It's Martin Samuel. He's axe-grinding and to suggest O'Neill is just ridiculous. Why's he calling us out and not others? Still smarting from the time he lost his paper £250,000 in legal payouts to Saints.
I don't really think he does. Koeman was a complete ****ing travesty at Valencia with a ridiculously good squad. He almost took them down with a squad containing Canizares, Albiol, Marchena, Albelda, Banega, David Villa, Morientes, Vicente, Helguera, Mata, Joaquin, David Silva... It didn't define Koeman and it shouldn't define Puel. I'd always value someone who actual follows French football over Samuel glancing at the league table and squad list and going 'eh, should have won it'. The output from French football reporters is that club politics and Puel's face never truly fitting was the bigger issue.
What's concerning me is that he seems to have done the best jobs at smaller clubs with lower ambitions than Saints. He won the league with Monaco but that was in a different era 15 years ago. And I don't think he's done a particularly good job anywhere except Monaco. I just can't warm to him.
He's been to the CL Semi Finals with Lyon, took Lille to the CL a few times too. Would say that they are on par with Southampton.
But we wanted Pellegrini, and to not win the league last year with the squad he had at City was far worse.
Today is the day we get our new manager .........so I will ignore that prick from the Mail and say...... Welcome Saint Claude
[QUOTE="tomw24, post: 9410919, member: o. I just can't warm to him.[/QUOTE] He probably thinks you're a bit too angry, but he'll warm to you eventually.
Is it not cyclical though, a team cant win the title every year without exception. There is always a changing of the guard, look at the EPL, rare a team wins it so long in succession and also as already stated by others sometimes things just don't work out. Appreciate your scepticism's well placed and like Fats said for a while we will go (league position) backwards and that wont be the end of the world. It seems to me this has long term view all over it, a few bumps in the road as well but I'm sure we will play better football, pushing this method throughout the age groups for sustainable growth, something with all such things we haven't had for many a year. Also promoting more talent through to the first team which fits out long term business and game strategy. There are players who were good enough to be on the fringes, but who weren't really allowed a look in. Reed, Hesketh to name a couple... I'm looking forward to watching this saints, I was a little bored under RK and only went to about 3 games last year because of that.
It's clear to me player development is crucial to us. We want ourselves a coach primarily and a manager second. Puel looks to fit that bill, his successors at Lille and Lyon both benefitted from having good young squads. My personal concern on him as a manager is that perhaps his tactics are a bit one dimensional(like Poch). Perhaps he plays the same way regardless of the opponent. But these opinions are based nothing more than glancing at his stats and reading various articles about him. All we can do is wait and see Btw, Samuels is a twat if he thinks the club don't appoint British managers because of Twitter. Puel has hardly been a Twitter positive appointment
Serious question Tom and to anyone else concerned: What if he comes and he fails. What if this is the season Les gets it wrong and we have a bad season. So what?
That has happened to other clubs and could happen to us...the solution is usually the manager gets sacked and new one appointed. We march on. A bad season is always possible and is not the end of the world....unless you get relegated. And I can't see that happening.
