I am slowly losing interest in football but I was quickly pissed off with this thread early yesterday morning
Agree with this, Koeman has done well at Feyenoord, but his failures prior had tarnished his name as a coach somewhat and he was down the list for the national team coach. Suddenly one very good season with us and the limelight the premier league brings and he is starting to get linked with all kinds of top jobs. The pressure for him to maintain that success and continue to keep his stock high for those jobs becomes greater. He doesn't have time for the slow Southampton build. Developing a young player who will ultimately benefit his successors has no personal gain.
Do you not perhaps think , that could be because of the perpetual pressure of working in the premier League? With big Money comes big demands etc. He has to perform from Day one. The history of dismissals in the EPL for Failure....even in a short time......... is very high. Our own history of dismissals while not necessarily in the EPL........... is not the best either.
I think Saints are patient and confident...I'm sure Koeman was never under threat. He said himself that the board weren't as bothered as he was when we were going through that lean spell. Any pressure was what he put on himself....and I don't mean that in a negative way.
Like Fran said, I meant in terms of degrees of pressure and that "Ambition" word. We would have all been happy with a solid mid-table in his first season and I include Koeman in that. We know in football that agents/managers/clubs talk behind the scenes and I have no doubt Koeman would have attracted a lot of interest, but if you're going to convert that interest into being offered a job, then a solid top 10 at Southampton is not going to cut it. But I believe that the Southampton board would have accepted a top 10/mid table last season. So I would say that Ron's personal ambition was higher than Southampton's board and that kind of summarises the split in opinion we have on this forum. Koeman felt he needed serious money and investment in an attempt to push on towards champions league spots, but the board don't seem to want to stretch themselves financially and don't want to drop the long term goals(academy) in pursuit of the short term.
Who was very rarely stable; Wittgenstein was a beery swine Who could drink you under the table (From memory, so I may have transposed the lines...)
I'm not sure there's any evidence to back up that version of events. There's plenty of speculation on that slant that seems to be turning (through constant repetition) into "facts" but nothing else that I'm aware of. There is, however, evidence for a huge pay offer from Everton and his trying to play us off against that deal. Vin
I would agree..........Investment was needed to bring in the really big money for the club I E the Champions league, like you, I would suggest RK wanted to achieve that quicker than the board. (5 year programme and all that) I still think a huge opportunity went begging in this transfer window
I think Koeman just didn't want to extend his contract at that point. There may have been no real problem....he just wanted to keep his options open. He has history for liking to do it that way, whereas Les (and the board) wanted commitment and seemed to believe they had it. At that point the rift started...and then other differences swept under the carpet became important. Anyone who has split with a lover will recognise that scenario.
Sometimes if you want to build something solid it's best not to be in too much of a hurry. If Ron didn't want to wait around that's fair enough, but patience might just pay dividends for the rest of us.
Well then, in all seriousness you will probably love it. And, in all seriousness there will be nothing to watch but rugby : )
He had my sympathy for a while. I want kids to come through into the first team but last season we were marching up the table. If I'm honest I wouldn't have fielded youth. But I also wouldn't have labelled them ****e. Sympathy gone.
if I were to believe the news here, it's the onlly sport in the world and we are the best in the world at playing it. One of those is true.
Monk has suggested exactly that: Koeman was willing to re-up, but he wanted the club to agree to his.plan in the transfer market. They didn't, Everton appeared, so he left. Regarding the five-year plan, t's the third time in three years that we'd announced that we're aiming to reach CL in five years. I don't think it's a major consideration.
I don't know how we've done in this window. If we had six points on the board now, it would probably feel like a pretty good one. I think the fact we have only two points affects my view on that. It is very hard to judge how good a window has been until the players have been in and are playing, however as I kept saying I would wait until the window has closed before judging, I suppose I better had. I thought we may have signed another two players. I think we have done ok without being spectacular. Numbers wise we haven't left ourselves short on last year, even if people feel that. We knew Wanyama and Pelle were off (and Pelle should only have been back up this season if he stayed) and we got good money for Mane. I keep reading that we got terrible money for Mane, which I find a little silly. For a player who is very talented, but clearly was very inconsistent last season that is a good fee. We've signed Redmond, Pierre and Boufal who look like they could be excellent signings. We signed a RB to push Cedric, who sadly has got injured. From the club's point of view, it must have been difficult to consider the numbers in certain positions when we already had players on the books. CB was an area I wondered about, however we have 4 and then any youngsters. The difficulty there is one of the 4 is Gardos and we don't know how fit his knees is - but the club just can't ignore him when doing their budgeting. Same with Jay. He is still an employee and a number to be included - I guess a pretty well paid one too. In summary we have done ok. We have the numbers, but a lot rides on the recovery and return to form of a couple of injured players and the integration of a January signing (Austin). Clearly some gambles with that. The biggest thing for me is how much our three results under a new manager and a new system have influenced people's opinion of this window. It doesn't feel too exciting but it certainly hasn't been the disaster some seem to think.
