I wonder if a season of Sunday League football was suggested as a means of acclimatising our International imports to life in the North East, brilliant idea. pursue this line of thought and there is only one outcome, back in the big-time and the beautiful game.
Why? Player does well for a club, gets a good reputation. Comes to SAFC, plays poorly, becomes unhappy, wants to leave. Goes to another club, is happy, starts playing well again. It's happened more than once. Surely SAFC is the common denominator. I think its worrying that players like that are leaving under these circumstances.
No but he looked fine when Big Sam was in charge, as did a few others, so why the change. Having said that, managers have a tough time of it these days, chopped and changed so often while the players just go through the motions and play when it suits them, nightmare.
Why do I want to keep a player who doesn't give a **** (his attitude when he came on at Sheffield Wed was arguably the worst I've seen in a r&w shirt) ?? The answer is in the question marra. And we are all (or should be) aware there is an underlying problem at our beloved SAFC, that doesn't give players carte blanche to stroll around picking up wages and basically laughing at us.
But what if it isn't that he doesn't give a ****? What if there is something else going on? Maybe the problems at the club effect players more than we realise. You've seen the vid of the goal he scored for Rennes? Why should he not give a **** about playing for us and then suddenly give a **** about playing for Rennes? It's too simple just to say that underperforming players don't give a ****. It happens too often for it to be coincidence. I think its terrible that the club spends millions on transfer fees and wages to bring talented players in and then for them to underperform. On that basis I can never be pleased when players like Khazri leave.
I totally agree that it happens all too often marra, and like I already said, WE all know something is rotten within the club (PDC told us that!!) But where do we draw the line?.... Do we keep a player with 'talent' hoping and praying that he will perform for us when he is in the right frame of mind or do we get rid as surely being around players with 'bad attitude' & 'sulking' can't be good for the likes of Gooch / Honeyman etc who are sharing the same dressing room. My issue is WHY we can't offload players?... other teams seem to be able to sell absolute ****e for a decent price (Jilly-Boji for a start!)... we can't even offload decent players?!? It's quite bizarre don't you think? Don't get me wrong, I love a player with a bit of flair (loved Stan Cummings as a bairn) but this division needs grafters. The club can't afford to have someone strolling around sulking whether it be on the pitch or in the dressing room. Basically, if you don't want to be here..... Go elsewhere (hopefully for a fee) !!!
I agree that having unhappy players around the place is no good but it all just makes me wonder why so many of our players end up being unhappy and wanting to leave. It Just makes me think that the club is doing something wrong on that front, as well as in all the other ways that things have been done wrong.
It's probably tied in with how poor our level of football is, it must be hard to enjoy your football when you play for a side that performs as badly as we have done for some time. I don't remember many players getting upset and wanting to leave under Reid or when we were beating Chelsea away under Bruce. Ditto Allardyce in recent times, football was good, presumably training was to their liking and someone like Khazri was up for it every week. Even a model pro like Defoe looked like he was losing the will to live under Moyes' reign, when he was hardly getting a touch and the only chances he had he made himself.
Mate, common for players with attitude problems go off the boil when the manager who signs him leave their club. Sam will have massaged his ego daily and kept his head in the right place while making the player think the world revolves him. New managers tend not to do it as they have better things to do like gelling a squad or establishing tactics. ****ing off the club spoiled brats just isn't a priority. Aye Khazri is a talanted player but he's clearly one of the most mentally weak players in the squad if he needs someone like Sam tugging him off round the clock. He's weak and we deserve better.
Don't get the big mystery. Sam has signed nob heads his entire career. Signed 3 here. New managers don't have time to man manage these players when they come in there's too much to do and they need time to asses what each player requires. But they can't even keep a decent attitude in the mean time the ****ing **** houses so **** em, weak minded living robbers if they need constant ego massaging.
