To be able to click our fingers and offer a shot at Europe and trophy wins immediately, apparently. Not gonna happen so we best start rebuilding.
I agree he would have, given the right resources. And I agree him leaving is a root cause of our current predicament. But the club could, and should have handled everything so much better. Not offering contracts to key players, not answering players phone calls to deal with their concerns, allowing the prices of deals to become public knowledge, not lining up players before selling ours, selling ours on the same day etc... The list of rookie mistakes is ****ing endless, and for me the MUCH more realistic scenario is that the players are staging a "revolt" against the current regime rather than pining for the previous one.
Agreed. On the disagreeing! I just don't think it's possible to deny that was a poor hire, and a really, really, really good hire could have helped at least stabilise *some* of this. Sadly, Krueger isn't just somebody we have a merry chuckle at, I suspect the players found him a joke too. Thus an even greater breakdown in trust regarding the leadership of the club than before. Get someone great in, trust gets rebuilt.
I agree with that Os - think it's a combination of the two, without a doubt. But as Beef says, likelihood is we'll never really know.
Again you are taking comments from one side(the players). We don't know if the not answering telephones is even true.
I'm sorry but I don't understand how the board could address the following... - Contracts for key players (with no manager around???) - Allowing prices to go public (that will have been the work of the buying club - as much has been let on by the press and Reed) - And we have lined up players before selling, as we will see in the next week
I haven't a clue if it would have helped. But we just need to look forward now to see what happens. The only thing that will kick me off is if the board don't reinvest.
Ah, sod it, I reckon we'll buy in some pretty interesting players and we'll all be terribly excited come August, having spanked Brighton 8-0 at the Amex in the pre-season friendly Good night all. It's going to be interesting this next few weeks!
well that's another poch sabotage isn't it. it only took a couple of weeks after he backstabbed us to get koeman on board. The breakdown happened while he was making his escape.
Because there really is nothing we can do but offer our support to whoever turns out on the field for Saints this season?
I agree with the others who say it doesn't have to be one or the other. Personally I think both are true. Cortese leaving created a big hole in the club. The board had a huge problem to address and didn't address it quickly enough or effectively enough to keep the players happy. They still may not have fully resolved the issue for all we know. I think there's a real logic to that approach though. Krueger and co can talk all they want about the neglected commercial side of the club but ultimately the one thing that has the most impact on any football club's finances and commercial income (maybe apart from a mega-rich owner) is performance on the pitch. Most people on this forum have no experience at all in negotiating sponsorship deals but I'm pretty damn sure most of us could arrange a more lucrative sponsorship deal for Liverpool or Arsenal than the best negotiators in the world could ever get for Stoke. Cortese may not have focussed much on commercial income but focussing on the players and on pitch performance is probably going to indirectly improve commercial income. When you get right down to it the more games you win the more money you'll get from your sponsors.
Offer new contracts to key players. Rip up offers for players. If we can accept bids for our key players without a manager, why can't we hold onto others without one? Pull the plug on any deals that leak out. Cortese managed to keep transfers quiet until the last minute, as do many other clubs. As to the last bit - we still have sold our squad before bringing anyone in. Any ****wit with half a brain cell can see that wouldn't go down well with the fans. We had united and Liverpool bent over the table for our players - why didnt we wait until we had genuine players brought in. Spurs managed it with bale.
It's tougher because we've held on to the core of this squad for five years. We'll get used to the revolving door again and we might even continue progressing. It just won't be the same.
