Sport Republic

Yeah he is. Was surprised when I learned that as seems a random one.

 

Even if what you say is true .

Suppose GAO was interested in the slightest of investing in Saints ( I think he was ) , the fact remains his own govt prevented him from doing so .

And we never got relegated under him .

 

No but he started the decline without a doubt. In fairness the first relegation isn't really the fault of SR, they can maybe take 20% of the blame for that.

The mess that has followed, and is worsening, is what they need to be held accountable for.

 

I’m sure GAO had good intentions. But fact is - for whatever reason - he couldn’t/wouldn’t invest.

And when he took us over, relegation wasn’t even something being considered. He took us from regular top 8 team, playing in Europe and a major final, to being inevitable relegation fodder.

 

Started it in what way ?

 

What should he have done then ?

 

By not investing a penny for 2/3 years. For a club like Saints in the PL that is nailed on relegation eventually.

 

Not bought us in the first place.

 

Oh ok .

your absolutely right . .

What were Saints thinking of .

 

He couldn’t .

 

I know he got screwed by the Chinese govt. But there must have been noise of a potential policy change at that time. Even if not, it is always a big risk for the Chinese to move their money out of the country.

Im not even blaming him exactly. Just stating the facts.

 

Didn't Gao say he wanted to raise Southampton like he would raise his children; not spend additional money but make them self sustainable and look after themselves (I'm paraphrasing obviously) - basically saying we had no money to spend on players.

Other than China not wanting to lose money out of the country, I think a lot of it was to do with construction debt. The biggest one was Evergrande which made a lot of headlines but there were others.

Oh and the shirts were the worst, with the made up logo and website.
At least we have nice shirts now... SR in!

 

I know that, but whether it was his choice or not, it is still what led to the downfall of the club.

Whether he was an evil bastard that wanted to destroy the club, or a stand up chat that got unlucky, it doesn't change the fact that him buying the club started us on our path to relegation and the mess we are in now.

 

He shouldn't have been allowed to buy it. Only was on a technicality.

 

20%?! They managed the window, wasted money on inexperienced players, left Ralph in charge for too long then hired Nathan ****ing jones, then replaced him with Selles.

We had declined under Gao but the biggest decline happened when SR came in.

I suppose last season was Gaos fault? And this season too? Let’s face it SR are **** owners and they have no idea how to run a club. I get that it’s more comfortable to say “it was inevitable because of gao” rather than “our new owners ****ed up”, but it’s the second not the first.

 

If new owners took us over today, even reslly good ones, do you think everything would suddenly be resolved in a year? Of course not, the rot is too deep and it would take time.

Just like when SR took us over, the actions of the past 2 or 3 years had us in a mess. I'm pretty confident that we were always going to go down that season, unless we went and bought half a new squad.

SR wasted a lot of money that summer, but the fact our squad was already so **** was down to Gao.

Don't get me wrong, SR are useless and have undoubtedly made us worse. I just think we have been on a downward trajectory long before they took over.

 

Interesting that it was said on the TSP this week by Alfie House;

Ankersen is still involved with Saints. He's Dragan's main football advisor across their owned clubs, and involved in all major decisions.

So much for him being carted off to Goztepe. I always suspected he was still sticking his oar in.

 

Who knows what his role is. You’d assume Spors is in charge of football decisions at Saints. Solak would’ve hired Spors so maybe that was an Ankerson decision or at least with his input, but Ankerson wouldn’t be involved day to day at Saints as that’s Spors’ job.

 

In theory, Spors reports to Phil Parsons, but I suspect Ankersen has some kind of supervisory role too.

 

And as they also said, he may be his advisor, but as an owner if you appoint someone (ie Spors) to do a job, you do not overrule him - you let them get on with it.