H great morning in the pub today, first pint at 4-45am!! Then breakfast and to work with a Stoke fan!! Happy days!
Les will deservedly take the credit for appointing Sparky and airbrush out the poor decisions during last season and this that have got us into this mess.
After the elation of last night, I now have a sense of wanting recrimination about Reed and Krueger. I thought that last season Claude Puel's appointment was uninspired and produced dour football that few people enjoyed watching. His departure was inevitable because there was so little enthusiasm for his style of football. It is not surprise that his brand of playing has similarly found little favour in Leicester. However, the appointment of Pellingrino was an unmitigated disaster. I think he had a difficult task motivating a team who had lost their mojo yet ultimately he proved incapable from recognising and learning from him mistakes. The squad seemed to have lost faith in him and what was obvious to all fans by the end of November, his Reed and Kueger were oblivious to his shortcomings. I am sorry to say thus but watching Saints this season has been a really tough ask. Few players have been better than mediocre and only McCarthy's heroics in recent matches make him a credible candidate for our player of the season. I have found Match of the Day impossible to watch for most of the season and similarly found this board almost pointless because everyone was making the self-same comments week in, week out. There was little debate and the consensus seemed to be right across the board. I did not like the football produced under Claude Puel yet this season we have not only been dull but also incompetent. Quite how Pellegrino remain in his position for so long is bewildering and it beggars belief that anyone could seen any potential with his coaching by the end of the autumn. Some big decisions need to be made in the summer. I think that the positions of both Krueger and Reed are untenable. The new owners need to step up to the plate and explain why there was so much inaction for much of this season and spell out their vision for 2018/19. Our player recruitment policy also needs to be seriously reviewed so that it can be understood how we have gone from making some extremely astute signings to ones which have been mediocre at best and catastrophic failures at worst. The fans will want to know what the inspired football produced by Pochettino and Koeman has been replaced by a team who nearly shot themselves in the foot this season. I think the team needs re-building but with players with proven quality and not those who might offer something in the future. The fans will be quite correct to want to find out why the talent within the academy appears to have dried up. I think this is going to be a massive summer and one necessitating a lot of soul -searching and ultimately recrimination. For two seasons, the football has provided little by way of entertainment and a third season of watching dross is not an option. So much effort and hard work was necessary to steer Saints back up in to the Premier League and it was so nearly lost through careless management and poor appointments. Krueger and Reed have shown themselves as being not up to the job. The changes in the summer need to be root and branch and the Saints fans will expect nothing less spirited football and a wealth of goals next season to replace the dearth of entertainment that has been served up of late.
I only remember it because my boss at the time, a Newcastle fan, said to me "no team with Pele and Best in it should be struggling in the Championship".
P Proud to say that I was there. Proud of how our team fought but above all proud of our support. Don't get too many experiences of pure elation but this was one of them.To leave the stadium and embrace some of our fans with genuine relief was unforgettable and as I walked back to the car the number of Swans fans who tapped me on the arm saying "well done boys" was quite moving. So proud to be a Saints fan.....We get put through the wringer but it goes with the territory. I remember FLT posting several years ago that he thought our badge was naff.....but he loves it. That's how I feel today, we have our flaws but just ocassionally we get it right and it's pure joy.
Oh Ian, please hold back until after Sunday. You are right but it’s been a **** season so let us have a moment of joy. Please
Don't. Always agree with you FLT (and I do harbour a soft spot for Ian's posts) but I can't like your post enough....it's not the time now, leave it for the summer.
Good post IT. Totally agree with first couple paragraphs & virtually much of thereafter. Not sure about getting rid of LR & RK but they certainly have to accept the poor decision making & if stay, have to make changes. Gao to kick ass? Hummm? I think LR will do a runner anyway & then RK will have to go by default.
