They still sanctioned the deals. Are you really exonerating the clubs heirarchy from any guilt in the poor transfers? Really? As for the rest of the post, I think that you’re just being deluded tbh. Hyperbole - no it isn’t hyperbole at all to say that they are trying to reinvent football. Look at the way we play. It’s insane to do this in the championship. No one else does it. No one else has a sweeper keeper that is only in the team because he is good with his feet. No one else tries to play possession football at all costs. No one else puts their best centre back at full back, their wingers up front and faffs about with the line up every game. It’s not really hypocritical at all to say the recruitment has been bad. 3 good signings out of what - 20? And they’re loans. All of the permanent signings have been a joke. Tall paul, Sulemana, manning. Honestly, awful and it’s not even with hindsight. Many of us fans could see they were bad calls even before we signed them. Our recruitment is a ****ing shambles. I think calling other posters hysterical is bang out of order. Especially when they’re correct in their assessment of how **** the club is. Lincoln has been right about a lot more than anyone else on here. He called Nathan Jones was a rubbish appointment. He called selles being a stupid gamble. He was right about both. Some fans have massive rose tinted glasses - which is fine, we are all saints fans. But the owners are absolutely **** and have a lot to prove
In fairness, Swansea did, then MK Dons did before them. It's not the owners trying to reinvent football, it's clearly just RM's style.
I do get Os’ point. It was/is a big risk to have gone for someone like Martin. We easily could’ve gone down the safer route of someone like Farke, proven in the league and has been successful. Martin was a big risk by Wilcox/SR, seems obvious that the thinking was that his style would work better with better players. Maybe it does but the fact that we are almost a season in to his tenure and a lot of fans don’t know if he is any good or if the players are bailing him out is quite telling really.
Yep, and SR are the ones that picked his philosophy and gambled that his style would work. Despite, let’s face it, an absolutely bang average track record. We are a big name in this league and would have been able to attract a manager that has been promoted before, 100%. But we thought we were smarter than all that. Anyway. I guess it’s pointless to discuss now. As someone said, it’s all history. I just hate what they’ve done to the club. They deserve a lot of stick for the way they’ve handled things. They get such an easy ride from our fans in general. I just hope they are fast learners, eat some humble pie and correct their mistakes before they do any more damage.
Let's have a look at SR's achievements so far. Signings (in no particular order) Alcaraz Onuachu Bella-kotchap Lavia Sulemana Bazunu Mara Caleta-Car Edozie Larios Orsic Aribo Shea Charles Lis Managers Ralph (granted already in place) Jones Selles Martin Joe shields Jason Wilcox Which of SR's men have been a success? What's worked? All they have achieved is to relegate us from the PL and continue their vanity project in the Championship which will ultimately cost us promotion. I get we all have different thoughts and feelings on where we are and which player/formation/manager is best. But what I just can't get my head around are those defending SR. On every measurable metric they have failed. We were relegated because of them, not through any other reason. Look at the list of managers/coaches/staff. They've achieved this chaos in 2 Years. 2. If people think that's me being "hysterical" open up the BBC football app and look at the Premier league table. Point out where we are.
I think Southampton .should follow the Athletic Bilbao model. As that club only recruits players born or educated in the Basque provinces, it has a catchment population of around 3 millión. So they must invest heavily in their football development in order to produce a side capable of competing at the top end of La Liga, all without spending a euro last summer. I feel there is an ocean of talent in the London área to be found and harnessed in order to reduce the transfer outlay in future years.
Alcaraz - Good potential, doesn’t fit the system. Strangely loaned out just when we need him Onuachu - Awful signing by any metric. Doesn’t fit the style or manager of the club. Bella-kotchap - Had potential to be fair. Awful attitude though. Meaning another awful signing Lavia - fair play. Great signing Sulemana - Awful signing. Too much money, zero end product even in the league below. Why did we spend so much on this guy? There are plenty of wingers in the football league that could replace him for a tenth of the price. Bazunu - Mental. One of the main reasons we are where we are. Very bad keeper and arrogance by the club continues to ignore his deficiencies Mara - Overpaid massively. Dreadful signing in all honesty. Still has some potential. Somehow i doubt he will fulfill it at saints though. Caleta-Car - Awful signing. Edozie - arguably overpaid. Has potential. OK transfer. I’d say this one is made worse because of the other transfers. We needed people to come in and make an instant impact, not more youth. Larios - Awful signing Orsic - LOL. Aribo - Poor signing, although showing signs of a redemption recently. We needed him in the PL and he is clearly championship level. Shea Charles - baffling amount of money spent on a player that the manager doesn’t fancy at all Lis - ??? Stewart - Bafflingly incompetent decision again. Compound all of the above by the weird policy in the january window to address none of our weak areas (striker, goalkeeper, left back) and just sign more random midfielders. Does the above look like the decisions of a well run club? Overall there has been no logic, no clear strategy, no thought given to experience or character. Just a staggering amount of bad decisions. Loan signings this season have been an improvement. I will give them that. But overall they have been appalling owners making insane decision after insane decision. Also worth pointing out that they went from a counter-attacking/high press manager to a route one merchant to a ‘possession at all costs’ coach. Meaning that we have many players across the squad that aren’t really fit the style that we are trying to play. And we’ve just lost our DoF who i guess was responsible for the good loans. ****ing mental club.
