Recent improvement in attitude

I don't think the Black criticism is just one guy, quite a few want him gone and blame him for the negative style employed since he has been here. Probably looking at his previous record at clubs like Villa and Sunderland where he came in and they quickly turned dreadful and adding 2 and 2 together, maybe getting 5 or there might be more truth in it. Same with a couple over there who think Dave Watson is the reason our keepers aren't very good and keepers get worse whilst at Saints.

Football is fickle as everyone knows and regardless of how well a job he has done in the past things change very quickly. A lot of people on here were in agreement that Puel was dealt a bad hand by none other than Les Reed and if you don't see that as his first offence then you could make a case for him to leave.

 

Football is not fickle, you’re fickle

You can’t expect people to learn and improve if you don’t forgive their failings

 

That thread annoys me as a JWP fan... guy posted some very poorly interpreted stats to show why prowse is **** and everyone believes him even though it's per games which puts prowse at a massive disadvantage as he rarely plays 90 minutes!

Had to resist making an account to contradict him. Thankfully you brought it up so i can unashamedly post per 90 stats here to relieve my frustration

http://www.squawka.com/comparison-matrix&ref_src=twsrc^tfw&related=Squawka&text=Squawka | Comparison matrix&tw_p=tweetbutton&url=http://www.squawka.com/comparison-matrix

 

Forgetting we were in a much better position under Pochettino the year before. Weren't we 3 points off top or 3 points off second in November that season?

I don't blame Les at all. I think the fans want too much. All I want is decent football and not to be bored. I would like it to achieve results as well though. Not greedy am I. lol

If you want to blame anybody for bad transfer windows blame the black box. Maybe they should lock the door and start using humans again. lol

EDIT:We were 3 off top and 1 off second and then lost 2-0 to Arsenal:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/24783128

 

When Boruc thought he was a Dutch legend

 

You only had to go up a couple of posts to see Talk of sacking Les Reed

 

Well it's ridiculous talk anyway.

 

Out of interest - I'm not calling for him to be sacked - but how many more summer failures would it take for it to not be considered 'ridiculous'?

Or is he untouchable?

 

It’s tough at the top

 

As far as I'm concerned his biggest failure has been sacking Puel.

If we get rid of the players, manager, owners and Reed, what will we have left from our time as best of the rest that might bring us back there?

From the last two seasons, when used correctly, Austin Hojbjerg Gabbiadini lemina hoedt and now Puel have all shown to be good enough. While redmond and Boufal have shown glimpses.

What we're lacking is a team. continuous staff upheaval and changing the way we do things won't help with that.

 

Who'd be a ****ing head coach aye, pleasing the owners with growth and money, the higher-ups with wins, the fans with line-ups and results and cup runs, the players with starting places - Its impossible to do all that. Top 6 do it with money, pay players enough they'll sit on their thumbs and pretend to be happy, spend a half billion and you'll get results and line-ups that please the fans, sell more shirts and season tickets to please the owners who couldn't care less about the profits because they're so rich already. Not so simple for anyone at Saints I fear. If not MP2 then who, if not Les Reed then who? If I had to choose one, I know who would be off.

 

Oh I'm not saying to sack him, though I suspect one way or another he won't be here too much longer anyway.

I'm just playing devils advocate and asking at what point would it not become 'ridiculous' to qsuggest it when he's probably the most at fault for the past two Summers.

Again, I ask if some think he's untouchable?

 

I don’t think Les is untouchable, I think the new owner is looking on, stroking the pussy that is sat on his lap, waiting for the moment to pounce.

I think he will be reviewing what **** is going down, and won’t be afraid of taking action.

Going to be a big points haul to stay up this season I think...

 

No one is really cut adrift at the moment so 17th will probably be on at least 38. Agreed I think if we lost to Hudders then the new owner might take action... he'll be sweating a bit on his investment for sure.

I think Swansea and Brighton will definitely go and one other...

 

It depends on definition of “failure” and how long the players are judged that he’s signed. For me the only real failure has been one striker missing.

I do believe that people get a little blinkered when things don’t go well. I’m not overly defending here, but just saying that the Board/Les sign the players but then it is down to the manager and he players to perform.

Take Boufal - I still think he is a fantastic player and a great signing. Is it Les’ fault he’s not been played enough or done enough?

Pierre - for me another good signing. This last week people have been waxing about him and moaning he didn’t play last night. 12 months ago they thought he was **** and a bad signing.

Wes - everyone thought three months back he was a great signing. Now he is a dick head. Les’ fault too? I’m not so sure.

Things are not quite right for us at the moment, but for me it is about getting the pieces of the puzzle in the right places. I still think we are possibly only one piece missing and if we are only missing one piece, I’d say it’s not been a failure but nearly a good thing. Yes, there’s been a couple of windows where a striker wasn’t bought, but let’s not forget in the last 4 windows, we bought 2 strikers.

Fine lines.

We just need to buckle up.

 

I'm not talking about individual signings, but I think there's little doubt in most peoples minds that he's failed in the last two windows in bringing in enough adequate signings for the manager to work with... he then made a poor decision in sacking Puel in my opinion too.

Like I say, I'm not calling for him to go, just curious how many more windows where we haven't addressed glaring holes in the team would he need before it's not considered 'ridiculous'.

 

That’s my point. You have to look at the signings and then decide. Last season a lot of fans thought Pierre not good enough. Now he’s the new saviour. This summer we didn’t let anyone leave we didn’t want to. We should have signed another striker in my opinion, but that’s the only thing missed in the summer, so again I’m saying, “What is a failure” is it really black and white? Miss one player and it’s called a failure? Two summers in a row we could easily say we should have signed another striker; in both the following Januarys we corrected that.

I’m just saying it is not black and white for me, in terms of failure. It is. It good, but most of the ingredients are here. Maybe one piece missing.

Look at the posts in the last two weeks before last night with people pleased that the manager had selection problems. Next **** performance and we’re back to not having enough. It can’t be both ways, can it?

 

I don't remember that about Pierre tbh, I thought most could see he was talented but young and needing time. Agreed it's not completely black and white but for me, when we scored the 2nd (?) least amount of goals at home last year to the side who finished bottom, to then not go out and buy a single attacking player is poor. Similarly to go into a season with European football with a strike force of Austin, Long and JRod is poor for me, to then sack the manager who despite the previous delivered pretty good results was also a bad call.

That's 3 major things in less than 18 months that are (imo) the biggest reasons that we will be close or in the bottom 3 at the beginning of January '18.

 

As for the bottom bit it has always been that way on forums, last year espescially we were going from relegation candidates to European challengers by the week

 

I’m only playing devils advocate here (you like to do that too).. but I think it is plausible the last two months of last season were written off. Everyone knew Puel was going, including him, the players and the fans. That for me in hindsight is a write-off and the 6 home games without a goal I was part of that dis-interest. If there was a big mistake from the Board, possibly it wasn’t acting either way them and quickly. Either back Puel and bollock the players then, or sack him. They dawdled. We had delivered some of what they wanted and we wanted, but once the Cup Final had gone, it unravelled. They may have thought that we could do it with what we had.

I agree with the things you list they got wrong, however I’m not really sure sacking Puel and especially going into Europe 18 months ago with those three, are the reasons we may be bottom three in January.

As I said, I’m not defending for defending sake, just saying that I believe it’s a combination of a lot of things from Board down to players and fans. We may be in a vicious circle at the moment and something needs to break that.