I cannot see this and the management will be aware of the enormity of the task ahead of Still. I think Spors will be pragmatic. If we are in a play off position in January, I agree that SR will go for it and make the necessary recruitments. Otherwise, I can see Spors just adding a forward and a winger. I also expect him to demand more from the academy. However , I feel that there is a reticence with recruitment this summer and I believe the liked of Spor are realistic about what can be achieved. I am not seeing anything to suggest we are going to make a concerted effort for promotion. I am convinced that they feel stability is the priority until the next transfer window. Just feel SR are very much keeping their powder dry and that Spors is being sensible and realistic. The signings to date , excluding the full back from Brentford, do not appear to be upgrades for a promotion push. I feel the squad will be assembled as more of a team but expecting marquee signings will have to wait until January.
I partly agree with this statement. A few additions and a decent forward will give us stability. I think Still needs to learn his craft but talk of Top Six is a distraction from what the real job is which is developing a winning mentality and not dropping points at home. I feel that this is a sufficient challenge for a rookie manager. This is a longer term project. Having watched Stoke outplay us and the amount of effort required to put Wrexham to the sword, I think we need to make a stock take of our opposition and see how far behind we are. Stoke, Borough, Coventry, Birmingham and Leicester will finish well above us.
Been saying for few weeks now. Keep Matty, 2 wingers & a creative AM. If they’re proven at this level then it’s an even bigger bonus. Rudoni, Fellows & Azaz would be very good for the level we’re currently at I feel, but should they get us up I’d still be wanting more physicality on the wings and at AM in the Prem
Quite honestly I'm not too fussed if we don't go up, and instead 'do a Leeds'. A season more of fun, and going up in potentially a better position. But you're mad if you think SR aren't aiming to be promoted this year.
You can’t build a squad in the championship or consolidate anymore. Players don’t have the patience. Look at Dibling? Been with us since 8 years old and couldn’t get away quick enough to sit on premier league bench. Fernandes and THB won’t be sticking around for another season. Half decent seasons from Charles, Edwards & Robinson will see us batting away interest(if we can) Squads are constantly rotating and that’s why I wouldn’t get too hung up on August form. Every team just has too much going on.
And this is the issue with cultivating a selling culture. Every player will expect and demand to leave after a period of good form because we’ve shown we are happy to if the price is right or, in Diblings case, even when it’s also less than what we’re asking for. I would genuinely argue not a single player for our first team is proud of playing for our first team, they would all leave at the earliest opportunity. It will be a very very very long time until we have another JWP because we’ve created a culture where he isn’t what we want.
Players leave because we're sh*t. If we were in the Premier League challenging top ten and cup competitions, then players wouldn't be so eager to jump ship. Isak wants to leave Newcastle to join a more successful club. It doesn't just happen to us. To say that no player is proud to play for us is an impossible statement to make. You don't know any of them or what their motivations are.
The entire Poch Koeman era disproves this. We finished in Europa League 2 seasons in a row and we still had players desperate to leave for more. Well tbf it was probably more a mix between our board cashing out on our most valuable assets and then players being like “well if they’re going I’m out too”. Either way when we bought Pelle, Mane and Tadic we just lost Lallana, Shaw and Lambert after they got us to the Europa. So they want to go even when we are actually building something, which just makes you question the whole damn sport in the first place and what the objective is. And this is where my second main issue comes in, we never just sell our best player. We seem to just sell anyone whose just good, I know no other club who has repeatedly sold their best 3/4 players near enough every year but we always seem to. It’s actually surprising that we have let Matty go yet. It’s also the expectation it puts to fans of people being sold, I’m in the Northam and I remember as soon as both Dibling and Sulemana started playing well it wasn’t “these look promising for the future, we could build something around these” it was “he’ll be gone in the summer” and lo and ****ing behold they’re immediately out the door the second dollar signs were waved in our faces. Why should I get excited about Robinson when I know for a fact if he keeps playing like he is he will be sold in one and a half to two years? We won’t try and build anything around him, we will just sell him for an inferior version who will then also be sold when he threatens to turn good too. That’s the expectations this club has given me with our players.
Lots of clubs do it. Brighton, Bournemouth, Palace. The difference between those clubs and ours, is that they seem to understand that having the right manager is the most important thing, and their managerial appointments have been excellent. Whereas we have cocked it up time and time again. Furthermore, those clubs are much better at recognising new talent. We sometimes get it right, but we most often don't.
One player who shall remain nameless said "There's no point joining Saints because loading isn't doing the match day thread ". So it's not all Lincoln's fault.
You're right that that's how the club was run for a long while but I think you're smushing together various time periods that are all slightly different. For one thing Lallana, Lambert and Shaw didn't get us into Europe. I'm also sure part of the reason they left was the uncertainty after Cortese and Poch left. Then you have the Kat/Gao era that operated as you say. It was partly a deliberate choice - we were able to sign players like Mane because we accepted we would be a stepping stone for them - and partly because those owners couldn't or wouldn't invest in the club so we had to raise funds. I'm sure we sold Danny Ings because we couldn't afford to let him leave on a free. Certain people at the club obviously thought they were cleverer than they actually were. I saw a clip of a Mark Bowen interview recently where he spoke about Southampton (he worked with Mark Hughes). He and Hughes didn't want Tadic sold but Les Reed told them when he'd signed a new contract there was a gentleman's agreement they'd sell him if a Champion League team came in for him so they had to let him go. He also says they thought Vestergaard was slow and useless and didn't want him but Reed signed him because "the Chinese owner likes him". Now, clearly that's only one version of events but it doesn't seem THAT far-fetched to me. So for that time period I basically agree with what you say. But we have different owners now. They've run the club badly and got us relegated so we've never been in a position to keep players. Criticise them for running the club badly if you want but we don't know how they'd act in the same situation. There's also the point that football has changed. Players simply don't stay at clubs as long any more. The days of a team like Arsenal having essentially the same back four and goalkeeper for 10 years are long gone. Look at Isak and Newcastle. Now, their owners have enough money that they can let him rot if needed. We haven't had that luxury in recent years. There are probably dozens of other examples this summer and sometimes it benefits us. Hell, in the Saint Eduard thread people are almost complaining that he hasn't thrown a strop to make the move happen.
That’s my bad on the getting dates confused, I though we finished 7th in the year with Lambo and Lallana but it was 8th. I do agree with you say overall I still just think we’ve cultivated a club where players expect to not stick around for long. Like I said it’s not even like players need to have a good season or two before there’s talks of them going. It’s just a period of good form and then that’s it it’s like it’s inevitable. As soon as Dibling and Sulemana looked good last season I could literally here people in the ground saying he’ll be off in the summer and me and my stupid optimism thought no these two are exactly the type you can build a squad around, especially in the championship in order to push onto the PL. But no we really did just sell them at the first available opportunity. You can’t build anything if you’re constantly selling. Like I said one, maybe two of your best you can’t really help it. We just seem to offload anyone that shows a bit of something about them. Which is why we are now left with a crop of completely average and unexceptional players. There’s no way on Earth I expect Robinson to still be with us in 2 years tops if he keeps playing like this and that’s so damn depressing as a fan for this club. What is there to be excited for when you know you’re always going to just get rid of our best assets.
It isn’t just in football. When I started teaching back in the Ice Age I.e. 1970’s, teachers and headteachers taught successive generations of the same family, 20 years or more. Nowadays, staying at the same school for more than 5 years is an admission that you are not ambitious. Everyone these days is in a constant churn for the next promotion or pay rise. Loyalty is not dynamic and pushing on..
