You just knew ...

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
He has gone. Draw a line under it and move on.

I don't think I was advocating revisionism. Simply, what have we learned from the fiasco? Having a revolving door on the manager's office isn't good. Appointing Koeman after MP was a real statement of ambition, albeit he turned out to be more a short term fix than a long term project as evidenced in his shunning of the academy players.

Puel put a lot of things right, most notably in the way he used the academy. The stand out moment for me in this regard was the brave decision he made to bring on Sims at 0-0 in the LC game at Anfield. That could have gone horribly wrong. The decision to appoint a manager with his CV was to demonstrate that Saints were getting back to what they do. Will one of the "sack 'im" brigade tell me what statement the appointment of Pellegrino has made. That he is now publicly criticising the players isn't good. It makes him look weak to add to the feeling that he is indecisive. .

Fundamentally Saints have dug themselves into a hole. Sack Pellegrino and bring in an Allardyce type manager may be an unpalatable option. Keep him and back him is the only other one, and for me is the only logical one.

We have simply lost to a form team and there shouldn't be a knee jerk response. This is what we did after we struggled at the end of last season when a few players scoring from 12 yards would have helped. Not sure that they were playing to Puel's instructions when missing those penalties.

Anyway, Godders, as I implied in my OP, please allow those of us who screamed blue murder about Puel's sacking a moment of schadenfrude, as you clearly do about Brexit. Like the Brexit debate, those of us who think it wrong have to move on, of course. But we are allowed a moment to say "told you this was a **** idea" every now and again. In life, **** ideas are allowed to run. The key thing is to learn. You don't do that by simply "drawing a line".
 
'New manager comes in and wins a few games' shocker!

I never wanted Puel out, but then, I only watched about half of our games last season, so I don't consider myself in a position to judge. Regarding this season, in half a dozen games or so Leicester's form will drop and they will finish 7th-8th. Despite a horrible performance last time out, Saints will continue to improve and finish the season top ten. Big ****ing wow.
 
People not renewing STs would indicate discontent, but would have a minimal financial effect on Saints as I am willing to bet the ground would still be largely full and a large portion of income comes from Sky anyway. I suspect it was perfectly possible for Puel to stay, but a rift developed between him and the board (or at least the one he dealt with....LR). Puel spoke at the beginning of what was required of him...bring youngsters through, get out of the group stage of the Europa and reach the quarter finals of a cup. May not have achieved the Europa bit, but the final of the League Cup could be considered over achieving. He could quite rightly have felt he'd achieved a lot in his first season. I suspect he wasn't so much sacked as left by mutual agreement....especially if he didn't feel he had the board's full support.

I work for a company with a similar financial turnover to Saints and they get pretty pissy if they’re down a few k on what’s expected.

My friend wanted Puel sacked from about October last year, branded him clueless etc - jumped for joy at his sacking
Now Pellegrino is clueless and he hopes we lose today, so he gets the sack

As FLT said, it’s becoming a vicious circle
 
I work for a company with a similar financial turnover to Saints and they get pretty pissy if they’re down a few k on what’s expected.

My friend wanted Puel sacked from about October last year, branded him clueless etc - jumped for joy at his sacking
Now Pellegrino is clueless and he hopes we lose today, so he gets the sack

As FLT said, it’s becoming a vicious circle

We could break that cicle by appointing someone not clueless.
 
Some of us Oldies will remember a certain Manager called Laurie Mac. We were in the 1st division when he joined us and the first thing he did was to get us relegated. The only thing that saved him was, he tried to play decent football which was recognised at the time. The rest is now history, he was never ever able to repeat his Saints performance at any other club. Or perhaps I should say was never given the chance to repeat it perhaps........
 
  • Like
Reactions: Missing Lambo
Whether or not Pellegrino is the right man for the job is too early to say in my view, and any manager coming into a new league probably needs a season or more to properly adapt and bring in his own players and ideas. We have been good this year and bad, and with similar issues to last season with player recruitment, not really knowing whats going on behind the scenes with the new owner and the nature of the league no manager is going to get that. If we are within a couple of points of the bottom 3 mid January then I think the board will be seriously considering his position.

The PL is a total money pit and getting relegated from it is a total disaster for any club, the obvious course of action for a club facing relegation is to change manager, we would be no different.
 
