Ralph Krueger Interview Incoming

For me it is pretty simple. Is Hughes better than Pellegrino? Yes. Is Hughes a particularly good manager? No.

Throughout Pellegrino’s tenure people were saying stuff like “a competent manager would have us nowhere near relegation” etc. Well Hughes is a competent manager and he came in, got us a point a game and kept us up. Does he “deserve”a new deal, I wouldn’t give him one, but I am not overly fussed if he does get one. I think Hughes would have us having a solid mid table season next year. I don’t think he will he able to get us any higher and for that reason I would roll the dice on someone else, but I appreciate I am talking as someone who loses no money if it goes tots up and we are relegated.

 

Totally agree. I’m a bit late to this “party” - a bit like MH but I’m very surprised at ISIRTP’s negative “tone” towards Hughes. Yes points & win wise he didn’t really do much but the overall feel good factor, getting team & fans together improved massively & in my view, did get the team playing better. Yep, certainly couldn’t have done it without the Swans as I’ve said before but we did survive with MH & I’m 100% sure if we’d stayed with MP this club would be really in the ****ing ****e.

 

In a nutshell

 

Absolutely. And this was my point about qualitative data. Hughes points to games ratio may be ordinary, but the fact was he changed the feel of the club. Duscan Tadic always sounds like a very proud professional who wants to be seen as a good player. Once he said that MH should get the job I was convinced. I would have wanted Hughes to stay if we'd gone down, as it happens

 

Yes. We were a bad team with Hughes managing us. Less bad than we were before, and that difference kept us up...barely. Which is great and all, but I am not happy with our performance under either manager, and I would hope the decision-makers at the club are not, either. What bothers me is they seem to have chalked up the problem to VVD and Pellegrino, but that barely scratches the surface.

We have averaged 1 point per game under Hughes. I do not understand why people are satisfied with this, or why they think our troubles are over. The standard should be set much higher than this.

 

So, are you saying that you think Hughes should have done a better job or that you think he will not be able to lift us much further than he did in his 8 games?

There's a big difference there because frankly MP2 was wholly responsible for the first few games Hughes had to manage. That team were down the toilet and done for the season, its no small thing to walk in and fix that especially when you're not promoting from within but bringing in an outsider with no relationship to either club or players. I think MH worked out remarkably quickly what he was dealing with and what was needed to get points from games. It is harsh to criticise the points tally he got in a very short period of time.

Thinking that he wont actually deliver much more than that, well thats another matter and you may well be proven right. Or you may not.

 

Because he had 8 games and no Pre Season to do the job he was hired to do. Not saying Hughes is the greatest Manager, we know his record is ok, but he did better then what I was expecting him to do, and I thought we were long gone.

 

I’m saying I do not think he can lift this team much further than he did in his 8 games. Mostly because I do not think this team is very good and it would be a very difficult task for anyone.

 

Fair enough. I think most of us agree with that (the team part). Significant change is needed to transform a bunch of talented (and some average) individuals into a match winning 'Team'.

I'm not that au fait and apart from MH, I personally don't know of another manager other than Benitez who I would want at Saints at the moment. We need someone who can unite a squad more than win trophies because one thing we have all seen now is that we wont be buying success we will be earning it. If the Team isn't right we wont be buying our way out of trouble we will be sinking deeper into it.

The Southampton Way.

 

Somebody told me that Gao talk a large amount of money out of the club. An amount so large I don’t believe it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had taken a smaller amount out just in case we were relegated

 

The team needs improving (all can agree on that) but we are easily a mid-table side and should never have been down near the bottom for so long. Someone who can inspire the players and work with what we have (plus a few changes) is required. Mark Hughes has shown that he deserves the chance to try....the players admiring him is no small thing. You never know he may suit us down to the ground and do better here than he has elsewhere...and his results elsewhere aren't as bad as some think. Look at Adkins...decent manager, but his best time was here. Few managers stay for long, but I'd settle for a couple of decent years whilst we get on track.

Chinese whispers. Might as well ignore till next years finances come out.

 

Perhaps we should write an article questioning RKs interview and get it published in the Echo

 

I see what you did there

 

Hughes wasn't THAT great but performances improved and unity and connection between team and fans was 100 times better. Points per game wasn't particularly impressive and other teams being poor helped, but we had a tough run and weren't helped by officials (a win at Everton would have us five clear of the drop zone).

I was disappointed with West Ham but that was his first league game and he hadn't had too much time with the team. Was also disappointed we didn't go for it more at Leicester. Everton was just unlucky but otherwise I was happy with performances considering what went before.

A preseason and some signings in key areas would help Hughes massively and I'd expect an improvement on a point per game. I think we need steadying for a season or two and while I'd be open to a foreign manager or another option, I think Hughes could be right for what we need in the next season or two.

 

That's just it. I don't think we were. I think we finished about where we belong.

I'm happy to give Hughes credit for being huge in the clutch and giving us the edge we needed to avoid relegation. But unless there are big changes, we'll be doing this again next year.

 

I agree with this. But as of now, I have little confidence that that the same board that ****ed up the last two summers and does not believe there is anything fundamentally wrong is going to get us the signings we need.

I don't have a problem with appointing Hughes manager as much as I do the narrative around it. Namely that we are a mid-table club that just made a series of minor mistakes with regards to VVD and hiring Pellegrino which have since been corrected.

We'll have to wait and see of course, but Krueger's statements are disturbing to me, even accounting for the fact that his main job is to spew happy sounding BS. He talks about accountability, but no one is actually being held accountable.

 

If what Krueger says is true, in that Gao has said that any player sales will be reinvested into the club, then it's something to hold on to. We still have £45 million ish from the VVD sale. If Bertrand goes, he'd probably go for £25 million ish. Not that I wouldn't want to see money being invested without having to sell, obviously. How well we recruit, regardless of how we do it, is another matter.

 

OK it may be just me or possibly a typo but what is 'huge in the clutch'? I'm sure it's not what it sounds like.

 

Yeah, we definitely should have a nice chunk of cash to play with. I think that's been the case for some time, though. So who knows if we will actually spend it?

I would love to see us dedicate a small chunk of money to buy up some youth players for the academy. I don't think we've been very active on that front despite the whole "Southampton Way" thing, and we could have exploited our EPPP status more.