Having squandered £40M in the summer and only managing to get saints a few places higher in the league, I cant understand why this guy is so highly rated. In the last week I have heard him linked with the spurs and Barcelona jobs. He has dropped points against various bottom half teams at home this season and is regularly out-thought by supposedly weaker managers. I suspect he will return to Spain in the summer given the inevitable exodus of players from St Marys in the summer. Maybe he always knew it was only a short term job and thats why he never bothered to learn the lingo?
Yes you could not be more right..You do realize Saints were 15th when he took over, and are now comfortably 8th? Mauricio will have to wait a little longer to leave I think, given Big Sam's next in line for a big Spanish club and we can all see how good West Ham are - good enough for Real Madrid isn't he?!
Saints were already on an upward curve when Smirky was sacked and would have progressed just aswell with him as they have done with pochettino. Pochettino was handed a very good squad and given a massive budget to spend. Allardyce is an old school "needs must manager" for a few seasons. He brings a guarantee of premier league football until we move to our new stadium. No one - me included, is suggesting he is a world class manager, although, with £40m to spend on an already decent squad, I would bet that he would have you higher than eighth. Even with our ridiculous injury list this season he still has us midtable and only 11 points behind the saints.
Firstly he does know English, if you watched his post match interview after the Man City game you would have seen he spoke English due to his anger. Secondly there is not going to be a mass exodus.
This is a joke, right? Southampton's playing style has been praised by pundits, other managers, and fans of other clubs. We do, however, have a squad which is very thin in some key areas, such as striker, CB, goalkeeper. Injuries in these areas have prevented us from maintaining our fantastic start to the season, where we were in the top four for quite a few weeks. Two of those injured were Victor Wanyama and Dejan Lovren, who contributed to us having the second best defensive record in Europe until they had to fall out. Both of them came in over the summer and took up a significant part of the money you say we squandered. Yes, Dani Osvaldo was a flop, but we will get most of his fee back this summer. Next season we will have the benefit of even more graduates of our highly-rated academy helping us continue our "upward curve" as you put it. And Pochettino is the man to help bring those players into the first team, just as he already has with Calum Chambers and Sam Gallagher. Our academy was part of the reason he took the job in the first place.
I knew you would be along sooner or later Thomas! Ok so he knows a bit of english. Why is he too scared to speak it more regularly then? Yeah,yeah - he is worried about his comments getting twisted. Nice excuse poncho. Pepe Mel gives it a good go with very broken english and he seems to get his point across just fine. It might not be a mass exodus, but the asset stripping will begin. Shaw and Lallana will be first.
His using his native tongue during interviews is also so that he doesn't give crap answers to what he considers serious questions. Interesting you mention Pepe Mel - case in point. Rather than answering a question, stuttering along with "eeeerrrr.....we.......play.......good......." he'd rather give the question the consideration it deserves, instead of a half-arsed pigeon English response. Would you rather your manager speak in soundbites, or actually answer the question asked? As for the rest of your point, well it's not really worth arguing with you on it's so far removed from reality.
Also i'll think you will find we have had a ridiculous injury list this year as well. Lucky we have our academy to rely on and good football to watch even when we're struggling
Fickle that anyone can question the revelation that Pochettino has not only been for Southampton, but also as part of a small group of managers who are transforming the Premier League. It's fickle bcos it's clear there are a number of factors affecting the club, both on and off the pitch. The departure of Cortese must have affected Pochettino and with the uncertainty of Leibherr's intentions, I think Saints fans should hope that whatever happens they hang on to Pochettino.
I think he is good. The only real mistake is dropping players in the FA Cup. They have had nothing to play for, for a while which is why they have gone stale. He's done well but needs to either get 7/8th again and a cup run next year, or prove himself at a team like Spurs with more finances. All depends on what the Soton owners have in their pockets to enable him to take them the next step or risk going backwards.
12 points behind now, and most neutral observers, and quite a lot of West Ham fans, seem to think that Sam has lost the ability to get results by playing bad football.