Yeah, I'm very anti-SR and have no time for them or their decisions. Yet, I'm very pro-team. Why? Most of the better players in our squad aren't even SR signings and were here before Kwp. Bednarek. Stephens. (I know that's debatable in some but opinions) Smallbone (huge part of that 25 game run) Adam Armstrong. Stuart Armstrong. Adams. For me, that is the crux and heartbeat of our team and squad. Okay they got Downes and THB to complement the above as core players, as well as some solid loans, although I suspect Downes was a Russell recommended signing having worked together before. Essentially any signings that seem to be typical SR signings & identified by SR and their scouting seems (young, destined to improve etc) to be duds and really not much help at all. Okay, some of them have had their moments but in the main it's been too much, too soon & disappointment for most of them. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I don't feel SR are still getting this right. I do like Martin and his appointment (for now) so I will give them that, but even that's in the balance to be honest. If we don't go up, it is a failure on all parts, although I did expect a minimum of play-offs going back to pre-season.
And as you say, the two decent signings, out of the 14+ signings made, what did SR do with them? That's right we sold Lavia to cash in as quickly as we could, and then sent out on loan one of our most exciting creative players to ****ing Juventus!!! If he's good enough that a genuine giant of European football wanted to give him a go, then maybe, just maybe it might have been worth playing to his strengths? Maybe realise that he might be worth playing or at least keeping on the bench as an option when we're playing teams with stubborn defences happy to have all 11 behind the ball to desperately play for a point. Definitely haven't encountered any teams like that recently..... Those sort of decisions are what shows SR are God awful owners. Anyone can see it.
The main thing about SR is they are going for a very risky, high chance of failure strategy. I don’t mind the approach as it is the only way a club like ours could improve, but obviously it has a high chance of failure. Clearly they are signing young players with potential with the view to playing them loads to sell on for profits, rinse and repeat. Problem with that is not too many teenagers/20/21 year olds are good enough to be playing week in week out for a side in the top flight (like last season) or at the top end of the Championship (this season). They seem to have gone for a more balanced approach this season with signings, but have gone for the high risk high reward approach with the manager. Be interesting how behind this high risk approach Solak is, it’s his money after all. As I said I don’t mind this approach as I can see that in the unlikely event that everything does click if could be great. I could think of nothing more boring than being like we were under Gao for the last few years (I know those aren’t the only options for owners)
Surely if Saints did this it would be us only playing players from Hamphire - so not sure where London comes into it. Not that it would work either way
And look at some of the signings we were making before SR came in; Djenepo, Salisu, Lyanco, Thierry Small, Adam Armstrong, Theo Walcott, Diallo, Elyounoussi. And managers we had Puel, Pellegrino, Hughes. We were the club famous for getting thrashed 9-0 twice. The football was atrocious under Ralph towards the end. SR have made a lot of cock-ups, no doubt. But what did they take on? We were a rotting club that was undoubtedly heading for relegation sooner rather than later. That they failed to fix it in one season in charge, well personally I'm not gonna blame them too much. It was a big task they took on imo. And this season? They hired a manager who has earned us enough points to be in the top two - in practically any other season. It's a freak that there are three other teams doing so well. I guess that's probably SR's fault too. You said Lincoln is usually right - He predicted a 16th place finish for us this season. We've done slightly better than that, but yeah let's all just complain because we're not top of the league and winning every game.
I think you're both right and have valid points SR coming in, and their poor decisions, only hastened our demise I think. We were just about keeping our heads above water, but there's only so long you can do that. To give them credit, at least going down under their ownership meant we weren't financially ****ed. If we went down under Gao then ... let's not go there eh. But the way they came in, preached about X, Y and Z only to proceed with overseeing a relegation that could've been avoided (in my opinion) with a decent window in 2022. Keeping Ralph was the wrong decsion, selling any player with experience and replacing them with kids was suicide. And let's not even talk about the Welsh wonder. It was all so sadly avoidable if they'd had just got that window right. I know it's easy to say in hindsight, mind. It's also true that any other season we'd be top 2 ... I've been very vocal on that myself, but it's like I said in my post above, most of the core part of the team this season were players that were here before SR even arrived!
