Yeah done am excellent job there. Think they had the lowest wage bill in the division this season. Obviously us appointing him would be a non starter for many reasons.
I think he has done really well and will get poached withun the next 12 months. He could achieve more at Southampton than Portsmouth but , as you say , it would never happen. I rate him.
They way Rohl is whoring himself out in the press confirms my alleged ITK was correct. To be honest I never wanted him anyway but the way he's behaving confirms to me he wouldn't be a good fit for the club. I think we've dodged a bullet there
Bit harsh. He's just said that he's leaving Sheffield Wednesday, no? And that ultimately he'd like a top league job in England or Germany (fair enough). Not convinced that bullet has veered anywhere either. (He's now third favourite for the Rangers job btw. So, yeah, moving parts).
It isn't a great look. But if we were to get him, then the only way he would be getting a move to a bigger prem or bundesliga club is if he did a great job with us. It would be a nice change to have a manager leave because bigger clubs want to take him rather us having to sack him!
Yeah, I think a lot of fans got carried away thinking it was a done deal. Clearly it's not. I've a feeling we'll be appointing a manager relatively last minute. This is going to be a long summer
Give me top half, competing in the PL with our managers being poached over possibly the worst season in our entire history
Oooh, now there’s a thought! Heady stuff. You gave me a head rush & then reality set in - just can’t see us / him (whoever) being that good.
I think most people understood Poch leaving, especially with Cortese having gone not long before. Koeman was different because we'd just finished 6th and he left for Everton, who'd finished in 11th.
I don't blame him for leaving in the slightest. I'd have ****ed off too if I'd just delivered a best league finish for 30 years and was told both top scorers would be sold and no striker was coming in.
Agreed. Especially looking back at it now. At the time we didn't know exactly what was going on though and I think some people were really pissed off with him.
The reason both managers left was because of the board. We had our famous black box and our recruitment loved the smell of their own farts because they thought they could replace anything and everyone. So when Poch and Koeman rightfully asked for more money to build on their incredible work they were swiftly told “meh you’re replaceable” and that’s how end up with Puel and changes like Sadie Mane to Nathan ****ing Redmond. It’s very easy to look at that era as a golden era but I just see it as the era we essentially sold our soul as a football club and have been desperately trying and failing to claw back ever since leading us to right where we are now. We were picked apart by vultures and the board thought we would be fine because we’d done it before.
That's probably a fair summary of what happened with Koeman. I think they seriously underestimated his importance - I remember Toby Alderweireld saying something like he only joined us on loan because Koeman called him and when Ronald Koeman calls you, you answer the phone. Poch leaving was similar but a bit more complicated because it tied in with Cortese leaving (although Cortese's departure was clearly linked to disagreements over money) and obviously we hadn't successfully replaced anyone at the point Poch left. I've said before the dream actually died with Markus but it took a while for that to become clear, partly because he put things in place to continue the project for a while. I think he was getting caught up in the whole thing and might well have invested the money required to grow the club and actually allow us to compete, while Kat was never interested in doing that.
We tried to get him to sign an extension and he wouldn’t. In retrospect we should have let him stay for one more season and planned for the next manager in that time
Koeman spent over £200m at Everton and it didn’t go very well. A club of our status only gets so long in the spotlight before it goes wrong, we can argue over the moment it happened and how we could have delayed it, but it was always going to happen.
I contend that Bobby Stokes wasn`t from Portsmouth. Our fish molesting chums are always banging on about Portsmouth being an island, and therefore they are a separate breed, different from the mainland. (they are certainly different, TBH). Bobby was from Paulsgrove, which is therefore not in Portsmouth, so it is in Hampshire, which is where Southampton is. You`re welcome!
