He struggled 18 months ago when he got his one league start after some very promising sub appearances. But that’s 18 months ago now and players develop physically very quickly at that age. He’s got great skill, looks an intelligent player and more importantly as a fan, I think he was great to watch modern football is rubbish.
Absolutely - under the previous executive team (Ankersen and Kraft), they've been absolutely horrendous other than improving the commercial side (Parsons), which needed doing, but that isn't all that important to the fanbase. I don't blame Solak for that - he provided the money for Ankersen and Kraft's project. Now that's been recognised by Solak as being an absolute shambles, he's moved to make the changes to that executive team so that this next Championship and (hopefully) Premiership run is significantly improved. So yes, they (Ankersen and Kraft) absolutely deserve pelters for what has been, but that's not the same as what is around the corner, so to *keep* criticising them, as if those changes haven't now been made is...well...it's weird.
I kind of agree with most of that except the scouting. If we’re being kind we could say that the scouting has been hit and miss but I’d argue that it’s been much more miss that hit. The manager appointments though have been, in the main, poor. Compare us to say, Bournemouth and we’re way behind them on both those fronts.
Agree, he is a great talent for 18 and is too good for U21 football. But as you say men’s football is a different kettle of fish. He probably is happier being a youth player at Chelsea (like he presumably was at Spurs) than Saints. He came here to play, he isn’t, so he wants to leave. That’s fair enough. Do you think we should play him even if he isn’t as good as older players just to appease him and potentially keep him?
I think most people that disagree with some of your views on SR (myself included) are because you speak as if they are terrible owners and everything do is terrible. I 100% agree that they have made some terrible decisions that have cost us. Some of our transfers have been awful, not replacing Wilcox was stupid and not sacking Martin earlier was clearly a big error too. But football ownership isn't that black and white. With SR as owners we are financially secure and have owners that will continue to invest. There are plenty of owners worse than SR, whether that be Gao or potentially someone worse like the guys that bought Burnley and riddled them with debt. Plenty to criticise them for, yes. But forcing owners out is for when they are risking the future of the football club imo.
They've had the chance to fix the **** ups, they didn't and worse still, they repeated them. It's suggested we give them time- how long? As you say the gap between the Prem and the Champ is as big as its ever been. Thats not going to get better, that will only get worse. So it's going to be impossible for them to "fix" these **** ups. They simply can't, because as you say we're shopping for PL players in the 15m range, and PSR. A DOF isn't going to change that. Best case scenario under the mitigations that are being provided for them is that we're destined to yo-yo between the 2 leagues. They've already broken it so it can't be fixed. Therefore I want them gone.
But you’re still refusing to understand the difference between the owner (Solak) whose role up to this point has been to provide money, which he’s done, and the people running the club (Ankersen and Kraft) who have now, to all intents and purposes, been removed. So you *have* got your wish. The people running the club have gone. So do you want the new people now gone, before they’ve even been appointed? Or Solak gone, who has put a lot of money into the club? Because if so, that’s odd…
Some fair points, but we just don't know that they'll continue to invest. As for the debt, how sure are we that Dragan's personal money is being spent. How do we know we're not leveraged up to the eye balls in loans or financial tomfoolery? The only positive tick you've put in the SR column is hope, and I personally think that a plan which hinges on that isn't going to work well long term. Yes there are some worse owners (in the Championship, you'd be very hard pressed to find worse in the PL) but there are much much better owners too. Under SRs stewardship we're behind ****ing Bournemouth, who have a whole 12k seats. The future under these muppets is becoming Stoke.
When Boris was sacked were most people content that there was a change and everything was totally different and new, or did they continue to demand a fresh start? Dragan/Kraft/Ankersen, it's technically the same so doesn't matter, its still Sports Republic, and as the sale of Amo shows, nothing is changing. Well that's not technically true, instead of buying ****e we're not buying anything at all. Baby steps though eh?
I suppose we don't know for sure how long they will invest but we can only judge them for what they have done, which is heavily invest in the club. In terms of debt, I am not a finance expert but if i recall correctly the only debt we are in is the loan that was taken out during covid. So we are all good on that front. I get annoyed with SR for a fair few reasons, but I don't think they are as bad as some believe.
That comparison doesn’t really make sense, and no it’s not technically the same, unless you don’t understand/refuse to understand how it was set up previously. We’re not buying anyone? That’s probably good right now, but we have an option on Gronbaek, and let’s see what the deal is with Sylla. So even that part isn’t correct.
I thought SAA looked good when I saw him play but was a long way from being an automatic selection. He seems typical of Saints' obsession with youth and the ultimate failure of players to exploit their potential. I find this really fascinating because the famed youth set up has underperformed for years. Not sure if this is the fault of the first team managers but I just feel that our previous success was due to having coaches like Dave Merrington rather than anything the club was doing/ club philosophy. The coaches have not been good enough at this level in the club. Cannot argue that most of our players end up being picked up by Premier league clubs when they usually end up in Championship or League One at best. This is not a good return for the investment but is a joke when you consider the older players picked for the first by recent managers. It all goes back as far as Koeman's dismissal of the quality of our youth players.
Kraft & Ankersen are still involved with Sport Republic as an entity, presumably, even if they aren't involved with us on a day-to-day basis. If Dragan was going it alone (minus the SR brand) I might be more willing to give it another chance but the chuckle brothers are still involved with the SR group as far as I can tell, and thus indirectly involved with the club. Ankersen, for example, has still been attending our games, even if he doesn't have an official role with us.
I can’t be bothered to explain the first part again, because you’re being deliberately obtuse. We’ve brought two players in during this window, and if you want to play semantics like this, we’ve signed Welington, who on the admittedly short time we’ve seen him looks an excellent purchase.
Dragan, Parsons and Spors are meant to be the new leadership team moving forwards, if the absurd work permit issue for Spors gets fixed. Ankersen is doing a very good job at Goztepe, so they’re not going to boot him out of the group.