But its not just Allardyce's signings- similar things happened with Lens and Kaboul and several other players prior to that. Just because a player is unhappy or out of form doesn't necessarily mean he is weak minded. Different people require different things and any decent manager should understand that. Talent is talent and sometimes massaging a few egos is what is best for the team. Successive Southampton managers realised that you don't ask Le Tissier to track back and that never seemed to be a problem for them. It doesn't make financial or sporting sense to sign a talented player for millions of pounds and then appoint a manager (or management team) who is not going to at least attempt to get the best out of that player. This is something that just does not seem to have been considered at boardroom level. Which is strange as recruiting people who are going to work well together is a simple concept. It's done in business and there are excellent sporting examples out there. Saracens rugby club, for example, only appoint or sign people who they feel fit in to the Saracens ethos. Thing is, Short, with his scatter gun approach, would never do this.
It didn't happen to Kaboul at all, he was homesick and wanted to move back to London, he was no bother, he always give 100% and the transfer was amicable. No but spitting your dummy, not keeping yourself fit and showing no intrest in making an effort when given a chance tells me he's weak. He didn't want to play for us ultimately. Why can't people just accept that? Lens didn't want to play for us either but they're are above the standard we currently play at. Even Big Sam wouldn't entertain Lens, 3 managers didn't want him he didn't want us. Go round saying it's it's everything but the players but 90% of the squad weren't trying to force moves and playing up. A small percentage have been with multiple managers having issues with many of them. Yes players do need different things, but managers need time to understand what they need and some of the needs like ego massaging, most managers just aren't prepared to do with more pressing matters demanding their time. The Prima donnas in football always seem to struggle when a new manager comes in and implements a clean slate, cause suddenly they aren't being bigged up and now they have to prove their worth with hard work like everybody else. Khazri clearly wasn't up for it so **** him, I don't want players like that at our club. I think they're weak, you're welcome to disagree, but as far as i'm concerned weak minded ego maniacs are poisonous.
I'm not saying that we don't need to weed out the rotten apples. There are several players that have gone over the last couple of seasons that I've been glad to see the back of. I'm just not convinced that Khazri and Lens didn't have legitimate grievances. They may not have gone about venting their frustrations in the right way but they've gone to other clubs, in the case of Lens arguably bigger clubs, and done fine. Which leads me to think that something specific at SAFC was the cause of the problems.
The way they've gone about venting their frustrations has caused problems. As Marcus said, proper pros roll their sleeves up. Those two were only willing to do that for the managers who signed them. Again, what does it matter when they don't want to play for us? Lens didn't want to play when we were in the prem, excuse me for not having sympathy for players earning the most lucrative contracts of their lives who aren't willing to work for it.
But it's not about feeling sympathy for them as individuals. What concerns me is the club not utilising the talent available to it and not getting the most out of its investments in players.
That's true so we should sign people with the right character in the first place. They didn't want to play for us. The managers who signed them left which put them on an even keil and they didn't like it. Bad eggs. ****em, they don't want to be here. They don't want to be here, they don't want to be here, they don't want to be here. Top and Bottom they don't want to be here. I don't want them here either. Good luck getting the most of out those investments, they stop being willing to play for the shirt, and their values drop. Love to see anybody get the best out of those players attitudes without putting more important matters to one side and **** them off.
Doesn't solve the problem of the ones we've already got though. On Sam signings, something I've recently learnt, did you know he signed 17 strikers at West Ham in 3 and half years Not relevant here but Strikers in summer 2011 – Sam Baldock Brian Montenegro (loan) Strikers in January 2012- Joe Dixon Ricardo Vaz Te Nicky Maynard Strikers in summer 2012- Modibo Maïga Andy Carroll (loan) Strikers in January 2013- Sean Maguire Marouane Chamakh (loan) Wellington Paulista (loan) Strikers in summer 2013 – Andy Carroll Mladen Petrić Carlton Cole Strikers in January 2014 – Marco Borriello (loan) Jaanai Gordon Strikers in summer 2014- Mauro Zárate Enner Valencia Diafra Sakho
