When has a player or manager up for a contract NOT said it was about club ambition? It doesn't mean anything.
And all clubs are ambitious (unless they have a crook for an owner). No board decides that the plan for next year is to do worse than last season. What a manager looks for is not ambition as such, but proof that a feasible plan is in place.
I wonder if that's two years on top of the existing year left making it 3 years? Otherwise we would be in the exact same position we are in now next Summer, no?
Just to be clear...this is a paper saying 2 years....but if true, I would expect it to be a single year's extension. This gives us a little more security and demonstrates Ron's confidence in Saints. After that, it will be a case of see how it goes.
He flat-out stated that his decision would be based on our ambition...and that ambition means spending money. He didn't leave much room for interpretation as to whether it meant something, heh.
It would certainly be very ambitious of us to pay a highly in demand manager top club wages. I'm not saying that's the only factor, but it is certainly A factor. Koeman probably wants a raise, and why not? He deserves it. "Ambition" just means "If the club can meet my demands." Some of which involve money and some don't. And where and how the money is spent as well. If we were to give RK the 300m transfer budget of his dreams, I doubt he feel that extending Pelle and Tadic is a priority.
Pretty sure it is just anot extension of 1 year. This is still good. Koeman has said he will see out a contract, hence why it is short. So two years left of Ronald (minimum) is a good shot at improving enough to get top 4. Can certainly give it a good go, and if successful, who knows if he will sign another contract.
And we have a very good idea what his demands were, because i) he's been pretty up front about them, and ii) the article from the first page in this thread, which was rather clearly sourced from the board, was basically framed around Koeman's desire for the club to invest more money in the transfer market that wasn't acquired through the sale of our players, and the board's counter-argument that they have invested elsewhere. There's no real mystery here, which is why the proceedings will give us an unusually good look at what the next couple years will hold...as it will for current and prospective players. That's not a negative; if he re-signs, it's doubly positive.
I think we'd all hope that. If the news/rumour was coming out of the Guardian, for example, I would expect them to know that Ron has one last year on his existing contract, and that signing for 2 years means 2 extra on top of that, making 3 years from this point. However, it's the Daily Mirror, a tabloid, and I honestly don't think they get that bothered about accuracy when reporting about sport. Certainly not in sport rumours.
Can't deny that. Tony Husband is from the BBC school of totally unbiased reporting, even as a local reporter. I remember when he used to do the Radio Solent commentaries for Saints matches, and if you listened to him he would get equally excited whether Saints were scoring or the opposition were [totally unbiased]. But at the time the BBC were pushing their new policy of local commentary bias. So one match I found Husband's commentary on Solent and the opposition's commentary from the other local radio station [both on the Internet]. I switched from one to the other to compare. [Saints were doing well against the opposition]. In Tony Husband's commentary you couldn't really tell who was on top, but in the other BBC commentary you could immediately. They were extremely downcast and beaten. This was local radio commentary at it's most biased. They were grudgingly giving praise to Saints and were desperate for their team [IIRC it was Birmingham City]. It was all rather enjoyable. These days, Adam Blackmore and Kris Temple [on the odd occasions he still does Saints matches] reflect the mood of the match from a local perspective. Not as extreme as those guys from BBC Brum, but much better than the Tony Husband days. In all other respects he's OK though.
Is there a 'like this so much I may go and open a bottle of wine even though I'm working' button? PS I work from home, so it is possible [emoji3]
Could hear something next week. Ronald is in St. Bart's with his family for now as far as I'm aware but the contract has been presented to his team after the two parties spent the last day or two in meetings, and they wouldn't have gone to negotiate his terms with Saints unless he was willing to sign a new deal...
