Ralph Krueger Interview Incoming

Manically obsessive for me all the way. Fits in a lot better with being a fan and having that same emotion.

 

There are elements of his I miss.. but main worry was that it was always going to end in a bad way...

 

I mean it’s just absolute ****, I tried to listen to it twice and couldn’t finish it.

- They didn’t spot the obvious signs Pellegrino was completely useless for months
- Academy has seemingly fallen apart, including no communication with loanees
- Disastrous signings
- Completely random managerial appointments - no similar coaching styles.

We are displaying all of the attributes of a club that has no clue what it’s doing, after beng so well run for years. I think LTL called it correctly. We miss Cortese’s decision making.

 

We miss decision-making, period. The general impression is that none of our purported leaders have a damned clue what is happening at their own club.

 

Well that was a thoroughly disappointing and depressing read. Even looking past all the ineptitude laid out by Osvaldorama and others...why did we even sell to Gao in the first place? He clearly can't take us forward like we needed, and has seemingly puts us on even tighter shackles, y'know despite being in the richest league in the world, and making serious £££ in player sales year on year. I could speculate as to why, but it's just getting me frustrated thinking about it all.

 

He’d take your penny, not give you any thoughts and reinvest **** all into the club.

 

This absolutely nails the issues for me. I think the interview was a waste of time and full of meaningless sound bites. I would have liked Krueger's feet to be held over the fire for these issues. They are so fundamental as to what has gone wrong over the last two seasons. Koeman is alleged to have been dissatisfied with the academy and therefore I would suggest that the problem has probably been more long running than the last two seasons. The late decision to dismiss Pellegrino is the more worrying aspect since he was repeatedly making the same mistakes week after week and continued with a system which wasn't working. The warning signs were there by the end of November and I feel that the decision not to make a change in 2017, before the transfer window, was almost an extremely costly error.

Sometimes in football there are unfortunate incidents such as injuries which can cast a team in to the relegation zone. With Saints this season, the whole situation was totally unnecessary and self-inflicted. It is difficult to see where the blame could lie other than with the board. This situation in 2017/18 clearly shows that the current board are not up to the task. They have to go.

 

Totally agree RSS. KL supposedly sold to Gao as she did not have the finances to push the club further, but then Wreck it Ralph says that the club will go back to selling players and reinvesting that money. In that case, KL may as well remained in control of the club? I also recall in January when Ralph was wheeled out to defend the clubs appointment of Pellegrino and saying he was the right man? (yeah ok), that he said that Mr Gao would be making a statement of his plans in February, and we should all be excited for the future. Well Ralph, guess what, we're all still waiting, and its nearly bloody June. but I guess its as we knew, he has no money to invest in the club, and they will instead use this season as a reasoning to continue to sell any player to the highest bidder?

 

I don’t know how much I hold Krueger responsible for the mess at the club, mainly because I assume he is mostly a face-man/PR/professional bullshitter who does not control either the purse strings or the footballing decisions. Although I suppose for that reason I would also not care if he were fired.

But assuming his job is to put positive spin on stuff... it sounds like we could be in deep ****.

 

Or get a manager sacked after finishing 8th and coming within an assistant's flag of winning a trophy. Not trying to be a Puel apologist as I am aware of the anti-Puel sentiment on this forum. Yet I found it remarkable that anyone running this club couldn't see the disruption to our season under Puel caused by injuries. The classic example was our world class centre back getting a kick and being out for half a season. It seemed every time a Saints player tripped on a divot they were out for weeks. Puel's press conferences were taken up with his list of players unavailable. Fans got pissed off with performances, but they should have been ignored. The board should have realised that they needed to stick with Puel, who at least had the balls to play young players, and given him the push in, say, November if things weren't turning round. No-one, fans or pundits, would have questioned that.

