Meh, I think if a manager isn't good enough get rid. The board have messed up since they went with player power and got rid of Puel. Les needs to walk or be sacked due to how he has been carrying on
The reverse has often been true as well: as the only place whose window is open, Russia has provided a prime landing spot for teams looking for loan destinations.
Yeah I actually agree with you Beef but it was getting me down so much that I decided to go full on denial. Turns out I'm happier pretty much all of the time except when Saints are playing
I didn't feel Puel was the best fit but he was a damn sight better than MP2. They made an error recruiting him and have made a more serious error in not sacking him when the time was right. A few more losses and the will HAVE to sack him, surely? Then we leave whoever comes in with a very, very difficult job (ala Redknapp 2005).
Yeah but their options are still limited and it’s completely understandable they wouldn’t want to let their best player leave without knowing they have a replacement on their way. Letting him go and hoping they can get someone on loan doesn’t seem like good business to me.
And sometimes things are just what they seem. We wanted Promes, he was happy to come, but Spartak didn't want to sell unless it suited them. They may or may not have changed their reason (as told to Saints) but doesn't make any difference as the end result is the same.
Here's another idea; approach numerous targets at once, establish if the player wants to leave and the club are prepared to sell and then buy one of them.
And make an acceptable offer early in the window, to suss out whether the deal is viable (and to allow the other side to get their moves lined up). Might cost a little more, but guess what? Costs much less than relegation.
Bottom line is, we got VvD out on the first day of the window, and here we are on the last day, unable to complete a bit of business that might just keep us in the division. Poor show.
Except IF MP2 gets replaced , I hope whoever replaces him actually gives a stuff about survival , IMHO Arry only came to us to stick two fingers up to Mandaric , and it bit us in the arse ! I said it at the time , and still believe it .
We may have been told he wasn't for sale earlier in the window, and then became available when the reports came out about two weeks ago. We have no idea. If I was Spartak I wouldn't have sold until the deadline if I was going too...
Not disagreeing with you , but didn't you yourself say he has become too powerful , and that 5 would need to go ? The lack of comment from Gao is the worst bit IMHO . Asset strip ? Let the club go to ruin ? Build on the land ? It's been mentioned before ...
And yet we didn't have anything else lined up. Every window, there's a different reason why it fell through, but the end result is always the same. There are really only two conclusions that I can reach from that pattern: either we're rather bad at this, or talking up our desire to make transfers is something of a PR exercise to show how committed we are to pushing on, without actually spending the money necessary to do so. I tend to think that it's the latter more than the former, personally.
Krueger (not that we can actually trust him) said GAO will be making a few statements in February and beyond I think, so maybe something in the next few weeks we'll hear from him. When it's too late to sign anyone.
