Well maybe best to just read and listen the eh? Pretty poor approach to taking part on a forum TSS. Perhaps if you don't know what people have done elsewhere, you could just let those that do point these things out, particularly when relevant to the conversation you joined in with. You need to put yourself on your own bloody list! That's like saying no point signing Messi as he's never done it at Saints before? That, or you just grabbed the wrong end of the stick.
Thanks for taking one for the team I'll keep my ramblings to this Forum There is a camp in football that sees positivity as being not manly. Maybe for them Father Jack is a role model - Drink, Feck, Arse, Girls !!! Rooted in the 70s and even though Ecstasy cheered everyone up for a bit it didn't work permanently for some. Also some of the new young generation of fans seem to have taken this on as a kind of retro-homage (Not the words they might use I admit ) They make me feel middle-class for enjoying myself. The football supporting working class male sometimes needs to re-embrace happiness as its wasted on the materialistically-aspirational section of the middle classes.
We may not have players with Mané's pace, but we still have game changers. Maybe I'm mistaken, (thought I would highlight that, as this is just an opinion based on a few games) but I think we can look forward to seeing more of our players being given licence, by Puel, to run with the ball, rather than just pass it. Just taking Prowsey, as an example. In previous seasons, IMO, he has always been a safety first player, nearly always looking for the simple pass, in the direction he is facing, even if it means going backwards or sideways. In the pre-season games, and particularly last night, I have noticed him being more adventurous, turning with the ball and running with it, rather than just laying it off. He's not going on mazy dribbles, just dribbling far enough to draw an opponent towards him, creating space for others to get into. We had a lot of players doing that last night, including Tadic, Redmond, Davis and Hojbjerg. First half Tadic and Redmond drew a lot of free kicks, in very dangerous, goal scoring opportunity, positions as a result of this. None of these players have the pace of Mane, yet they all caused enough panic, in Espanyol's defence/midfield to draw fouls out of them. Another plus is by drawing a player forward, out of position, his teammates shuffle in behind him, to try to close the space, leaving space out wide for the ball to be played to the full backs, in acres of space, something we did plenty of times yesterday. I think, when I watched the video, showing all of last season's goals, scored by Nice, running with the ball featured quite highly, in the build up, as did hitting on the break (something we seemed to be implementing at the start of the second half, before the many changes). We can still do the quick one touch football, which we did very well, at times last night, but we seem to be developing a style of play that moves opponents out of position by threatening to run through them. As already said, I may be mistaken, but I hope I'm not, because I love seeing players run with the ball and make things happen.
Last night we didn't have great support out wide, plenty of long switches of play that look good on camera only. Redmond picked the ball up and ran with it like Mane did a few times
It's quite funny how we've gone from "Cedric isn't all that great and we need a new RB" virtually to the point as he's being seen as our very own Cafu now after the Euros! I quite like the perception shift - I think the lad has talent.
I must admit that I had never heard of Puel before his appointment and tried to find a bit more about him when I was holiday in Lyon. In the OL club shop there was the opinion that he was the perfect fit for Southampton due to the fact that he had an excellent reputation with youngsters and with working with smaller clubs. Despite success at Lille and Nice, Puel was unpopular with the Lyon fans even though he got them through to a Champion's League semi-final and I was told that he had a poor relationship in the end with the directors at OL. The supporters were glad to see the back of him but is reputation is considerably higher with the smaller French teams like Nice and Lille who, I was informed, occupy the same kind of niche as Saints. I did see Troyes v Dijon a few years back hen they played in Div 2 and was shocked at how poor the football was - more like our fourth tier. Troyes played in the top flight last season and had the unenviable record of the worst ever home defeat , losing 9-0 to PSG. It does make you wonder just how good Nice were and just how much of a major step up managing a team like Southampton is. This seems like a massive leap to me but maybe it is a perfect fit for both parties. My nagging doubt solely stems from the general poor record of French coaches in England. It is interesting as my limited experience of French football is that there are a handful of really good teams but, the further you go down the league, there is a rapid fall-off in quality. The players seem to be technically good but most of the national team choose to play abroad. For me, this is more of a long term appointment as our directors want to seem to develop the academy yet the examples cited in the Telegraph article are well beyond the ability of even the better youngsters coming through like Targett and Reed. I feel that Koeman was correct not to feature the academy players last season and it will be interesting to see if any of the newer names that may feature on Saturday look like they have the kind of potential required. A manager like Puel appears tailor made for Southampton and I hope that it pays off. I think we are a bit light up front and need to get a decent goal-scorer. As mentioned on this board, Benteke would seem to be a good fit.
Not sure I'd want to spend 30m on Benteke thanks. Give me two 15m players from the scouting team please. I'm also not sure how the "nagging doubt solely stems from the general poor record of French coaches in England" works really. Maybe it's a bit like the old nagging doubt people use dot have about Brazilians in the Premier League?
F*** me Spider,too heavy man,I just go to the football to enjoy and escape for a while,no idea what class I am,definately not upper though.
Wenger is the best example and Houillier wasn't too shabby either. However, I think that Remi Garde has probably made it increasingly difficult for French coaches after his disaster at Villa last season. other than that, there were six previous French managers including the hapless Jacques Santini at Spurs and Perrin at Portsmouth who was so bad as to be comical. (Players injured in a mock "it's a knockout" tournament in training. ) I expect Puel to do better but feel that it will be a bit ask to expect him to replicate the success of Koeman and Poch. Still, there aren't too many decent English managers these days either!
It's hard to make sweeping judgments about the PL successes of managers from any country, because there simply haven't been that many of them. Beyond Great Britain, the leading exporter of Premier League managers is Italy...at nine (not including repeat appearances). Just not a large enough sample to be at all determinative.
Interestingly, I don't think that Remi Garde is that bad a coach. I think the rot was too deep at Villa. I'm not saying we should employ him, but if he came in here, he would probably do an adequate job. (Our new assistant manager should hopefully be proof of that!)
I just am not sure how a person's nationality really influences his ability to do a job. Maybe we've got the next Wenger and I'll look forward to moaning that we only ever come top four and never win the league
I agree. If decisions were made on that, then that would be discrimination (positive or negative) which I'm sure none of us would wish to see.
Houllier started the Liverpool demise to boring defensive football. Terrible manager. Wenger was (and still is IMO) a great coach.
I don't think managers must be rubbish because of their country of origin, but it is a valid point that you would look at where they have managed. The thing that worried some was that Puel had only managed in a lesser league like France...but when you looked further he had some success in European competition and had other qualities that suited us. No one had heard of Arsene (well, at least in the UK) and he turned out okay.
