So who is your preference for new manager then.

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Well compare our team right now to any other PL squad and I’d say we are around 15th or so. Villa, Everton and Wolves are all poor and have been derided recently but if you were to do a best 11 with ours and each of them how many of our players would make it in?

We have a lot of young players who may or may not go on to big things, if they do it won’t be with us, but they will obviously have impressed enough to get their big moves. The question will be how well we spend the money we get for them as to whether or not we can start to target higher positions in the league. This will take time and hugely relies on us staying up in the first place and ensuring our recruitment is very good

We had a late link with a really impressive looking defender from Wolfsburg (Lacroix). I expect he would have been minimum 20m. But if we get 50-60m+ as an offer for ABK then suddenly we can get a more established player as a replacement AND then spend elsewhere as well.

I expect that is the plan rather than selling ABK for (say) 60m and then buying 5 players all in the 10-12m bracket and hoping for another ABK or Lavia. Not least because it would seem like we don't need sales to fund those type of buys. But to add in players in the 20-40m bracket that sides hoping to be in the 8th-14th slots appear to be full of (Everton, Villa, Leicester, Wolves etc) then we need some of the big sales.

That said we seemed prepared to go both one or both of Delap and Gakpo for 20m and around 30m respectively (no idea if we'd have still been in for the latter if the former had been bought - they are very different players). But we won't be able to do that every year without some sales. Perhaps there is an extra 50-60m for two established attackers but I'd then say any more signings in the bracket that we currently don't operate in at all would need to be partially sales based.
 
Jesus, do people actually want Koeman. Oh lord...
Do many people really want him? Lincoln mention him but not how 2 of his 3 dreamland scenarios are ex managers who left us in the lurch. And the third is one who was desired by the fanbase for ages (I think even before dortmund?). It is a list that you'd expect from a fan. But not realistic or sensible

Of those three only Poch would be any kind of fit and he wouldn't come here anyway. Tuchel plays effectively with a back 7 and three attacking players. You can get away with that when those attacking players are of the level chelsea can afford. And, for that matter, the defenders they can afford. And even then he didn't get away with it in the end. You can't with who we have. It would be like the games now where Ralph tries to keep it tight. Eventually the opposition score and then we have no way through.

If we had some x-factor attackers like Zaha then it might work. But we don't. It is why so many people call for us to be bold.

I'm not saying we should turn down Tuchel in the insane scenario that he would come (he never ever would so it is pointless). It would be a major coup. I'm just not convinced we have the players and funds for things to work out his way.
 
He's great - writes the League Minus Ten blog and is a regular on Total Saints Podcast.

Oh I don’t follow either of those and have only heard of the podcast, but not listened to it. Here is about all I can handle Saints wise and seems to give a pretty broad view from the fanbase

I can’t see the replies anyway because I’m not on Twitter, I assume it’s just people bemoaning the appointment after Adkins and that nobody had ever heard of him
 
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Having finally got the Academy firing again after he destroyed it, people want him back, yes. Doesn’t bear thinking about.
He was our most successful manager in recent history. I wouldn’t want him back though, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.

How did he destroy the academy? All I remember him saying was that he wasn’t impressed with the recent crop (which he may have had a point about).
 
You say it your self - potential. Not the finished product yet. And as you said - net spend is still low compared to the league as a whole. I think we are approx 15th for net spend. Given survival is 16th-17th…
True, but there’s spunking money on expensive ‘proven’ players and investing sensibly. (And there’s also spunking millions on 30 squad players).

15th on spend doesn’t have to equal 15th place. Especially with the right manager.

If we really are just here for survival then we need to abandon the idea of a trendy European coach who plays attractive attacking football.
 
He's also NOT THAT GOOD.

I mean, talk about careful what you wish for...


Highest ever PL finish
Biggest ever PL win
Took us to Europe
Played some of the best football I've seen us play.

How in any way, is he not one of our best ever managers? Yeah he ****ed us off to move to a bigger club but so what. Still doesn't change what he achieved with us.

And as for the academy, well he's right. When was the last time a decent academy player broke through? If it was that good we wouldn't be buying city's academy products
 
Highest ever PL finish
Biggest ever PL win
Took us to Europe
Played some of the best football I've seen us play.

How in any way, is he not one of our best ever managers? Yeah he ****ed us off to move to a bigger club but so what. Still doesn't change what he achieved with us.

And as for the academy, well he's right. When was the last time a decent academy player broke through? If it was that good we wouldn't be buying city's academy products

A bit like how some people say Ralph has done a decent job because we have such a **** team, the reverse can be said about Koeman. We had some very good players whilst he was here and that helped him despite not being the best manager
 
Highest ever PL finish
Biggest ever PL win
Took us to Europe
Played some of the best football I've seen us play.

How in any way, is he not one of our best ever managers? Yeah he ****ed us off to move to a bigger club but so what. Still doesn't change what he achieved with us.

And as for the academy, well he's right. When was the last time a decent academy player broke through? If it was that good we wouldn't be buying city's academy products
Hold up. Who are you arguing with here? You suggested bringing him in now after several years of massive underperformance as a manager

People are rightly questioning the logic. The response you replied to says he isn’t that good. Present tense. Now. Which is true. Not that he wasn’t good with with us

The only other one I can see is after your post one claiming we might have done well in spite of him

The suggestion was that he would be a dream hire as a replacement for ralph. When at this current moment in time with our current players and his recent record that is absolutely not true. Hell, he wouldn’t even play the young players we have signed. Or rather they’d get far fewer minutes
 
Hold up. Who are you arguing with here? You suggested bringing him in now after several years of massive underperformance as a manager

People are rightly questioning the logic. The response you replied to says he isn’t that good. Present tense. Now. Which is true. Not that he wasn’t good with with us

The only other one I can see is after your post one claiming we might have done well in spite of him

The suggestion was that he would be a dream hire as a replacement for ralph. When at this current moment in time with our current players and his recent record that is absolutely not true. Hell, he wouldn’t even play the young players we have signed. Or rather they’d get far fewer minutes

This.

His time with us was an outlier in his career. Yes he did well with that squad of players, but who wouldn’t? He’d be worse than Ralph with this squad. And to call him a ‘dream hire’ is bonkers.
 
I can’t believe some are saying Koeman was a bad manager. Yes I thought he was a nob when he left but we played attacking football and he was our most successful PL manager. His win % was better than mcmenemy.
He also had Sadio Mane. He had a bloody good squad to work with.
 
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