Instead, they landed themselves with an inept manager and tried to save face by making public declarations of support. They clearly hoped that the iceberg would miss the bloody ship, and only woke up as the water was reaching their comfortable offices. I am an atheist, but I trust that those who believe in a God offer thanks for Mark Hughes and the ineptitude of Swansea City.

 

I am also one who thought Puel should at least have started last season. I cannot believe things would have got to the same point with some continuity. Last season was much like this in that there were few points between a lot of teams, so a few points gained early would have made all the difference. And I agree with Missing Lambo, all hail, Swansea. Hughes took a couple of games to get the team firing...we needed a seriously bad side to be the fall guy.

Having said that I would have kept Puel (and continued not listening to him ), I have to point out that a lot of people were calling for his head. Things didn't work out with MP2, but if they had everyone would be talking about the courage of the board in making that decision.

What the board can take from this season is ignore the fans and players whinging...they don't always know best. And what the players can take from this is be careful what you wish for and, if Mark Hughes is the next manager, do your very, very best for him as you don't know who is round the corner.

 

Here’s more.

 

Okay, that one is even more of a tire fire.

Followed shortly after by

So now we know what one of the five values on which they worked for months will be, even if they don't seem to quite understand that being accountable consists of more than saying "we are accountable" before shifting the blame.



We're also clearly going all-in on this "we erred by not selling enough good players" mantra. Repeats the same thing in this interview.

If nothing else, it's neat that we're literally arguing that the core of the Southampton Way is an annual yard sale.

 

Maybe the real plan over the last year has been to lower expectations?
Well, they have done that. Even with Mark and a functioning squad, we are now the same as the Watfords & Palaces.
Top four comes knocking, you let them go with a polite smile.
Finish between 12th & 16th place, you should appreciate it.
Thanks Ralph, that's just friggin' great.

 

RK: I think our club decision to consolidate last year and hang on to core players was for Southampton Football Club wasn’t the right time to do that. That definitely hurt us.

Confirmed what I suggested on another thread. They paid top whack wages (at our level) to stop losing players, but did it after a few horses had bolted, so they ended up with a lot of players that were over paid and they can't shift. And the biggest problem was that it didn't work with the only top class player we had: Virgil. And having made the stance, they tried to stand firm with him (to much applause on here remember) and that back fired in being distracting at a time when we needed to concentrate on what was happening on the pitch.

 

But that seems to take the wrong lesson from it. We got much, much worse when we sold Virgil; clearly, whatever "distraction" he provided paled in comparison to the value of having people that are good at football. Selling all of our best players if they so much as look at the door and hoping that "team spirit" will carry the day is a recipe for disaster.

Particularly now that you've announced it to the world, because now you have absolutely no leverage in negotiations, having told everyone and their donkey that you'll sell anyone who puts up a fuss in the misguided pursuit of unity.

 

They paid top whack wages (at our level) to stop losing players, but did it after a few horses had bolted, so they ended up with a lot of players that were over paid and they can't shift
__________________

Wait, what? We did it with two players. Virgil's new contract netted us probably an extra 20M. And Fraser, where his new deal has probably cost us 20M.
We didn't do the whole group........Even if Ralph says its so.

 

I try not to get angry but Mr Krueger gets right up my goat! As a long-standing fan I don't give a flying....fig about America, China, marketing, global branding or anything else that's whirling around in that head. I care about having a decent, relatively happy team to support to have some good times with and enjoy watching. I know we have different aims in life and I can't invest millions in anything, but I do invest thousands every year following Saints and would like to think that all at the club had the performance of the 1st team as the central focus too. Obviously we've veered away from that this season.

And while I'm on a rant - all of 12 hours to find someone to manage the team? Whatever happened to being prepared for any eventuality, two steps ahead blah blah blah.

Well that's off my chest! Have a good day everyone

 

“You waste energy on blame”

Classic response of someone who should shoulder a lot of the blame.

 

Except he seems to put an awful lot of blame upon Virgil. I mean, I dislike what happened with him, but this season was hardly his fault. He played, and when he did, he was out best defender.