There is a lot going on down here. Jason Dodd a long term player and youth coach sacked.The bloke in charge rani ce hockey teams before this. The clubs skating on thin ice now.
Who could follow Pochettino? How many players will go? Good time for Poch to move on, next year will be much more difficult for them I think, and Spurs is an upward move for him. If all the players go who are being tipped to go, then the new manager almost has to start again. The price of success.
Not the money. The whole mood is different now. The Chairman is from another sport and the owner from a different world.
I think Saints could struggle next season. New manager, player exodus (Shaw, Lallana, Ramirez, Lambert?) going to be interesting watching how this pans out.
There arent many obvious candidates unless they go abraod again. Sherwood? Actually didnt he play for Pompey for a bit? Probably not then. As fellow fans of a reasonably small (but bigger than us) club i feel for them. Everything on the pitch was as rosy as it's every been, but this summer could massively **** them up again.
On somewhat of a small scale, but could you imagine us losing Bruce (senior), Davies, Brady, Thudd and Long (all as examples) in one window. I would say that would pretty much relegate us before we even kicked a ball! It's going to be a twitchy few weeks on the south coast!
The fact is that Saints fans have had to have very broad shoulders for a lot longer than we have. They get **** on from height all of the time. Liebherr was a generous owner who put a self centered egotist Nick Cortese in charge. Even the builders on the training ground gave up on him as his whims delayed the build. He would turn up and demand that the road into the training ground was not wide enough, only have it reduced the next time he drove in, once fair enough, but he did this on a regular basis. Saints fans have really suffered from both ends of the interference brush. A Club Chairman who turned up at pre season training wearing a club trackie with their initials on it and now for the second time people from other sports in charge. Remember Clive Woodward?
"Crucially, it is thought that Pochettino, who moved to the south coast from Espanyol in January last year, also made it clear to Southampton that he wants to leave St Mary’s to pursue another challenge, with Spurs ready to demand that he delivers Champions League football." [video=youtube_share;NeMrttj8Ucg]http://youtu.be/NeMrttj8Ucg[/video]
Agreed. Plus you could add Clyne - Lovren - Scheiderlin to that list. It really could well be crash n burn @ St.Mary's next season.
If I'm honest, I'm a bit gutted about this. Outside of the boardroom shenanigans, this is a club who've become successful in all the right ways. A path I hope we're following. Developing and getting the best out of English players whilst playing great football. None of which have been shouting their mouths off and morale seems pretty high there. The fact that the club looks like it'll be torn apart by the larger Premiership club is a bit soul destroying for all clubs similar to ours. If we get ourselves to their position, will the same happen to us? Steve Bruce would go somewhere like Everton, Spurs, Arsenal? Davies, Huddlestone, McG all have even stronger seasons... Davies off to Arsenal, Spurs call Huddlestone 'back home' and McG goes to Juventus or something... nevermind about any 'gems' we may get this summer. Of course, Soton will be richer but they'll have to build again... no easy feat. Soton represent what we all want to do, IMHO... sad to see even if you get there, its not all its cracked up to be.
Well yeah, but isnt it being 'torn apart' cos they're massively in debt and havent paid for any of their big singings yet, such as Wanyama and Osvaldo? If they were financially sound then perhaps the manager and players wouldnt be leaving. So are they a good model or not?
Their owners converted a third of the debt into equity and their total debt is now about a third of ours at £32.4m(though they're running up another £30m debt building their new training facilities).
What OLM said. Don't get me wrong, they're not perfect but I don't believe this is a fire sale. I just think this is disheartening and can see us going the exact same way, if we're as successful as we hope we will be.
It does not help that the owner has no interest in football by all accounts. They appear to be down sizeing but with no debt for a quick sale at some point.
