Two things are inexcusable for me, not sacking Pellegrino before the new year at least and not buying a top quality pacy attacking player in January.
And do you know how long we were kept waiting with a festering wound before someone put a patch on it?
Please explain the following: 1. Why have we still not replaced Pelle? 2. Why have we still not replaced Mané? 3. Why did we keep Virgil for 6 months without getting more than a few lacklustre games out of him, and despite getting a record fee still not replace him? 4. Why did we sack the manager who got us to the “major cup final” and maintained (almost) our run of year-on-year improvement which began in 2009-10 (under Markus and Cortese)? 5. Why in the name of all the gods of football did we appoint Pellegrino? Our present decline actually started when Pochettino (a Cortese appointment) left following Cortese’s dismissal, to be followed by the heart and soul of the team which had risen from the ashes being sold to Liverpool and Manchester United. I accept that Koeman improved us for a couple of seasons but the successive asset-stripping of the 3 summers following Cortese’s departure have left us where we are today. If the current ownership and board of directors have any plan other than finishing the asset-stripping after our relegation it’s becoming increasingly difficult to work out what it might be. Explain that if you can!
I can answer the questions for you: 1. Austin was Pelle's replacement 2. Redmond was Mane's replacement 3. Because we wanted to make a stand as we couldn't sell a player who had recently signed a 5 1/2 year contract so soon. We thought we would be alright this year with our current CBs 4. The football was too boring and he didn't play in the style we wanted him to, and the majority of the squad had turned on him 5. He had a very good season with a complete minnow in La Liga. We thought that he would change his style of play that made him successful in that season to one that would be more suited to our squad. All those things look/looked alright at the time (the Pelle/Mane replacements I remember many of here saying we had adequately replaced them with Austin and Redmond) but in hindsight they have all been terrible decisions that have ultimately led to where we are. Dell1964 loves to use the "hindsight/rewriting history" card but the bottom line is that people like Les are paid large sums of money to get decisions right and they haven't, it is time for us to make a change.
Looking at a lot of the opinions on here there is one thing that is beginning to emerge...........Like him or Loathe him Cortese certainly gave the impression he wanted the club to go somewhere. He was ambitious and for what it is worth he was brought in by Marcus in the beginning to do exactly that. Nobody can surely deny that people began to think this was an ambitious club during his tenure. If he had been given the backing he was originally promised by Marcus we would not be in the position we are today. Kat didn't have the same business prowess of her father and because of that we have to a certain degree suffered. We lost good managers simply because they didn't think we were ambitious enough. It is not going to change until we really start to speculate in a big way as all the leading clubs have had to do. So I guess its back down the leagues until we get an owner that is really going to put some money into the club. Not just talk like those we have had since Katrina. Sorry that is my opinion for what it is worth.......
saints fans are too ****ing complacent. we sleep walked into the relegation zone - we are too forgiving of late i am ****ing angry that several years of good work have gone down the pan we are going down - we need to off load all the lazy twats that play for us and get back to doing what we are good at - developing young talent
We let Mane go for 30m with 2 years left on his contract (right?). A year later with 1 year left we would have still got 20m minimum. Probably more. The board think 10m a season for a player of that quality is not worth it. That shows a lack of ambition.
The same Cortese who had players on short contracts, next to no revenue from sponsorships and strained relationships with numerous staff and former players? He was great to get us back to the PL, we owe him that, but I think we would be in a much worse place if he continued to run the club the way he was.
The Summer of 2016 is where this all stems back to imo. That was the most attractive we'd ever been as a club in generation and probably the highest profile the club has ever had. We failed dramataically to take advantage and almost constant poor decisions from the board (Les) since has led to where we are now.
Interesting that for all the cries of "this was utterly inevitable given that x happened in the past" the average guess for Saints in the finishing positions competition was between 10th and 11th. Possibly not so predictable. Vin
Without a doubt. We've continued to get both issues wrong throughout the subsequent 20 odd months since (this summer we could be on our fourth manager, and will be on fifth transfer window, since then). But it is those two issues. And from the outside looking in, both fall at Les' door. It's why I and others were jumping up and down so much at the start of last season. It doesn't matter what good has good before. You can't rest on your laurels. It can take just one or two years to go from 6th or 7th, to relegated. It's cut throat. Amazingly enough, despite trying to come across as a club who does things different and a club to be admired, we're not unique; every club wants to finish as high as possible. We were never the only ones with ambition. You can't take your foot off the pedal, and just sit back and applaud what has gone before. That's all well and good, but bluntly, it's the past. You can't afford to sell players as important as Mane and Pelle without replacing them, and consequently it has been a downward spiral ever since.
