man and how he begins to change things before judging. Has this been a bad season? No. Has it been a great season? No. Are there signs that a change might be the best thing for the foreseeable future? Yes, I think so.
Ok, so we will that we finish behind Everton but above West Ham and everyone else, isn't that a good achievement?, clubs like Newcastle, Villa, Leeds and Sunderland can all get superior gates to us. We are successful and we can't really EXPECT to get much higher than we are atm don't you agree?
It's myopic in my opinion, because not everything has been equal for Puel yet. He has dealt with a shortage of in form strikers and the loss of his best player, plus having to rotate the squad for the first 2/3 of the season. I have seen real signs of improvement since January in some games and our only losses have been to the top teams. You can't judge a manager fully over one season especially one as disjointed as this one has been. PS Puel was Les Reed's man, if he has the courage of his convictions he should let hem have the real chance to prove himself.
You're making too much of the table as an indicator of success. I know, that sounds silly, but the margins between the teams from 8th to 16th are so small that it's hard to really consider it a banner year because we edged out the chasing pack while finishing a minimum of a dozen points behind the teams above us. We'll finish the season roughly equivalent to the pack of average teams in the league, and miles behind those are good. That's a substantial difference from the season previous, when we were three points off Champions League. Regarding gates: they really don't matter in terms of overall finances these days, where TV revenues are king. In 2014-15, the difference between ourselves and Newcastle (the highest earner beyond the top six) in matchday revenue was 9m...which isn't nothing, but it's a drop in the bucket of the overall revenue picture. Finish higher and the gap is eliminated and then some.
I agree, it's why I said he's been unlucky too. But football is a cut-throat business and you can't spend the next X weeks, months or years waiting for everything to be equal or fall favourably for him. As much as I agree on your final point in the post above, and I also agree this season has been disjointed too, if the manager has lost the faith of the squad then that situation is irretrievable unless you cull the squad or replace the manager.
We aren't going to get into the CL (I still start the season hoping!), i'm not that deluded, last season was a one off and unlikely to be repeated for a long time, success for us is the top ten and possibly a run in the cups and maybe EL qualification. It's what we have always been and I'm comfortable with that.
A season removed from being a couple results from CL (and one which was won by Leicester) this just strikes me as defeatist. It's not 2002 anymore. The financial sea change has made it far easier for clubs like ourselves to acquire genuinely top-class players...I mean, in the span of four seasons, we've had Toby Alderweireld, Virgil Van Dijk, Sadio Mane, and a host of other Saints good enough to play major roles on elite sides. We won't become perennial title challengers by any stretch, but we can and should aim higher than being a top ten side that sometimes makes a cup push.
We can't keep those players though, realistically, it's the way of football and it'll drive you mad thinking it will ever change. it's the capitalist system in a nutshell, money goes to money and the rich get richer.