Whether it's Puel's appointment, or Puel's sacking (and I'm not here to debate which), one of them was surely wrong. That falls at Les' door. Either in Summer 2016 or Summer 2017, he messed up.

And that's even before throwing MP's appointment, and our transfer dealings, into the equation.
 
I think the thing that frustrates fans is the lack of identity. We had no identitiy, or at least very different to adkins/MP1 and koeman, with puel. Are we starting to see a return to that 'southampton way'? Everton and arsenal would suggest yes. The rest, no not really.

I may be wrong but it doesn't feels as though MP2 has stamped his authority and identity on the team. I still can't really work out what style we play, similar to puel but defence a bit more vulnerable.
 
More likely that he started the circle. Our manager prior to him were most certainly not clueless so there was no circle to break.
No. If you want an explanation Puel was the first manager in this cycle of not being given the chance of building a team in the summer that results in getting sacked before the next one. Pellegrino seems like he might be the second. MP1 had a ready made partnership of Lallana and Lambert. After selling them Koeman had a blank slate to bring in his own partnership of Pelle and Tadic. If we keep sacking our managers, we'll never build an identity so we'll keep sacking our managers ad infinitum.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Number 1 Jasper
'New manager comes in and wins a few games' shocker!

I never wanted Puel out, but then, I only watched about half of our games last season, so I don't consider myself in a position to judge. Regarding this season, in half a dozen games or so Leicester's form will drop and they will finish 7th-8th. Despite a horrible performance last time out, Saints will continue to improve and finish the season top ten. Big ****ing wow.

I call it 'Black Magic'. <wizard>
 
Some of us Oldies will remember a certain Manager called Laurie Mac. We were in the 1st division when he joined us and the first thing he did was to get us relegated. The only thing that saved him was, he tried to play decent football which was recognised at the time. The rest is now history, he was never ever able to repeat his Saints performance at any other club. Or perhaps I should say was never given the chance to repeat it perhaps........

Less of the oldies, you old bugger. But I've said before that had we had a forum like this in the 70's the guy wouldn't have got a second season. Funnily enough, I still remember the Archers Road whine though. This was after we'd won the Cup, gained promotion, lost in a LC final and established ourselves as a top 6 side. We'd have had the 1970's & '80's whingers asking "How long is he going to persist with that traitor Channon?" and that crap keeper we had - Shilton for those who weren't there - would have taken untold abuse.

Fans , eh?
 
Less of the oldies, you old bugger. But I've said before that had we had a forum like this in the 70's the guy wouldn't have got a second season. Funnily enough, I still remember the Archers Road whine though. This was after we'd won the Cup, gained promotion, lost in a LC final and established ourselves as a top 6 side. We'd have had the 1970's & '80's whingers asking "How long is he going to persist with that traitor Channon?" and that crap keeper we had - Shilton for those who weren't there - would have taken untold abuse.

Fans , eh?

How true..........Laurie was trying to persuade the board to take the offer made by the speedway guy after we had won the cup.........Had they done so it would have secured our future as a reasonable top 6/8 club with a decent ground of around 45000. I can remember getting into a huge argument with some older fans at the time, Milton road end. I was advocating it was the best thing for the clubs future and they told me I was speaking out of my Ass. My daughter who was only 9/10 at the time backed me up when they started to get a bit out of control. One of the guys knocked her hat off and called her a little ****...........Luckily for him the guys just in front of him stopped me getting at him. He would have ended up in hospital or worse. A steward grabbed him and I never saw him again......he was a very lucky man that day. Sadly my daughter wouldn't go to another match because of that incident and to my knowledge still hasn't to this day........
 
How true..........Laurie was trying to persuade the board to take the offer made by the speedway guy after we had won the cup.........Had they done so it would have secured our future as a reasonable top 6/8 club with a decent ground of around 45000. I can remember getting into a huge argument with some older fans at the time, Milton road end. I was advocating it was the best thing for the clubs future and they told me I was speaking out of my Ass. My daughter who was only 9/10 at the time backed me up when they started to get a bit out of control. One of the guys knocked her hat off and called her a little ****...........Luckily for him the guys just in front of him stopped me getting at him. He would have ended up in hospital or worse. A steward grabbed him and I never saw him again......he was a very lucky man that day. Sadly my daughter wouldn't go to another match because of that incident and to my knowledge still hasn't to this day........

LAWRIE!!!!!