Recent improvement in attitude

i think that strikers think differently than the rest of the team, its their sole job to score or create. gabbl has been given game time and has not scored, not really given the chance to score either in a pretty poor team effort. i think he will see why he is not playing as charlie is scoring, but he will know that charlie rarely plays 90 mins and he has to fight to get his place back. he can play in several positions which should ensure he gets game time

 

Is there any evidence gabbiadini wants to leave?

My money would be on VVD, he’s out the door and has the natural ability and strength to play with a hangover. Also he doesn’t move much anymore.

 

Well if you remember, he had Gabby in and out niggling injuries and Charlie long term still. All we had was Shane Long, and if you are going to depend upon him completely you won't be scoring huge numbers of goals. As it proved. We also still had VVD out and the defence wasn't as sure as it was with him in the side, whatever Stephens' excellent contribution.

 

No it isn't and I don't. We finished 8th, 7th, 6th and 8th again. That's the best of the rest position and bucking for making a nuisance even higher. That's where we want to be. I'm happy for it to change hands to another team when we don't need it anymore.

 

Where who wants to be? You? The wider fan base? The club? Probably all of those, but wanting to be there on a regular basis and actually getting there are 2 completely separate things, and in my view we shouldn't be sacking managers or slating the club if we don't manage to do it. You could make an argument that 7th is best of the rest as well, so we have only finished there or better twice, but that's being slightly pedantic.

 

You are of course correct, but Gabbi was more in than out, he just wasnt playing well/we werent playing to his strengths.

The demise for me happened when we exited Europe. Not Brexit, the other major one...

We still had ample quality to play better than we did, and I think there was something else going on. Not sure what, but for me things were not right with him and that is why we let him go. Not about league position and the cup final. Wasnt there mutterings of discontent with the players?

 

I thought for a moment that watching Saints now is like watching Spurs. If that it the case, then that is wonderful.

 

At that moment in time 80% wanted him out based on a team under his supervision and instruction playing negative boring football. The 80% was 100% warranted based on that moment in time because he "seemingly" was too stubborn to try anything different to change the situation.

Whether Les has blasted him or he actually changed things round himself is by the by. Based on the now then 80% are not going to want him out. However if he were to revert to stubborness in another period of poor performance/results then the 80% would be warranted again.

I don;t have too much of a problem with him at the moment but he has to see there is a problem much quicker and try to address it much quicker rather than just sticking to his guns for so long.

As for it being like Brexit, There is no movement in that one. Even Vince Cable admits that there has been no real movement.

 

Interesting thread.

Re. Les, there are obviously issues about the transfer business in the summer, and some valid arguments about the strategy and manager decisions that I guess he is responsible for. But that doesn't explain why he is so unpopular, particularly as he did what apparently most people wanted and sacked Puel. Maybe it's easy to fill in the gaps with speculation when we don't hear much about what he does, so it's good to have a little story about what actually happens.

 

Lets put it this way then I am not part of a lynch mob who string up a guy without any evidence when logic says differently.

 

Who's getting lynched ffs?

Is this further evidence of the Godders sense of humour bypass?

 

You talking about me and SS?

 

You talking about me and TIOON7.?

 

Snap

 

If you go back to the League 1 days and evaluate the job Les has done and see how far the club has come since then then he has done a fantastic job, but I think it has to get to a point where people stop saying "Well we were in League 1 x years ago" as an excuse/reason for fans not to want to expect/hope for more. We have been treading water for the last few years, which is no mean feat considering the competition but I think it is only natural for some people to want to progress and then they start looking for someone to blame for the stagnation.

Personally I think Reed should've been gone pretty swiftly after the summer of 2016 as I think he ****ed that window up and had messed up a couple of times before. I don't know if he was completely responsible or if there were a lack of funds/willingness to spend from higher up, but like the manager with on field performances, he is the one who ultimately takes the blame for transfer business.

 

Both Boufal and Hojbjerg seem to be doing better under Pellegrino tbf. And Redmond wasn't bad in his first 45 minutes as a RW which I'm still sure is what Reed bought him as. Austin isn't doing bad as a replacement for Pelle now either.

I think Reed has to take a large share of responsibility for only finishing 8th last season, but I wouldn't call it a sackable offense tbh.

 

Yes not a sackable offense by itself, my main criticism of him dates back to the season we were sat 4th going into January. Was painfully obvious we needed another striker as we were just relying on Pelle and if we had signed another one to share the burden (at least on paper) then I really think we had a shot at CL football that year. We didn't, Pelle went 10 games or something without scoring and we fell away finishing 7th iirc. Don't care what it would've cost at the time (without completely bankrupting the club ofc) we should've really gone for it, the board had been banging on about breaking the top 4/6 for ages and when we were in a legitimate position to really go for it we didn't. As I said before not sure if that was him or from above, but he carries the blame.

 

Les Reed has been part of the renaissance of this club and, whilst we would like to be top of the trees, we are still doing ok as a club and a business. Fans are too quick to bin players, managers and others if things don't look better every single season. A football club is a business and I'm glad we have a board who give things time. Not every player or manager works out....you can look at top clubs and see that.....and genius players and managers can be hard to find and not necessarily want to come to Southampton. As Ralph said, Saints have reached the point of being able to hold onto players on long contracts (that implies that the board and Les weren't able to before and we lost players we would have liked to keep).

We have a talented squad who are capable of more than they are doing. Whatever has happened recently behind the scenes has produced a positive result....we need more of that. This squad is capable of so much more.

All this talk about sacking Les Reed....be careful what you wish for.

 

That's undoubtedly true.
They didn't give Claude the next season he needed.
Doesn't just imply it, it was patently obvious [sorry to nitpick]
Yeah, I think this squad is decidely underperforming. Sometimes we get a real glimpse. The bottom line is scoring goals and not conceding, and for all our neat football we don't have enough of the scoring, and we have a tad too much of the conceding.
I've not seen any talk of sacking Les Reed. That would be just plain stupid. With Nicola, he came up with the plans that got us this far. I think he's perfectly capable of taking this club much further.

 

There are fans on Saintsweb who would like to see the back of Les....seem to feel that you should be sacked after a fall off in form however many years you have been a success before. Presumably their personal relationships are very short You must avoid drinking if you pop over there or your keyboard will get a drenching. One seems to blame Black for everything And another talks of how diabolical a player JWP is....fair enough to discuss form and does he suit us etc....but diabolical....really?