As much as I like Forster I'd probably agree - especially as he was only one year into a new 5 year contract at that point.
In Saints' defence (OMG I am defending the board!), this was a season after the mass exodus (IIRC) and we had just finished the highest ever in the Prem - we really thought we were going places.
I wonder if we were approached by big club asking about avalibility, and we thought we were going to lose him, so would get a better offer if he had a real long term deal. Just doesn't make sense. A very costly decision indeed.
Not quite - Forster signed a 5 year contract in 2016 (fair enough no arguments with that one) , just after we finished 6th and then another new 5 year contract the following year after Puel got sacked which is the bemusing one.
To be fair,if we wait to summer I wouldn't care if we sell loads of the team. Just not Ings or Armstrong or Redmond or Bertrand. Rest is meh as long as we replace
It seems clear to me, that this club have zero ambition to move up the league, and become a 2nd tier club! At present, we are in a great position to hunt down a European place, but I believe the board only wants us to survive in the Premier league, season after season. Come the summer, the family silver will get sold to the highest bidder, and a cheaper version will be brought in to replace them, leading to another will we stay up season. We have an owner who has no money! Surely the club could find someone with the ambition to move us forward. Yeah this is a rant from me, my own opinion of how this football club is being run.
That 2017/18 season was just bizarre looking back. Sacking Puel so late. Hiring Pellegrino. Signing Hoedt, Lemina & Carillio. Hiring Mark Hughes. Gao takes over. Forsters bizarre contract. The whole Van Dijk situation. What a time to be alive.
I'd put JWP, Bedders and Alex in that category too but we won't see a fire sale I doubt, I just hope we get rid of the ones that have no future here at all first.
I think Les Reed was beginning to believe his hype and lost his marbles a bit...power corrupts and all that. Tbf none of that happens if we kept Puel that season apart from Gao of course.
To be fair I think the whole board lost their marbles. Kat just wanted her couple of hundred million out. GAO came in with empty promises..........
I don't like this "club has no ambition" accusation that people trot out. They are actually very clear about what their ambitions are. Here are a few: 1. Their ambition is to be self-financing, while competing in the Premier League 2. Their ambition is to provide a pathway for developing young players to achieve their potential 3. Their ambition is to play exciting, expansive football All these are fine ambitions, but the corollary is that, no, we won't consistently be in the second tier of clubs and, yes, we will sell our best players when they are at their peak, because that's how you achieve ambition 2. It may not be what you want, but it is nonetheless ambitious.
We’ve been trying at number 1 for about 8 years, when we eventually become self sustaining what then. Come to think of it didn’t cortese say something about having a pathway for academy players?
The model of selling our best players is a model an awful lot of clubs all over Europe follow. The model in itself is not a problem its how its implemented and maintained. It can be very successful although its hard to maintain the success as many including us have found.
Yes you raise some good points. However. I am fed up with clubs like Bournemouth, Palace, Watford, Brighton showing ambition, wanting to compete. Yeah I guess I am envious of them, having ownership that seems to give a damm about the Saints, a club I have in my blood.
We've played fewer and fewer young players as the years have gone by, though, because while declaring ourselves to be an academy club, we rather inexplicably let our academy atrophy. Obafemi and Valery have gotten some playing time this year, and the same two last year, and those two in backup roles are effectively the only youth we've brought through for quite a while. Our model has more realistically been to sell our best players, and then buy lesser players. And then to buy different lesser players when the first batch aren't up to snuff, and then another batch when we loan out the first two groups.
yeah but the idiot board decided to extend all the players who were left (ie the ones the big clubs didn’t want) so we were stuck with them longer than we should’ve been
To be fair lemina showed real promise when he got here. And wasn’t hoedt a polish national player? Agree with the rest though.